Mick has incurred the wrath of Mother Mockingbird. He killed one of her babies yesterday. She was waiting for him when he went outside this morning. It was hard to tell between the two of them which squawk was the bird’s and which the cat’s. I found him cowered under the glider, while she, perched on the handrail, threatened to peck out his eyeballs if he came near her nest again. Maybe we should have named him Diablo, like we started to. He and Gus tossed the injured baby around until it finally died. It was not pretty.

Mike took his bath and dressed himself this morning, all except the socks and shoes. It made me feel so much better about leaving him to fend for himself. He’s gone to the gym and will be gone for a couple of hours running errands. Dressing himself gave him a new boost of confidence, even though he refused to admit it.

The Blog site is bogging down this morning, or is it just my slow computer? I really need to spring for DSL. Ricky sent pictures of Clay and Cooper that took way too long to download. Norton detected and blocked an attempted worm intrusion, maybe that’s what has slowed things down. I tried downloading a couple of Rick's pictures to the blog, but they were too blurry.

My passport still has not come. I checked it on the travel.state.gov website, and they said to expect delivery by 5/6/06. If it’s not in today’s mail, I’ll have to call them. This is making me nervous.

I’ve only heard from the nursing home once this morning. They were checking to see if they should change the DNR directive to full code. I explained that St. Dominic’s is very hesitant to assign the DNR to anyone’s record, and that they should keep the DNR on her record at the nursing home. Mother’s roommate Miss Bessie seemed very glad to have her back from the hospital. She hugged and kissed her and said, “I’ve missed you so much.” Mother just looked at her, no smile, no response; she had no idea who the woman was. The man who transported her had no trouble getting her from the wheelchair to the bed, unlike when she was admitted to the hospital. It took the female nurses almost an hour to get her in the hospital bed, because she refused to cooperate. But this was a man, and he spoke to her in a very authoritative tone, so she complied. No protests, no excuses, just ok, and it was done. She’s always been like that, taking men seriously, but not women.