Last night Charlie Bond, leader of Charlie Bond and the Bail Jumpers, also known as the Point Isabel Poodle Players*, the Born Once Poodle Players, yada-yada-yada, hosted his annual Christmas Carol party, and the last of about 15 carols we sang was "Silent Night," Sonja's parents singing a verse in the original German, and as we finished it, Charlie asked that we repeat the first verse, for Sally. We did, then we also sang "Free Grace," from the Georgia Sea Island Singers, a song that Sally introduced to the group and which has become one of our standards. After most of the guests had left, the party went on with a lot more singing, mostly our usual repertoire, but I added "Have Some Madeira, M'dear" to general hilarity, and broke up about 10:15, because we all had to get to work the next day, but this thread is really about Sally...

Got a couple of emails today, one from Sylvia, Sally's sister, and the other from BanjoDick (I'll bet he'd love that--it does save me from having to identify him any time I write about Sally), both reporting that Sally was in a regular room and would soon have a speakerphone. Sylvia, when Sally was to be moved, asked that she have a private room, or at least one without a roommate who watched television all day. She has almost the full range of motion in her arms, can move one leg pretty well, but not the other yet; she is conscious and occasionally feisty, if somewhat confused--she keeps asking where Andy Poodle and his little sister Shady Grove are, and sometimes seems to think she has three dogs, or even four, but she's mostly rational when she's awake, which is more and more of the time, and still making great progress in every other way as well. I'm hopeful she'll be able to be home in a few weeks, with full-time nursing, at first, I'd suppose.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers and rituals; our girl is gonna be just fine.

--seed

*just how does one play a poodle, anyway?