Dr. Taylor's Stroke of Insight

Kathie sent me this to post "with proper recognition". I'm not quite sure what kind of recognition she has in mind - perhaps that our mother (some of us think) recently had a minor stroke? Anyway, the video is almost nineteen minutes of neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor talking to an audience in Monterey about her own stroke back in 1996. Fascinating! You won't believe what she "got" from the experience.

And Now I Have Three!

Not to be outdone by family additions, the West Coast household welcomes two new kitties debuting today on the Internet, Black Zulette and IvoryLena. They were "rescue" kitties totally pampered by their original rescue owner, right down to the acrylic nails.

PorkChop has been lonely since Don Diego de San Diego died just before Christmas. A cat can watch just so much bird TV by himself.

Introducing IvoryLena...


"I'll take milk and sugar with my tea, thank you..."

And Black Zulette...

"I'll have that bird for dinner, s'il vous plait..."

In case the reader is wondering about the names, the young ladies arrived with the names Ivory and Ebony. Hayley, grandaughter #1 and the rower, wanted to name them after the women who started ZLAC, America's oldest rowing club for women right here in San Diego, and I wanted to keep some part of their original name. Our choices were Zulette, Lena, Agnes, and Caroline. Not a hard choice to make.

PorkChop? Well, he's still hissing around and rethinking the "answered prayer" thing.

And Baby Makes Five!

And now we present, born just yesterday afternoon, LaLa and Patrick's younger brother - Matthew Boyd!



OK, so he's sleeping. How about his proud older sister holding Matthew...



And his older brother, totally in love with him, trying to teach him "Itsy Bitsy Spider"...



And a happy family of five!



Matthew Boyd's stats: 7 lbs 8 oz, 20 inches long, born at 1:23 p.m. on 3/3/08. (The happy father predicted the closest delivery time, then did a fabulous job as Mom's coach - "C'mon Honey...push, push, PUSH!")