Upon coming to, her first words were questions about her boys

Lavina's surgery went well. She has been discharged and is waiting to pick up her medications. According to Jacob, her first words on coming to were:

"Does Lynxton have milk?" "Is Jobe awake?" "Is Kalib at school?"

A woman nearly collides with me and I get accused of honking the horn with my belly!

As we left the gas station and drove through the Eagle River Carr's parking lot, a car started to back out of its space straight at my door. I honked my horn. She stopped with only two or 3 inches to spare. "Grandpa! You honked your horn!" Jobe exclaimed. "You honked your horn with your belly!" And so, for the next 10 or 15 miles, the boys continually laughed and joked about how grandpa had honked the horn with his belly. I did not honk the horn with my belly. I honked the horn with my hand! Then Kalib said he heard a train. We listened, nobody else claimed to hear a train. Margie did not hear a train. I did not hear a train. But then we came to a place where the brush was low enough to see over and there was a train. We are home now. As soon as we got here, the boys headed straight for the dirt pile.

Jobe rolls the windows down, I roll them up

We are stopped in Eagle River for gas right now! As we left Anchorage, Jobe rolled the back windows down. Margie told me to roll them part way back up, and lock the kids control so they couldn't do it. I did. "Grandpa, why did you roll the windows up? "Jobe asked "I want it down! What the... " I thought he was going to say… But he said "...heck!"

We pick up the boys as their mom goes off to the hospital

We are here at Jacob and Lavina's to pick up the boys. Lavina has day surgery today and will not be able to properly care for them for a couple of days, so we are going to bring them home to Wasilla. Lavina's last Facebook post read, "unspoken prayers." As surgeries go, it is routine, safe and on the minor side. Yet, when you are about to go under anesthesia, get cut into and have your life disrupted for a few days, it never feels minor.

I step outside and find a seemingly stranded baby robin

I stepped outside and found this baby robin, just beyond the porch, near the front left tire of the car. It sat immobile, turning its head a little bit, occasionally opening its beak as if asking for food, but otherwise not moving. Usually, in such a situation one can expect the parent robins to start raising a fuss, to try to draw you away from their baby. But there were no parent robins in sight. I listened carefully but could hear no adult robins. I looked all around but could see no other robins.

I told Margie and brought her out to see. She said she had heard some robins earlier in the morning, on the wires in the northwest corner of the yard. I did not know what to do. It appeared the baby robin was helpless and that the parents had given up on it and abandoned it. But I did not know this for sure. There was nothing I could do for the baby robin but leave it alone and hope its parents came back for it. I took a couple of pictures, but did not touch it. Then I left it alone.

I checked back an hour later. The baby robin was gone. I could hear an adult robin chirping somewhere in the trees in the front yard. I do not know what happened. I hope it turned out okay and that the baby robin will get a chance to grow and to try to survive in this harsh world. I have no way to know.

Maybe a cat got it. Not one of my cats. Chicago never goes outside and I have not let Jim go out for weeks, precisely because I knew robins had nested in the yard. When he does go out, I chaperone him every minute.