Dance Time

No, this isn’t a return to the dance floor with my Favorite Panamanian. Yesterday was my six month check up with the dermatologist, or, as it is known in my world, Biopsy Day. The dance I am referring to is the happy dance, because, for the first time in a very long time, two years I think, I got through the exam without any excavations. I think the dermatologist was as surprised as I was that she didn’t have to carve out any biopsies. There was no way she was as as happy as I was though. The scalp hole still hasn’t fully healed from the last Mohs Surgery and I wasn’t looking forward to traveling overseas with yet more holes dug out of my carcass. So Happy Dance time!!!! I also semi-shocked myself with the weigh in yesterday. After my Father’s Day donnybrook of sweets, I got back on the diet and forgot to add in the weekly cheat day. I’ve now lost 34 pounds since I started this thing which is bordering on weird, feel great though.

I’m not the only one with good news either. The FBR passed her deep water swim test this past weekend which has effectively sentenced her parents to extended town pool time as she can now go off the diving board. My daughter reported that she was initially shy about taking the test but passed easily and then declared she was going off the diving board, something she had never done. By the end of the weekend, she was going off the higher diving board as well. She is an adventure in every aspect of life.

In my A-Z watch, five fell since I last posted, four keepers and one ejection, including two with Donald Sutherland, a tribute to this legendary actor: Keeping Up with the Joneses, very funny with Isla Fisher, once again, stealing every scene; Kelly’s Heroes, a better action movie than I remembered along with the dark comedy with Oddball bemoaning Moriarty’s “negative thoughts”; Kentucky Fried Movie, early movie from the Airplane guys, “Catholic High School Girls in Trouble” and Big Jim Slade to the rescue, way too funny; The Key to Sex, from my skinemax phase, still beautiful women but I must have outgrown it – remove; and Khartoum, a favorite epic from my youth with Heston playing a tragic and really flawed hero, Sir Lawrence Olivier in black face as the Mahdi is cringe worthy.

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RECURRING CHARACTERS:                                

ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete - my daughter in law; BR3 – Blog Reader #3 – granddaughter #3; BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; CRC - Connecticut Riverboat Captain – another close friend from high school, renowned sailor of the big river; Curbside Girls – close friends of my daughter acquired during him her single days in Brooklyn; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of course); FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter; First Friday – celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Keene Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene, NH; Kindergarten Friend – friend since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3^rd Musquetera (musketeer); Namesake Nephew – son of Great Aunt and Soxfather named after me; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member; PanaGals – female relatives /friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we have lived & their spouses; PCR - Pittsburgh College Roommate – high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; PCR+1 - Pittsburgh College Roommate’s wife; Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog; Seis Amigos - two couples from our condo complex and my wife and I; Soxfather – my brother in law; Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course