Monday, July 25th, 1977-in which there are blood tests and a call from a dear friend.

I was sitting on the back steps tonight, watching Pete play road building in the dirt, and talking to Betty Phipps when the phone rang.  I hurried inside and it was a collect call from Noreen!  After all these years (I think it's been six years, maybe 7) I was talking to Noreen McGinley again.  Her address was still the same...or, as she put it, "while all you people have been all over the glove, I've been staying in the same place. I'm a conservative".  She promised to write after August 1st (She's moving next door and will have a new phone number) [These, of course, were the days long before cell phones when our numbers didn't just follow us from place to place and upgrade to upgrade.-PL] .  She's still teaching and still unmarried-hopes to come west next summer (by cr to California, from there to Hawaii by plane for a family reunion) and stop to see us on the way.  But whether we get a visit or not, it was lovely to talk to her again.  I've thought of her so often.  We shared an apartment in Hawaii when I was first there and she had just had surgery to remove a breast tumor while I had just had a cone biopsy for cervical cancer.  When we both came back to the mainland, we'd kept in touch but I'd lost track while I was overseas.  She told me Leona Kowalski had married and was teaching in the St. Louis area, and she thought Leona's husband was teaching at a university (he was a Greek refugee poet).  Someday I'd like to take Pete to Hawaii ...God willing (haven't been yet-PL).  Robert Belog must have had my letter by now, but I've not heard from him.  Called Thelma tonight.  She wasn't home, but Sissie answered the phone.  I must find a replacement guardian for Pete-that's not a happy home.  I spoke to Betty Phipps about it...she'd take him but she's had lots of surgery  and Bill has had an open heart operation.

A Leslie somebody picked us up today.  She'll take us for our next three blood tests.  Then she goes back to work (she's a high school secretary).  Pete went into the lab again and visited with Sister Angelica .  She showed him how some of the machines work and he had a counting race with one of them.  When it was time for his blood test, he told me to go sit in the waiting room and had it all alone (He was very big today, but told me next week he was going to be very little).  Leslie stopped at the Country Kitchen because Pete wanted to go to a restaurant.  He had soup and jello and milk while we had coffee.  We arranged to stop in the hospital cafeteria next week.  

Pete took an early nap today and was very indignant because Vicky called him just after he lay down.  He brought his little blue chair in from the play room to go by his organ now that it's on a table.  Petey watched all "his" programs tonight: "Sesame Street", "Electric Company", "Mr. Rogers", "The Brady Bunch" (they were trying to set a world record for "teeter-tottering" so Pete enjoyed that), and he insisted on having "Little House on the Prairie" on while he ate, tho he didn't watch.  We split a cube steak and Pete had more soup.  I cooked the beets Dad gave us tonight and our green beans, but they refused to get tender.  Ate most of the beets and some melon too, since I'd skipped lunch.  

Pete got nicely dirty in the back and then had a bath with all his toys, rubber ducky, boats, Weeble, and his submarine...He pretended it was Weeble's birthday and the little boats were Weeble's presents.  He's already planning for his birthday.  

Begged me not to tell Dr. Baskerville he's been eating cereal.  Read him The Man Who Took The Inside Out by Lobel (the one who wrote Owl's House which enjoyed.  I read Hans Brinker and The Silver Skates today again.