best laid plans gang aft agae etc.

Suddenly, everything changed; and my former weariness got put into proper perspective.

Let me say right nere that all turned out well, but read on.

When we arrived home from the downtown excursion on Thursday, there was a message waiting on the phone, from Leenie. Greg had had a call from his London doctor; a small mole on the back of his leg, which had been removed the week before, has turned up malignant, and doctor wanted to have another loLok at the tissue and to remove another mole nearby. So they were getting a flight home that night, would be arriving at 2 AM and had an apppointment at the clinic for Friday morning early.

We had to break the news to Lily as she came in from school; set up an Aerobed in the parlor; get some dinner into ourselves; and field calls from various points on the Marrakesh route to the airport.

John had a long, informative chat with Lil before she went somberly to bed, to fill her in on what info she needed on the situation with Greg -- hard to know what to say in such a case, but John found words, as you might believe.

So the irreplaceable Kirit picked the poor ex-honeymooners up at Gatwick in the middle of the night, and they plopped down on the Aerobed and slept a few hours. Thank God we were here for them; we fed Lil her hot breakfast and got her off to Friday morning last-day-of-school classes (with a quick hug for Mom and Greg before departure); I had a chance to hug my Leenie and let her cry her worries onto my shoulder a bit; and then they were whisked away again by Kirit to the doctor.

Denoument: the original lesion was not deep enough embedded to be metastic; the second mole was removed and was not very deep either; lab reports will come back next week, but other than a lot of pain from the incision and stiches, he is OK; and all of us are feeling a bit lightheaded with relief.

Yes, it is hard to end the longed-for Morrocan honeymoon; but Leenie says: life is one big honeymoon, as long as Greg is OK.

More later.