Friday: Good morning from BlueberryCupcakePancakeland

Pablo's second night back home. He slept like a champ. So did we, actually.... Weird...you get so used to interrupted sleep in a hospital. Pablo's morning medicine went down and stayed down. Two downs make an up in our spirits.

Our beloved friend and business manager, Tom Reed, emailed this morning to tell us that 18 (as in 18 rounds of chemo) is the Jewish symbol for life. We love Tom beyond words. He and Jodi Williams and the rest of the folks at Affiliated Financial keep us on the straight and narrow in normal times. We all know that there's a financial reality to long-term medical treatment, and we could NOT be happier to have them in our corner during this time. Plus, how cool is it that Tom delivered a soothing, spiritual message that is a NUMBER!!!!!

We are setting up to make chocolate cupcakes for the birthday celebration at Walther School this afternoon. We have 'Peter In Blueberryland' ready to go. We're gonna have the 'chat' with Pablo right before we go. Jo Ann came up with the simplest, sweetest way of saying it. She is excellent at that. Now you know one of the millions of reasons why I love her.

Shoot! We forgot that Pablo's birthday present - a giant wood play structure from Play-Well in Pasadena - was being delivered today. When we booked it, 23 May was just a random date. Seana from Play-Well called this morning to remind us of the install. This is beeeeeeyond cool! Pablo has not stopped asking about the play structure. He doesn't understand why we couldn't just take it home and put it up! All the waiting is over now. It will be up and ready to rock when we get home from Walther this afternoon.

As an aside, Jo Ann has spent the past few months redoing our backyard. We live on a hill, and we are lucky and grateful to have a huge, usable backyard. The transformation of our yard still blows our minds.

If you were here right now, you'd see Pablo snuggling with us, asking us to read anything in sight. Today he read 'How I Became A Pirate,' a gift from our dear friend Dave Cooley. Dave is one of my oldest, best friends, and THE guy who started me on my path as a music manager. (If we called our close friends 'aunt' and 'uncle' Dave would be Pablo's uncle.) Back in 1990, when I was a music journalist, DJ and college concert promoter, Dave and I met at an in-store for the band Lush at Atomic Records in Milwaukee. He asked me to manage his band, Wild Kingdom, the precursor to Citizen King. Since that day, Dave and I have been co-conspirators in the music game. He produced the debut Silversun Pickups album (and is at work on the follow-up now), and also did our new Darker My Love album.

OK, Pablo and Boo are off to Silverlake's finest and oldest greasy spoon, Astro Diner. Someone mentioned pancakes, and the rest is history....

See you later. Full Walther bday pics and post later this aft.

xoxoxo