I’ve had some back luck this summer. This time, it was tearing my meniscus, so Moonie came with me to the MRI place and the knee doctor and the pharmacy.

He took my mind off the pain by reading to me from magazines – even if he was looking at them upside-down and not so much reading them as making up stories to go with the pictures.

He also offered to take my blood pressure in the doctor’s office. He hopes mine will be close to his, which apparently fluctuates somewhere between “fifty-eleven over three million and two” and “six billion over seventy-eighty.”

He later took his own blood pressure while I waited for my prescription.

(“What was it this time?” I asked, picturing a wild number.
“Four!” he said proudly.
“That’s it? Just four?”
He nodded happily. OK, little dude. Four it is.)

He was kind enough to give me his own prescription, which is invariably, “Take two cookies and call me in the morning.”
Even if he’s already eaten one of them.

His medical dispensation completed, he then amused himself trying to walk around on my crutches, which he is convinced are stilts.

(“Mama, what’s the magic word to make them go?” he asked.
“Moonie, I need those to walk, buddy,” I said.
“That’s a really long magic word,” he grumbled.)

Fear not, folks, he’s taking care of me as always.