I had a follow-up visit with my ankle surgeon today in Baton Rouge, so I came home from San Antonio last night. As frequently happens here it was cold last week and beautiful and warm today. Caitie had some work to do in Baton Rouge today, so she brought the baby to spend the day with Peggy.

My visit with the doctor will be my last. The surgery was not successful. Despite rigorous physical therapy I do not have any more lateral stability in the ankle than I had before the surgery. I can walk and I do not have a lot of pain, but I cannot run and I cannot play any kind of sports. Very disappointing.

So, what do you do when life is disappointing? You take your granddaughter and go visit Mike the Tiger.

People were again viewing our home for sale, so we needed to get out of the house. Caitie had not seen the new tiger, so we decided to go over to campus and pay him a visit.

He has grown a lot since the last time I visited him, but he is still just a baby. And he was very interested in my baby. Perhaps as an hors d’oeuvre, perhaps because she is so beautiful. I spent some time talking to him about my ankle and he growled at the appropriate point in the story to let me know he understands. Then, as always, we took some pictures.

I am going to show a second picture to make sure you see what is lurking in the back of that cute baby photo. Here’s a little zoom for you:

Look at that good boy — he is so pretty! And he was definitely interested in what was going on. I told him that I appreciated the chat, and he wished me good luck with both the ankle and the sale of the house.

I can get on with the rest of the weekend now.