What Happened to Baby I, and Nice Dr. Eyeball.

The Great PapaNik looks at this photo and says to himself: Can this grown up BellyBone playing in the sand with her shoes off be the same person as this little Baby I?



Plotnik went to see Nice Dr. Eyeball this morning. He hadn't had an eye check in four years and figured it was time to see how his glaucoma, macular degeneration, tumors of the iris and eventual dark, defeating blindness were coming along. Just fine, it turns out, a slight weakening of the eyesight in the left eye and slight improvement in the right.

With all the talk about how doctors hate...well, everything about everything when it comes to changing the health care system, Plotnik thinks Nice Dr. Eyeball has it made working for Kaiser. He makes a hefty salary, comes in at 8 and goes home at whenever, 5?, does no accounting nor bookkeeping and has his daughter's and wife's paintings on his wall. What's not to like? The fact that you can't make half a million or a million dollars a year doing plastic surgery on starlets or heart transplants for chihuahuas?

Plotnik kept his chin on the plastic piece and his head against the metal and sometimes said "The First One" and sometimes said "The Second One" while the doctor jiggled the lenses in the machine. Occasionally he would look over at Nice Dr. Eyeball's wife's two very colorful beach paintings. The sand was white-sugar white, the ocean was cobalt blue, the trees and vegetation on the shore were tropical greens and deep yellows and brilliant reds.

"Where is that, Haiti?" Plotnik asked.

"Santa Cruz," said Nice Dr. Eyeball.

"Ahhhh...like, our Santa Cruz?" Plotnik said, instead of "I think your wife needs to have her eyes checked."

"Uh, yes. My wife...likes to use lots of color. LOTS of color." He smiled a very nice Nice Dr. Eyeball smile. This man seems so kind and sweet, he doesn't look like he could ever tell someone: "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Kim, but you'll be blind in a week and dead two days later."

But he might just add some color. "Mrs. Kim. Now, your reds are going to become muted and your yellows less clear. Shortly thereafter, you will develop an intimate affection for black."