SATURDAY MORNING . JOHNS HOPKINS RM 919
I took the 8 o'clock rather than 7 o'clock hospital shuttle from the hotel this morning. Colleen is still sleeping, for which I am grateful. Her nights are rarely restful. Our best laid plan for the day is to explore the shiny-linoleum, ground-floor corridors of the entire hospital, a hive of different buildings cobbled together over the years, not as labrynthine as Pittsburgh's conjoined hospitals, not built on a steep hill like Pittsburgh's, and not as massive, but otherwise a twin.

10:30 AM
Undoubtedly, most of you know that Colleen has a running jones for milkshakes. So, no surprise, she asked for one yesterday, with pleading puppy eyes. What did surprise me is that Johns Hopkins is 100% sans milkshakes. Zip. Nada. "But patients confined to the hospital love milkshakes," I protested to one hapless young man working a bagel counter in the main cafeteria. "There's ice cream down there," he said pointing to another stall. "Milkshakes are made out of ice cream, right?"

I switched to asking random people if they knew someplace outside the hospital walls, nearby, where I could score a milkshake and finally got an answer from a woman in hospital gear. "Yes, Northeast Market, just a block away." So now, Northeast Market is definitely on today's agenda too, along with the planned excursion around the hospital to free Colleen from the confines of her room for a while. This is her fourth day here.