While we're still waiting to hear from Mrs. Kathy's abdominal region, my mother appears to be doing okay.

They scoped her this morning, and while the full results haven't been made available, it seems that some sort of bacterial infection caused her previous ulcer to erupt. This is easily treatable with antibiotics. So, of all the scary things it might have been, it turned out to be a very treatable and non-life-threatening one.

My two sisters, my brother and I all visited her in the hospital last night. As my sister was driving me home from the greasy spoon we visited post-hospital, she said, "You know, I dreamt about meat last night."

To normal people, this would mean nothing. But this is my family we're talking about. To us, dreaming about meat is bad news. And the bloodiness of the meat determines the severity of the problem.

Which explains my follow-up question: "Was it raw or cooked?"

"Well, I kept trying to cook it, but it was too rare. Not bloody, though. Just red," she replied.

"I don't know how to interpret that," I said, "But I dreamt about meat, too. Mine was cooked, but cold." I couldn't interpret my own dream, either.

See, I really wish I could debunk this one. But truth be told, I have the meat dreams, too. And afterwards, something always happens. Car trouble. Illness. George Bush getting re-elected. Somehow, the women in my family have a psychic link -- my mom, my grandma when she was alive, my aunt, my great-aunts, my sisters, my cousin, and I. That link, inexplicably, involves meat. We always know when another of us is troubled when we dream about meat.

So, apparently, kinda red, kinda cooked meat means a trip to the hospital, but nothing too serious. Maybe I should develop a chart or pictorial of some kind.