I had a talk today with the bookkeeper at the surgeon's office. My surgeon's not a member of my insurance group, so they're only going to cover 50% of his fee. His fee is $20,000. Takes the worry out of what sort of a car I might buy this year, though. This isn't as bad as it sounds, but still, the whole thing is going to go $40,000 before its over. The insurance people cover 90% of the hospital up to a certain deductible, but still, gives you pause to consider. Some things you worry about, some things you just buy your ticket and get on the bus, hoping the driver is sober.

I live in a place where the sound travels easily through the ceiling into the apartment above and as I'm writing this I'm realizing I need to play the music at much higher volume. Sometimes its more important to listen to the spaces between the sounds and you need the volume to um, "hear" them, so to speak and to understand the words. Fortunately the people upstairs are members of a rock and roll band and understand that the old fart occasionally has to kick out the traces and turn the volume up over the half way mark. The speakers are pretty old, but they stand about five or six feet tall and you can still make the paint on the ceiling curl up in little flakes and rain down like winter snow without pegging the VU meters. Do they still use VU meters? I think so.

One last thing to find out about this operation and that's how you eat after its over. Or maybe how long you don't eat after it's over. The lady on the phone joked a bit about that, "eat, drink and be merry" for tomorrow, um, "you'll eat through a straw." What do I stock the kitchen with besides chicken soup? I happen to have some bottles of Scotch Whiskey set aside. Are they as good for a recovery as they are good for a cold?