Well, howdy there and welcome back, everyone! I don’t really have any news at this point that I haven’t already shared with you. Last week, as we all know, we celebrated Thanksgiving here in the Lower 48.

Mr. 50by60 and I spent it at the lovely home of his mom, Mrs. 50by60 Senior (I guess? I’ll come up with something better next week!), who served us, amongst other goodies, sweet potatoes, which I love! It was a peaceful interlude, sorta like the “Wood between the Worlds” in Narnia.

And I did made the decision, after chatting with a number of people (a couple of them actually doctors!)

that I wanted to go ahead with the lumpectomy-plus-radiation. So I left a voicemail at my surgeon’s office on Friday (no one was there; I’m just gonna go ahead and assume he spent the weekend practicing his surgical techniques on turkey leftovers, because my mind just works that way).

I also called again Monday morning to make sure they got the message. I was assured that I’m “in the queue,” and to wait for the various authorizations. So that’s what I’m doing now, just relaxing and playing the waiting game!

It did occur to me, being of an on-again, off-again religious bent, that this is one of those “ironic answers to prayer” you hear about. You know, like the guy who broke one leg, begged God to “make my legs the same, please!” and whammo, God reached down and snapped the other one like a twig.

So at some point, I probably asked God to help me be more patient. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better way to force someone to develop patience than by putting them in the type of HMO where you have to wait for authorizations to be MAILED to you, by the US Postal Service, before you can actually get any treatment.

Nothing against the hard-working postal service workers! My wonderful, hard-working brother-in-law (hi Jon!) toiled there for many years and always made everyone pay attention to that scene in “Miracle on 34th Street” where the Post Office guys saved Kris Kringle.

“Yay, Post Office!” we’d cheer dutifully, since my brother-in-law’s a great guy and we didn’t want to antagonize him lest he withhold the beer. So yay Post Office! But it is a little frustrating when, after days of agonizing, you make the decision to get a major medical procedure done, you can’t just get one of those friendly old-time docs like Marcus Welby to personally escort you into the OR and get it done right! this! second!

Anyway, getting back to my point, sort of, at some point I’m pretty sure I’ve prayed for patience, and God chuckled and said, “Okay, you wanna learn to be patient? Here’s your HMO card!”

It’s also possible that God, who I assume (and hope!) has a great sense of humor (I mean, S/He DID create the Three Stooges!),

made some sort of joke about learning patience by becoming a patient, y’know, in the medical sense. But frankly, I can’t think of that joke right now so I’m not even gonna try.

Anyway, that’s the haps right now, friends and family — just hangin’ out here in Limbo waiting for the mail!

I’ll let you know next week when/if anything else happens. Meanwhile, have a great week!