Okay, just to get it out of the way, I have been in the hospital for a little more than the past week. I went in Friday of last week with abdominal pain, which turned out to be kidney stones. Eight days later, stones broken up by lasers, I'm back home. I don't really want to go through the whole ordeal in any detail, because it was unpleasant enough living through it for the first time. But it will probably come up here and there in the coming weeks, so I thought I'd just mention it, to get it out of the way.

I do want to say thanks to all the friends and coworkers who kept me company with phone calls, text messages, gifts of magazines, crossword puzzles, and flowers, and DVDs from the library. A special thanks to Ivan, for loaning me his personal DVD player. The hospital didn't get hardly any TV channels, and at the lowest points of my stay there (Thursday and Friday) it was really nice being able to watch a Fraggle Rock DVD rather than more endless reruns of Law & Order and Charmed on TNT.

And an extra-special thanks to Jan and Pat, literally without whom I could not have gotten through the week. Between stopping by the house to feed Penelope every day, bringing me necessary items like my phone charger and stuff, making sure there was food in the fridge for me when I got home, and making sure both me and my car got safely home from the hospital without my having to drive myself, they were a Godsend. I really hate having to ask other people to go out of their way to help me, but it's nice to know that, when an emergency strikes, I have people in my life I can rely on. (And that goes for everyone who helped me keep my sanity through this whole thing.)