Ship's Blog

Making My Usual Good Impression

alix — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:06:38 -0400

My imaginary shoulder injury has been acting up for the past few weeks, so I went back to the orthopedic surgeon for a re-check. As I expected, he sent me to get an MRI, because I've exceeded my maximum cortisone injections and now we have to see exactly what's going on.

Because I had an MRI a few years ago, I already knew that I couldn't wear anything in the MRI room that had metal in it. That included the zipper of my jeans. But, you know, I only wear jeans. What were they going to make me change into? My fear was that I'd be given some weird gown that flashed my ass, or tacky medical pajama pants that featured an unnaturally large crotch area or something. Yeah, we all have our own private fears.

So, forestall a possible ass disaster, I stuffed my yoga pants into my tote bag as I headed out of the house. I didn't put the yoga pants on because I had an appointment before the MRI and, well, nobody sees me in non-restraining trouser-wear unless I live with them or they are medical staff. I'm hoping that personal loyalty or doctor-patient confidentiality keeps these folks quiet.

As soon as I arrived at the imaging place later in the day, I wondered if I should have changed into my yoga pants already. I don't know why, but I worried that if the staff wasn't clear, right from the get-go, that I HAD NON-METAL PANTS with me, I would be forced to change into something hideous. You know, like they'd turn to me and say, "I'm sorry, you didn't mention those pants when I checked you in and so, no, you cannot wear them. Put on the pants with the big ducks on them."

It could happen!

When my name was finally called, a young man met me at the door and led me into the back. As we began to walk down a corridor, I blurted out, "I brought pants with me that I can change into! Right here!" (I lifted my tote bag.)

He turned to me, still walking, and extended his hand. "Hi," he said with a smile. "I'm Mark."

I felt my cheeks grow pink. "Um, yeah, I'm Alix."

After a pause I added, "I guess it is good to exchange names before talking about taking off your pants!"

Yeah, people usually remember me, even if it isn't for the reason's I'd prefer!

If He Says He Sold His Soul for Love, WATCH OUT!

alix — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:08:26 -0400

The other day while waiting at a stoplight, Kathy and I found ourselves staring at the license plate frame of the car in front of us. "Rin and Rob," it declared, "Two hearts One Soul."

"You know what that means," Kathy said. "Somebody sold their soul to the devil!"

I laughed. "I bet it's Rob and Rin didn't even know. Now she's gotta share her soul and it wasn't even her idea. That figures."

Kathy motioned to the license plate itself. "Look, her name is Erin. Why doesn't it say Erin on the frame? Why Rin?"

"Don't you know? Rin and Rob is soooo much cuter. What's the sacrifice of a little E in your name when it means you are going to be just so adorable together?"

"Maybe. But you know what's going to happen when they break up..."

"He's going to take the soul," I said, nodding knowingly. "Rin will be left with a broken heart and no soul, not to mention a first name that's 25% shorter than what she started with."

We rolled our eyes. "Men!"

That Anti-climactic Update

alix — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:48:26 -0500

As predicted, my update on my visit to the surgeon is anti-climactic (and Lisa, you're right - that's ideal for doctor's appointments and air travel). Hysterical amnesia it is! That is to say, my surgeon isn't worried about the lump on my right breast and thinks it is scar tissue. I figure, she's been doing this longer than me, so I will trust her on that.

My left breast, of course, is just plain acting out. She said that on large-breasted women, radiation sometimes makes the breast tissue reluctant to heal, and that seems to be what's going on. Her advice was to put a lot of antibiotic ointment on it, bandage it, and wait for it to close up again. (I did not ask if it might re-open again, because...well...I want to assume the answer is no and never think about this again.)

"We should probably do a round of antibiotics just to be safe," she added, before wrapping up.

So, as expected, I'm back to taking Keflex, the antibiotic that smells like poop. I wonder if I'll catch Lola trying to bury the bottle again? I wouldn't blame her if she tried!

Oh, and...I didn't get a mammogram; I'll do that in a month, when I see the surgeon for a re-check and get my follow-up with the medical oncologist. Until then, I appear to be clear! Except, of course, for my left breast, which it appears I can't take anywhere.

Thank you to everyone who sent me good wishes. That means a lot to me.

Wouldn't Want to Waste the Appointment

alix — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:01:11 -0500

(Note: parts of this are not for the squeamish)

Last Tuesday, after I left a message my surgeon's office about the new lump I found in my breast, I got the best customer service ever from UCSF. I know I bitch about their horrid customer service all the time, but this time was different. My surgeon's nurse called me back within 30 minutes of my message, and within 10 more minutes, she called me back with an appointment for the following Monday (today). That's lightning fast compared to anything I've experienced before.

However, by Tuesday night, I decided that I had made a big deal about nothing. The lump, which is not on the breast that had cancer, is close enough to the site of a surgical biopsy to be scar tissue. I have no idea how I never noticed this scar tissue before, because I certainly noticed the scar tissue on the other breast. But, you know, I bet that's what it is and I'm just suffering from hysterical amnesia.

As soon as I figured this out, I thought, oh, gee, this is going to be so embarrassing. I am going to waste my surgeon's precious time, having her check out a non-suspicious lump that I magically never noticed in the two years I must have had it. I am insane!

So, I called the surgeon's nurse on Wednesday morning and alerted her to the non-issue. I suggested she give the appointment to someone who needed it more and added, "Because apparently I am now stark raving mad." She laughed and said that I might be stark raving mad or I might not, but they'll see me on Monday anyway.

I was going to have to deal with the embarrassment. Dammit. I comforted myself with the thought that I have to have the surgical follow-up anyway, whether this month or next. It will at least be uneventful.

But then, by the next day, something else started going on with my breasts. The incision on my other breast started looking strange. That's the breast where I had a surgical biopsy last April and a lumpectomy in the April before that. After last year's biopsy, it took a full five months for the incision to close completely, probably partly due to radiation damage. In that time, I had to wear my bra 24 hours a day and take repeated rounds of antibiotics. I probably complained a lot. Stupid breast. But it did close up in September and since then it has been looking really good, just healing away.

And then, last week, in what can only be a desperate bid for attention, the incision started to turn strangely white and the skin began to peel. You know, like with a sunburn. After another couple of days, the skin started to feel disturbingly thin. And this morning, I woke up to find the incision was open again and leaking stuff out. EW.

Now, okay, so it's a little hole, not some gaping chasm. Even so, I happen to be patently against spontaneous openings in my body. The incision closed. Months ago. It should stay closed - Alix's rules! Who wants to go thinking that their surgical incisions can open again on their own? That's so gross and...oh, gee, I'm sorry I typed that. Everybody think of birds and bunnies, okay? Let's have ourselves a Cinderella moment. La, la, la...mice are making our dresses...pretty bird song...okay, back.

On the good side of things, at least I have an appointment. And funny, it's for today! How conveeeenient. You don't suppose that my breast is trying to help me save face by making it look like I had a real reason to see the surgeon? Really, it needn't have bothered - I could have stomached the embarrassment. But my guess now is that now I'll be back on Keflex every six hours and I get to renew my relationship with my bras. Woo-hoo. That's still better than cancer, though.

Do you like how I worked this entire thing out even before leaving for the appointment? Which reminds me, I better get ready! My what-happened-at-the-doctor appointment update will be so anti-climactic.

Look at the Pretty Faces!

alix — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:55:44 -0500

A couple of weeks ago, my buddy Kelly Kilmer came up from Southern California to teach classes at my favorite store, Stamper's Warehouse. She teaches there several times a year and I always look forward to her arrival. Before her classes began, we spent a fun afternoon shopping for art paper and Japanese books in Berkeley and San Francisco and, of course, had dinner. Lots of laughing.

But what I was most looking forward to was her class called "About Face." That's where she showed us how to paint over photos and magazines pictures. I like to include faces and figures in my collages and other art work, but because I don't yet know how to draw them well, I have to rely on Photoshop artistry to get what I want. That's fine, but sometimes I want to work with paint instead. Kelly's method gave me another tool for my toolbox, one that I'm sure to have fun with.

Here's what I created in class, from magazine pictures:

First try

Second try

Third try

I changed various details from the original image - for example, a new hair color, eye color, skin color, even a totally different hairstyle. Their expressions changed a bit by the time I was done, too. Of course I changed their clothes, too, and in the case of the second one, I painted hers out completely.

When I showed the final pictures to my sister, I mentioned that the one on the green background was my favorite. She said, dryly, "Yeah, I can tell." Indignant, I insisted, "It's not ‘cause she's nekkid!" "Yeah, right," she answered.

(It's possible I've developed a..."reputation." You see, when I was living alone in San Francisco, my flat had a distinctive style to it. You know, lots of velvet, a bowl of pearls, reproduction Victorian furniture, pre-Raphealite prints, and classical figurines of goddesses scattered about. I thought it was tasteful and otherwise didn't think too much about it. I neglected to notice that all those nymphs, goddesses, and poets were quite naked. And then I had my sister and her kids over for a visit. After they left, her son commented, "Mom, Aunt Alix sure has a lot of naked ladies in her apartment. But that's okay, I kept my eyes down." Oops!)

Anyway, back to the class. I wish I could show Kathy's pictures (I don't have them handy) because they came out even cooler. Hers had a more painterly, almost impressionistic look, where as mine are more literal and illustrative. She managed to do some shading (I was still working on getting the flesh tones just the way I wanted them) and that was awesome. I found out how she did it-the trick was making sure I was blending wet on wet, because this is acrylic-and so for the next one I did (at home) I tried that.

I'm not saying it's great (and the JPG compression is making the shading look a little weird) but I'm happy with the outcome given that it is only my fourth try. That's me at 16, made to look as I did at 17 by adding bangs and mascara. It's about 12 inches tall or so, and it's for part of a larger project, so that background will be cut out. I've also since repainted my top in cobalt blue.

If you want to learn how to do this, too, I highly recommend Kelly's class. It's a lot of fun. She teaches all around the country, so if you have a place in your area where visiting artists teach, you can talk to them about having her come teach there. It's definitely worth it. Her art journal and collage classes are always a joy. Find out more about her at kellykilmer.com.

I'm off to paint!

Getting Dressed is Becoming More Complicated

alix — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:51:50 -0500

So I decided to get dressed and spent a quick moment, as I always do, collecting the clothes that I want to wear for the day. I put them in a pile in the bathroom, took off my jim-jams, and got in the shower. As I do.

But when I got out of the shower and started to get dressed, things began to go wrong. I reached for my brand new teal top and accidentally picked up the teal jim-jams I'd only recently removed. Oops, that's not a fashion statement. I dropped those and redirected myself to the other stack of clothes. Grabbing what I thought was my v-neck top off of that, I discovered that I'd put my teal workout pants into the pile by mistake.

How did I make this mistake? Because they are all the exact same shade of teal. EXACTLY!

I went out into the bedroom to find my top and finish getting dressed. Then I stopped and took a good long look around me. You know, at those metallic lagoon walls I painted a little over two years ago.

I'm pretty sure that if I stood up against the wall in any of these outfits, no one would find me for days. Sigh.

These fashion color trends have got to stop. Apparently I haven't the savvy to handle them responsibly. At this rate, it's a challenge just to know I've gotten dressed! If I'm not offered a rainbow of choices, and soon, goodness knows what I'm going to walk out into the world wearing next.

"Does she know she's wearing a bathing suit with a frock coat?"

"I don't know, but you have to admit, it does match perfectly..."

Cell Phone. No Pockets. What Do YOU Do?

alix — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:10:05 -0500

I've written previously about my apathetic relationship with my cell phone - I have one, but unlike many people, I do not live with it glued to my hip. Well, when I'm out and about, it's by my side. But I'm a Radical Homebody, which means I'm not out and about so much, and at home? It seems it is never in the same room as me.

This would not be a problem if people just called my home or business line, but certain people-particularly doctors-always call my cell phone. This makes sense because if they called my home phone, you just know that it would be at the very moment that I left the house for my weekly drive around the block, just to keep my car battery charged. Okay, I am not quite that bad. But missing the call from a doctor is the kiss of death, you are never going to be able to call back and actually reach them. You missed your chance.

So, it seems like several times a week I am running at breakneck speed to find my handbag with my cell phone, before the call goes to voicemail...or walking around with a handful of phones as I move from room to room, making sure I don't miss a call on any one of my three lines. It's crazy. It's mad. How do other people do it?

I can only assume they have something I don't. Pockets.

Hmm, yeah, my yoga pants and jim-jams just don't come with those. Was I supposed to wear grown-up clothes at home? Really? Well, but before you start saying, wear trousers like the regular adults do, you tell me what the girlie-girls in the skirts do! What about them, huh?

Do they strap their cell phone onto an arm band? Stow their phone in a modified gun holster? Make fancy pants necklace pouches from peyote-stitched beads and slip their phones into those? Help!

Up until a week ago, I thought I had a brilliant solution: I stored my phone in my cleavage. Kathy asked, isn't that uncomfortable? I told her, honestly, I forget it is there. But it turns out that's not a good thing. You should have seen me jumping around one night when the phone was ringing and I couldn't find it anywhere. Because it was my breasts that were ringing. Luckily I answered it in time, before they were forced to take a message. They are grumpy lately and nobody needs to hear my breasts talkin' smack.

Anyway, my spastic floundering didn't stop me from nestling my cell phone between the girls...that is, until last week, when The Mishap happened. I leaned over the toilet to get the scrubber and...well, let's just say I'm now $100 poorer and I now own a bottom-of-the-line, feature-free phone. (I am not going to invest a penny more than I am forced to on a device that I throw into toilets.) No more bra storage for me.

So now, I confess defeat. I'm sure I'm missing an obvious solution, so please share yours. Just don't go suggesting a cell phone panty pocket - I draw the line there. Who knows, whatever you suggest might solve my iPod problem, too...and maybe launch my new line of "Handbags for the Home." Sheesh.

Never On a Monday

alix — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:26:24 -0500

Saturday morning, out of the blue, I started thinking that I might get cancer again. Actually, I was convinced of it and in no time my thoughts became a runaway train, rocketing down a track that quickly wound from my diagnosis to my sad, eventual death.

Those of you who know me well also know that this is very unlike me. When going through cancer treatment, I never once thought I was going to die. Not even when first diagnosed. I rolled my eyes at anyone who suggested such a thing. But this Saturday? That clock was ticking!

My rational mind tried to get a word in edgewise and point out that perhaps PTSD might be influencing my thoughts. Perhaps I might want to take some anti-anxiety medication. But I ignored rational thought, instead making notes on where I might want to have my ashes scattered and thinking, wow, I better start cleaning house. (Because in my mind, whether you are going on a short vacation or going on the Big One, that's what you do first: clean house.) I better leave instructions. I better do some repairs around the house. And what about all those boxes in the garage? I can't leave Kathy to have to sort through those! Maybe I should just dump them all. What to do, what to do....

Oh no, stress isn't getting to me. I am cool as a cucumber. Yep.

The good thing was that I was out running errands alone, ensuring that the conversation in my head stayed private. Because, honestly, no one needs to hear that kind of stinkin' thinkin', especially not Kathy. By the time I got home, I had a migraine brewing, so I took some medicine and lied down for a while, further keeping me quiet. I'll admit that I pondered my upcoming demise for a little while longer, but then I thankfully fell asleep.

When I woke up, it was dinner time and I felt a little more level-headed, if unsteady on my feet. Kathy and I fixed something to eat and then settled down to watch Lost on DVR. By this time, I was ready to concede there was something going on in my head other than cancer. I mean, really, talk about a drama queen.

I watched TV. I moved around. I adjusted my bra. And as my hand pressed against my right breast… I felt a lump.

Omigod.

Fearing a break with reality, I casually moved over to sit next to Kathy, grabbed her hand, and pressed it to that spot. Maybe she wouldn't feel it? But she looked at me seriously. She felt it, too. Dammit.

Okay, well, I'm sane enough to know that irony does not a diagnosis make. Just because there is a lump does not mean I have cancer again. And it certainly doesn't mean I'm going to die. But it is scary.

As with all three lumps I've found over my lifetime, I discovered this on the weekend when I can't call for an appointment. It seems to be some unspoken rule. And you know what happened when I called at 8 am this morning to leave a message for my surgeon. I found out they are closed for Presidents Day.

So, I'm not sure how long I have to wait to find out what this lump is. It could be cyst. I've never had one, so I wouldn't know. It might go away. I don't honestly want to wait several weeks to see – I want someone to tell me now. But there isn't much to do at the moment.

Tomorrow I will leave a message for my surgeon to see if we can move my March 28th mammogram up and get this checked out. Cross your fingers for me – given how my thinking was going before I even knew I had a lump, it seems best that I be allowed only minimal time to think. Yikes. All positive thoughts are welcome.

Ending the Silence

alix — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:30:39 -0500

My dear readers…I apologize. I have neglected you horribly. Blog reader Lisa recently sent up a flare reminding me that some of you really would like to read a new post, and so here I am, working to get back into the groove. So Lisa, this one is going out to you…hee! I just like saying that, it makes me sound like I have a radio show.

This first post will be serious, because I have decided to be brave and tell everyone why I have really been so quiet. I didn't plan on sharing this, but…gosh, I realized that I tell you guys about my breasts, so, why not this?

As all of you know, life can, at times, be a wee bit more difficult to get through than usual. That's where I'm at right now. But maybe, it's a more than a "wee bit" difficult.

You see, years ago, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). You know, the kind of disorder that sometimes develops in people who have been traumatized in war situations, natural disasters, or at the hands of individual human beings. For me, PTSD was the result of having a surprising number of Very Bad Things happen earlier in my life, things that I could not contain in my psyche at the time they happened.

My symptoms were not obvious until a long time after the traumatic events. In my twenties, I told myself repeatedly that I had survived everything just fine. I was the ultimate in "handling" things. Yet in my thirties, over a decade after the worst of it, I fell apart.

It started with the constant violent nightmares. Nightmares had been a staple of sleep for as long as I could remember, but now they were more graphic than ever and unrelenting in their frequency. Soon, I could barely sleep. I became anxious and afraid all the time. My concentration fragmented. I dissociated. Flashbacks (traumatic memories that feel like they are happening in the moment) began intruding into my waking life. I became overwhelmed with self-destructive thoughts, convinced this was all my fault. I felt out of control and vulnerable.

As someone who values efficiency, productivity, and composure, this was extremely distressing. I didn't know how to predict how I would be from one moment to the next. Would I remain calm and controlled, or would something unexpected trigger me into panic? Whatever my intellect knew to be true didn't matter once my emotional responses were engaged. My brain was flooded with stress hormones and I felt like I was living in hell.

At the time, I was lucky to have a gifted therapist who recognized what was happening to me and was able to guide my healing. It took a lot of work, but over time, I was able to stabilize. Those were a few very rocky years; I am grateful she stuck with me.

Once my symptoms were stabilized, I still had a lot of healing to do and I wanted to continue on. However, I wasn't able to do it all at once. For some crazy reason, it turns out that life does not stand in one spot while you get your act together. It keeps moving along with challenges that demand your attention now. And so, the deep work had to be set aside when my mother died, I trained for a new career, I nursed my beloved cat through terminal illness, I needed concentration to build a new business, and so on. I moved, I remodeled houses, I got cancer. Blah, blah, blah, LIFE.

During these years, sometimes something would happen to trigger my PTSD symptoms, but luckily my life would just be turned upside down for a matter of months, not years. That was improvement. I always knew there was more work to do and yet, there were times when I fantasized that maybe I had spontaneously healed. Because, after all, what I went through was not really all that bad.

Yeah.

I believe that the reason that I never broke down and cried over my cancer diagnosis was because cancer, at least at that time, was not the worst thing to happen to me. I knew in my gut that life could get much, much worse. And somehow, I felt like I was emotionally trained to endure what I'd have to go through in treatment. Stay composed, don't let them get to you, move on. Smile. It's what I do. And I did get through it, which just proves that I can handle anything. Right?

And then, a couple of months ago, the nightmares returned. Horrible, graphic, violent nightmares that left me awake and terrified. It felt demoralizing to go through this again. Shaken, I asked myself, why now? Don't I ever get to escape this? Can't I let this go? I felt myself starting to get lost.

And then I thought, wait. What if this time the nightmares are not just here to torment me? What if there is a process I am supposed to undergo, something larger and more meaningful at work?

And so, I opened up my psyche the experience. I connected to my Wiser Self and asked, what wisdom moves under this pain? Where can this lead me?

It was then that this crazy-ass Wiser Self chick showed me, in her lovely visual and engaging way, that this is an opportunity. This is my time to really heal. I am ready now to tell my story, to be seen, and to release my pain. I am ready to look at what really happened to me, all of it, and acknowledge it for what it was. It is time.

Which, by the way, is a great epiphany, only…it's a bit of an over-simplification of how things will go. Gotta love that optimistic Wiser Self, that gadabout healing soul! She doesn't live down in the trenches. She's right, it's time, but gosh, this is a process that takes commitment. Endurance. Vulnerability. But, hey, that's what I signed up for.

So, since then, I been spending my time writing my story. I have been making art…Big Art. I have intensified the therapeutic journey. I am living this process, every moment of the day.

Healing, I tell ya, I am all over your ass, baby. Hee.

But damn, as those of you with PTSD know, healing work intensifies the symptoms for a while -- it gets worse before it gets better. That's the nature of it. Memories get triggered and whatever you didn't let yourself feel the first time around (when it happened) well, you get to feel it now. You find out that all sorts of things that you believed about yourself were caused by trauma, not your truth. You start to question so many things. Comfort becomes elusive, even as it is all the more necessary.

Art, writing, my kitties, and my dear, supportive friends, all keep sane.

More than any other time in my life, I have hope about this process. Oh, not constantly – at times, this can trigger every self-destructive impulse I have. But overall, I believe I am moving toward an internal freedom that I have longed for, for so many years. I'm willing to take the messy path. I'm willing to make art that tells the truth. I'm willing to learn how not to blame myself for every bad thing that was done to me.

And now, I'm willing to return to my blog. Just be a little patient with me, friendly readers. I'm stitching myself back together, and it takes time. My sense of humor is subject to weather conditions and the phase of the moon. But, never fear, I still manage to crack myself up. More to come.

I Sing of the Telephone Repairman

alix — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 01:37:03 -0500

Two days ago, our house phone stopped working: no dial tone, no nothing. That meant that Kathy's DSL was down, too. Predictably, I was expecting a call from a doctor and she had lots of work to do, but we were out of luck.

So, I immediately used another phone to call the AT&T repair line, which, you'll be happy to learn, is automated for my convenience. Those AT&T guys are always thinking of me. Knowing that it would slow me down to actually talk to someone about the problem, they removed the option from their menus. All I could do was schedule someone to come out and fix the line...in four days.

Four days without our main phone is a big problem. Four days without DSL is a crisis. Not to mention, we actually use that phone as an intercom all the time, which meant that we had to get up and walk into another room to talk to each other. Gasp! Well, not really...we figured out our cell phones would work for that. I mean, there's no need to get all crazy-like.

I changed our outgoing message to say something snide about AT&T and tell people how to reach us. But I kept picking up the phone and trying to dial out anyway, because I am as trainable as a lab mouse.

This morning, I went upstairs to make myself some breakfast (appropriately clad in blue-green pajamas with accompanying wild hair) when I saw someone in an orange vest walking uphill in the rain, with some purpose to his step. Oooh, was he coming to our house? Or maybe a neighbor's house?

Like some sort of lazy spy, I slunk casually through the dining room and living room, catching glimpses of his orange vest through the shutters and then the drapes around the corner. He was definitely coming to our house.

Maybe he will fix our phone!

When our doorbell rang, I creaked the door open (note to self: oil those hinges!) and peeked around it, having no idea how many directions my hair was pointing in. Ah-ha! Underneath his Rastafarian hair, I could read AT&T on his vest. But why didn't he park in front?

"I was wondering if I could run a test on your phone," he said.

I grinned. "The one that's dead?"

"Your phone is dead?" He looked at a clipboard. Clearly, that's not why he was there. He confirmed the phone number. "Well, I'll run my tests and ring the doorbell when I'm done. You can see if that fixes it."

As I closed the door, I couldn't help but smile delightedly. A wandering minstrel repairman! What are the chances of that? I ran downstairs to put on a robe (I didn't want to look too eager and actually get dressed) and comb my hair (wow, it was pretty scary). I nursed my cup of coffee for about 20 minutes and then, he rang the bell. I grabbed the phone as I ran to the door, and flung it open as I hit speakerphone. DIAL TONE!

"Yay!" I squealed. I thought about telling him that I loved him but resisted the impulse.

He explained that while he was testing it, he removed some water that had gathered by the wires and voila! All better. But I'd have to call AT&T to cancel Friday's appointment, because they didn't know anything about this.

I thanked him and shut the door. I imagined him strapping his lyre around his neck and continuing on to the next house, strumming as he sang, "I sing of the telephone re-pair, and ladies with crazy-ass sleep hair, la la, la la, la lo dee do...I sing of the telephone re-pair..."

Okay, maybe not. But we have dial tone! Thanks, Margie and Norm.