Wine and Brie are awesome ways to deal with news, sj.

I'm moving my book question to Lit.

Thinking warm thoughts for you, sj.

I'm feeling pretty "awwww-full" for you, Steph. That is so sweet and well deserved.

Wine and brie are lovely, sj, but I hope your news serves as nothing but a bump in your road to your heart's desire.

Cass, I left a suggestion in Lit, but I it's not a great one.

Shopping triumph: I just got a $90 pair of boots for $24.

Woot! Good one, Dana. I love those sorts of deals.

I had a bad day.

Actually that's an understatement. I had an epic meltdown this morning and then a smaller one at the pharmacy.

The meltdown was over crap. And I don't want to rehash it but I turned into yelling ranting throwing things in anger. And Will was close by and he came over and was able to calm me down and get me out the door.

I'm just stressed, I can't get an straight answer about the Vermont Health Connect and if I would qualify for a subsidy. But it doesn't matter because I applied and haven't heard back. In the meantime I have to apply for benefits through my job by the end of the month. Which I'm going to do, but I'd rather be under Blue Cross Blue Shield than whatever insurance my company uses.

And there's the whole issue of kerosone and getting the tank filled and that's a whole other story but Will has taken over that issue.

Finally there's work. This week I work 41 hours and 6 days. Which I know is nothing compared to what some people do. Next week I have something around 49 hours in 6 days.

It's stressful because it's a lot of work, I don't have any help and other days there has been coverage enough where I could get some help. But for some reason there was only one cashier scheduled from open until 2 pm. So the priority was that.

I'm all ragey.

Insufficient retail staffing for the Christmas shopping rush is pretty rage worthy. I'm sorry you have to deal with it, askye.

We met with the surgeon who is going to do Hubby's biopsy today (that will be on the 20th). The brightest mass that came up on the scan is right under his pancreas, but they're taking the biopsy from the lymph node in his left groin.

The doc had his back turned while Hubby was taking off his shirt, and when he turned around and saw the amount of surgical scarring on Hubby's torso, he actually gasped and took a step back. I said, "That's from the gall bladder. The surgeon wasn't that good." He said something about so much scar tissue, and I said, "You haven't seen his back yet," and Hubby obligingly turned around to see the runic pattern that had been carved into his back from all those surgeries.

Should surgeons be struck speechless by the visual confirmation of a patient telling them "I've had lots of surgeries"?

So a biopsy the Friday before Christmas. We'll see the oncologist in January. The surgeon confirmed that lymphomas generally respond well to chemo. It begins.

Sorry about the ragey, askye. Do you have an end date for the madness? Can that be a helpful light at the end of the tunnel? Or shall I come up there and kick someone's ass?

The surgeon sounds confident, Connie. It's a good beginning. It is.

Connie,

sounds to me like the surgeon was not impressed with a previous surgeon's work. If possible, you should attempt to play poker with him. He sounds like an easy mark.