Hi, DeDe --

I noted your message on my machine, but I've been hors de combat for the
past few days.

Woke up with a backache last Thursday, but was OK on Friday, then
starting Saturday it resumed, and by this past Monday it was so
debilitating that by evening I was at the Northfield Hospital ER,
getting tests and a CT scan.

They think it's a kidney stone, with which I have no prior experience.

I'm getting more tests, but in the meantime I get my choice of intense
back pain or getting numbed out on the Percocet pills they gave me,
which they said was a "narcotic" -- something else I'm not experienced
with.

So I've got little Martha keeping an eye on the phone, and I'm also
slowly working my way through a few hundred e-mails that have piled up.

I expect this won't last much longer, and I'll be free to think and do
again, and getting in touch with what's been backlogged.

Al