Oct 7 - childbirth ?

The day started off well enough, for me that is. Out of here by 7:30, I was back before noon. I was two minutes over my 4 hours per 70 miles that I'd hit the other day. Although it had almost been a week since my last ride, my legs felt good. When I stopped, however, my nose dripped. Did I have a cold ? No, my elbows also dripped. I dripped all over. Well into the 80's and so humid it might as well have been raining, it was intense.

After some lunch we headed over to the Verizon store on International Speedway Blvd in Daytona. I'd finally had it with AT&T, was finally going to do something about these grandfathered North American plans that I was paying through the nose for.

We signed up for these plans that allowed us to call to/from the U.S. and Canada when AT&T Wireless was young. That was before it was sold to MeidaOne and became AT&T Broadband; before it merged with Cingular and before AT&T bought it back. Prices for cellular service have gone down, phones have added features -- we were stuck with the same phones (we have to buy replacements on ebay) and the same price even though we don't use the phones all that much. I remember the days when I was pushing my 2000 minutes per month limit ... nope, I'm not going to say "good old days".

There were two options out there as far as I could see -- a Bell Canada plan that is about the same price and a plan from Verizon that should clock in about $35 per month less in total. George Cederholm has the Verizon plan and used the Canada feature when traveling recently. The plan description is not all that clear but he didn't pay roaming charges. Also, I've not been able to use the AT&T call forward features because in their definition, call forwarding minutes are over-the-package minutes and charged at premium rates. Verizon's are included in the package minutes.

An hour after we got to the Verizon store we walked out with new phones. We got identical phones but Sandy got a cover for hers so it looks different. She also got the over-the-ear wired headset. By the time we left the store our AT&T numbers had been transferred over to Verizon. Our old phones said "No Service / SIM Card Not Activated". Our first bills are huge -- current month, next month, hardware charges ... will be offset in time by rebates (stupid, stupid setup) and eventually, perhaps within six months, a refund from AT&T for time already billed in advance and paid.

We did NOT go for Blackberry's or other similar phones. If we spent more time in cell phone accessible areas it might be worth the extra $30 per month. The salesman couldn't understand that anyone could actually have a house in an area where there was no cell service. When I had the Palm Treo I used it while driving. I'll avoid that by not having the feature, thank you very much. We left the Verizon store, both phones plugged into the accessory receptacle in the car for the obligatory first charge, and headed to Peter's Wine Shop.

I picked up two cases of red wine -- two different Syrah's that I'd already tried and were good as well as 12 of something called "Big House Red" that is a Grenache/Syrah/Movedre combination. I tried a bottle when we got home and it's not as robust as I'd like but heck, for $7.99 a bottle it's drinkable. Had I tasted some before bringing it home I might have passed, but I won't bother bringing it back. I need to have some fallback, contrast as it were, for the great wines that I've been bringing down from up north and drinking day after day. They are perfectly aged now, a delight, but 12 bottles doesn't last all that long when we're here for a month. The two Syrah's are more robust, but what do you expect when you pay an extra $3-$4 per bottle? I now have a selection of "house wine".

On the way home we stopped at the fish store, picking up Mahi Mahi. After our obligatory episodes of SG1, which we watched after Sandy had a brief lie-down due to her kidney stone we had the fish, which was excellent. It was a thick piece of filet that I cut into 1" steaks and cooked with my my fish cooker thingy for the barbie. With larger fish cooking them this way allows for more even cooking. Cooking them as filets allows the meat to bunch up and it's not evenly cooked.

After dinner Sandy started filling in the forms for her visit to the Urologist the next day, Thursday, i.e. today. She was really in pain at one point and went to lie down. The pain got a lot worse and she took the pain killers. The doctor had told her that it would be comparable to childbirth -- no, I was there for one and childbirth was a lot easier. She took nothing for childbirth -- she has a very high pain threshold -- but even with two heavy-duty painkillers we thought that I might have to take her to emergency. She was shaking all over. Eventually the extreme pain passed but not the stone. Whether the pain killers finally did their job or the stone stopped moving, I don't know. The rest of the night was quieter. Unless she passes this thing when she gets up I'll have to take her to Orlando. She cannot drive like this.

So ... we wait. She'll talk to the Urologist today. This thing must be small enough that they don't feel that they need to do a c-section, as it were, or blast it with ultrasound, which they did for my Dad. The one drug that she is on -- Flomax -- is supposed to help the thing pass -- "inducing it" in childbirth terms. I guess that the birth canal is larger than the urethra ?

One day at a time, that's all that we can do at this point. When this is over, and hopefully that's soon, we'll plan our trip north.

Onward. There ARE parts of life that aren't fun.