More "News" Than Anyone Requested

So look, we're all depressed about Spain winning the World Cup. But they really did manage to pull off some pretty convincing wins against one or two of the seven sides they played, and I don't think Germany would have been THAT much better had Müller not gotten a bogus booking that prevented him from playing in the semi-final. It's starting to look as if you just have to be consistently decent, never great, in order to win a World Cup, so let's hope Portugal can actually do that for a change next time around. The Euro will be a good start. And that's all I have to say about soccer today.

I have continued work on my magnum opus, the boring dissertation, since I last blogged, and I am confident that I will have the whole thing more or less finished by late August. This is excellent news for many of my readers, who have been avidly following my every academic move in the hopes of eventually gaining the rare privilege of reading my forthcoming book. Don't worry, we're only a couple years from that event! But seriously, I kid. The thing should be done soon, which fills me and only me with a great deal of happiness.

Those of you who have been wondering if I was ever going to upgrade my coffee grinder will be pleased (and somewhat startled) to learn that I have done so, and with very pleasing results. Accompanying that bold move was another upgrade to the current espressing system, whereby the pressurized filter baskets that came with the xp2070 were replaced with krups part #0907163 (purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/Krups-0907163-2-Cup-Filter/dp/B000PJ6R8A), the non pressurized variety. Capresso's infinity 565.5 (also from amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Capresso-565-Infinity-Conical-Stainless/dp/B000VAWXOU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1279753773&sr=8-1) does just the trick for the grinding, and my custom tamper has eliminated all need for gymnastics and gyrations during the espressing process. I am quite pleased.

Well, that's about all I can say about anything, I have been EXTREMELY BORING lately. We had some friends breeze through town on their way to Tejas, which was lovely, and we've been going out to eat some, because it's cheap with some magical coupons that we get through some website that my wife knows. Aside from those entertainments, I have to say that I'm quite disappointed with how uninteresting July has been, even with the end of the World Cup included therein. It's almost over, so that's good news, I suppose.

Until next time, this has been exciting and informative, ¿no?

Inequality

Is German Bundesliga officially the most interesting professional soccer league, or does it just have the highest attendance? While England, Spain, and Italy are all busily celebrating the victors of their respective leagues, Scotland is gripped by its perennial (and by now, insanely boring) two-horse race between Rangers and Celtic, Holland's Alkmaar celebrated their title what seems like months ago, Portugal's FC Porco remain the only class side in their league, and Marseille are still trying to keep things interesting in France, as they now sit 3 points behind upstarts Bordeaux, with a game in hand and two weeks left of the season.

The reason I think Germany has the highest attendance is that some soccernet writer has been insisting on that fact for years, and I have no statistics that might disagree. Certainly, the large number of bottom-half-of-the-table clubs in most of Europe's leagues means that the top sides have to generate a LOT more interest, if attendance is to remain relatively high, on average. Unfortunately for most leagues, the "coefficient of interestingness" for most sides in most matches remains relatively low. The reason for this is simple: as the rich get richer, the gap between the best clubs and the rest of the clubs in each leagues grows larger and larger. Thus, for example, England's "big 4" currently sit a minimum of 9 and a maximum of 27 points ahead of the fifth-placed side, and the tenth-placed side is a full 40 points behind the side in first. If you threw out the top 4 in England, you'd be left with a fairly normal distribution of clubs, where the only gap between positions greater than 3 points is the 6-point spread between second and third place (really, 6th and 7th place). England is by far the most unequal league, mostly because of the way the top sides have managed to market themselves globally and corner the market even in Great Britain. While attendance for those clubs is always outstanding, the same cannot be said for the lower-side clubs, nor can a full stadium for the latter be compared, numerically, to those of the top 4. And nothing will change this year. We know who will play in the UCL, we know who will make it into UEFA, and by now we don't even care who gets relegated.

A similar situation holds for Spain and for Italy, where there are 2 and 3 big clubs, respectively. While there is typically some small amount of drama among these top few clubs throughout the season, the rest of the league might as well be playing as a different division, for all the drama it contributes to the top clubs. Villareal is a good example: sure, they challenged Barcelona and they beat Real this season, but they stand 27 points behind Barça and 19 behind Real, in fifth place. Barcelona currently stand 41 points ahead of the tenth-placed side, and are over 20 points above third-placed Sevilla. Again, if we ditch the top two clubs, the league almost starts to look competitive.

The dividing line between Italy's top clubs and the rest of the pack is a little less pronounced, at least this season: 3rd-placed Juventus is only a game ahead of Fiorentina. In fact, the biggest gap between positions in Serie A right now is the 7-point-spread between first and second places. If Juventus hadn't spent the second half of the season choking, they might very well be close to Inter's point standing right now, though again this would still place the usual suspects in title contention. In both Spain and Italy, there is no comparison between the numbers of people that can be accommodated by top-tier clubs and the rest of the sides. Moreover, matches between middle-of-the-table clubs in both leagues tend to be hugely under-attended, if the massive numbers of empty seats shown on TV are any indication. Very similar pictures emerge throughout Europe, where there are typically between two and four top, successful, clubs in each league, and the remainder of clubs serve as spoilers and feeders for the upper crust. The Dutch league has broken out of that mold somewhat this season, with the usual frontrunners Ajax and Eindhoven failing to make the top two spots. But it's safe to assume that both of them will fare better than either Twente or Alkmaar in European competition next season, so things will no doubt return to their usual state soon enough.

By contrast with all these situations, Germany's league still has yet to be decided, going into its final round next weekend. The full league gap is only 40 points (between first and last place), compared to the typical 50+ point gap in other leagues. More importantly, at least in terms of excitement and drama, the gap between first and 10th place is only 21 points, compared to 40 in both England and Spain, and 30 in Italy (France 30, Holland 37, Scotland 46 – and this is a 12-team league!!!, Portugal 35). To put it another way, a 10-point spread in Germany nets you the top 6 clubs, whereas in England it gets you 2, in Spain 2, and in Italy 2 (France 3, Holland 1, Scotland 2, Portugal 2). A 20-point spread in Germany encloses the top 9, whereas in England you still only get 4, in Spain 3, and in Italy 5 (France 7, Holland 5, Scotland 2, Portugal 5).

The Bundesliga may not be the most entertaining league to watch (though the attendance figures there might suggest that it in fact is), but frankly, how could we possibly know that, if it is almost NEVER broadcast outside of Germany? The fact that there is only a 3-point spread among the top 4 clubs going into the last week of the season certainly makes things far more interesting to me, especially since I don’t particularly care who wins the league. Fans of Manchester United, Inter Milan, and Barcelona are of course ecstatic that their sides have already clinched their respective leagues, and perhaps rightly so. But those of us who watch the game for the enjoyment of a tight competition, for some beautiful soccer (without diving crybabies who feel they’re entitled to special refereeing treatment), and sometimes to see the underdogs come up big, are guaranteed to be more and more consistently disappointed with things in these top European leagues. As revenues for the most successful clubs increase, their position at the top will also grow more and more secure, making the creation of a breakaway league all the more likely. The only other workable solution, as far as I can tell, is the introduction of salary caps, and I don’t think the Europeans, particularly those involved in the upper-level politics of the sport, are going to be too excited about a level playing field. As a last resort, I can always console myself with the fact that Wolfsburg, last year’s 5th-place club and the 15th-ranked team 2 seasons ago, have given the entire Bundesliga a reason to believe that money is still not the only driving force in the game.

Two Weeks at a Time: or, Death By Revision

Either way, it's going to be worth your time just to have a look. Or it may not. Remember how my last entry described our experiences in and of Barcelona? Right, in very cursory fashion. Well, I plan to expand upon that entry by highlighting some of the key events of the following days. Mostly, I'll be talking about our trip through the rest of Spain in as few days and words as possible. We didn't really see or visit the rest of Spain, but we caught some of the high points of Andalucía, which is probably my favorite part of Spain. This is where the Moors set up a rival caliphate to that in Damascus during the middle ages, and single-handedly dragged southern Europe through the dark ages and into the pre-Renaissance. Without these happy Arabs and Berbers, the rest of Europe would have been hopelessly mired in stupidity and ignorance, in part forced on them by a greedy and power-hungry class of ecclesiastical and civic leaders, well into the modern era. Of course, the Moors probably weren't the nicest people to have around in every situation, particularly when it came to religious or cultural differences with their subjects--I wasn't there, so I can't really say what the daily effect on people's life was. I can, however, say that there are no records or historical accounts of the Moors doing anything like what the Spanish did during the Inquisition, and in fact most of the ancient and medieval sources paint a Moorish government that represented almost the exact opposite of the powers behind the Inquisition (despite what the good people responsible for that little publication on the "Cathedral of Cordoba" would have you believe).

So, Moorish Spain. Al-Andalus. We all know that the Inquisition was so successful and so thorough that no Moors, Gipsies, or Jews remained in Spain after the early sixteenth century, right? Anyhow, that's what they say here in Extremadura, so it must be true. I'm pretty sure the Jews, Moors, and Gipsies who converted to Christianity were probably allowed to stay in Spain, but of course their conversion will have changed their blood-line, thereby allowing Spain to maintain its purity. Ok, enough about that, but it's kind of ironic that people still believe this trash, isn't it?

Moorish Spain is magnificent. The Alhambra is nice and everything, but to me, the coolest thing about Moorish Spain is the indoor gardens, patios, courtyards, small town plazas, and parks, all of which, barring perhaps the last two, are really just survivals from the Roman period in Spain. None of these features is entirely typical of the northern half of Spain, where the dark castles and fortified houses of the upper classes offer a stark contrast to the open, gardened, atrium-style house-and-bath complexes of their southern neighbors. Apparently the northerners were forced to adopt a darker and more dismal view on life upon the realization that the weather in the northern half of Spain is substantially harsher and less enjoyable than that in Al-Andalus.

Ok, so the Alhambra is all windows and gardens and decorative plasters, a castle-palace reserved for the head-honchos of the Moorish elite, to be mimicked by anyone who could afford it, but never really satisfactorily copied. The palace in Sintra, Portugal, originally had some pretty impressive imitations of one section of the Alhambra, but after western Iberia was recaptured in the 12th and 13th centuries, most of those rooms were gradually adjusted to fit into a more "modern" style. If you can get to the Alhambra someday, you should check it out. Just don't accept any of the rosemary kindly offered by the nice ladies outside--you can pick your own for free if you really want to, but who wants rosemary, anyway?

Maybe I'm giving the Moors more credit than they deserve. I have this theory that the cities that are really "Moorish" today in Spain were still pretty much Roman cities when the Moors arrived in the early 8th century--cities like Córdoba, Sevilla, Cádiz, and maybe Cartagena and Toledo. If that theory is true (and it must be, since it's my theory), much of what I love about those cities is really just the survival of Roman traditions and ideals. It's probably safe to say that the Moors preserved what would otherwise have been lost forever, at the hands of the Visigoths or whatever the Christians in the northeast of Spain should be called, and I'll even allow for the possibility, at least, that the Moors actually improved on some of what the Romans left behind. Incidentally, I'm not sure what that "left behind" is supposed to mean: surely the Hispano-Romano-Visigoths mostly stuck around when the Moors arrived, eventually mixing with the newcomers to provide a relatively homogeneous group that we refer to today as Spaniards. One of the great things about Spain today is the vast variety the country offers in terms of virtually everything. And that must be due at least in part to the fact that this was a crossroads of cultures throughout its history.

Well, I haven't said much about our trip, and maybe I won't today. It seems that I'm less interested in what we did than in what happened before we got there. I guess that's why I'm an archaeologist and not a sociologist or something like that.

But, speaking of sociology, and more generally of current events, what's the deal with this "swine flu" business? Is it just me, or should we all be mounting class-action lawsuits against the news media? Today's stories on the BBC and CNN illustrate just how far we've come in the 10 or 14 days since this thing hit the fan: we're now referring to this potential pandemic as little different from the standard seasonal flu outbreak. For example, here's what the BBC says in this story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8030365.stm), "Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova [of Mexico] told the BBC that, based on samples tested, the mortality rate was comparable with that of seasonal flu." Really? I'm supposed to be panicking, or so it seemed three days ago. In fact, some mucky-muck at the WHO told us the most troubling thing about this flu is that it's infecting otherwise healthy young people in Mexico (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/25/swine.flu/index.html). Yet, for all the hype, according to all the stories coming out today, the death toll is much lower than initially projected, and as tragic as it still is, is largely limited to people who already had serious underlying health conditions (including the unfortunate case of a toddler brought to the US from Mexico for treatment, the only confirmed death in the US attributed to this flu outbreak). I'm not saying this isn't a serious concern, but I do think that the media have done such a thorough job over-reporting a flu outbreak with fewer than 1000 victims worldwide (and just over 20 deaths confirmed!) that now we're all behaving like the poor souls in that movie Outbreak from the 1990s. I'm pretty sure that the annual flu outbreak in the US, and around the world, claims far more victims than this one ever could, and also receives FAR less attention than this one is receiving. If we panic every time a new strain of the flu hits major cities, we're going to have to just get used to panicking, because the flu mutates so fast it seems there's a new strain popping up every day. Why else are we getting new shots every year, and how is it that those shots are largely ineffective on so many strains of the virus? The flu is a major concern, and we should all avoid putting our fingers in our mouths and coughing in each others' faces. But shouldn't we all be taking those simple precautions anyway? It's gross, isn't it? I mean, I've had this cold or cough or something for a good two weeks now, but you don't see me coughing in people's faces, wiping my phlegm all over doorknobs and the like. I'm pretty sure I don't have the new flu, but if I did have it, I don't see how panicking and going on a world-wide crackdown would really help. More realistically, I should probably drink loads of water, get lots of rest, seek medical advice, and follow through on a full antiviral regimen, as prescribed by a qualified medical professional. I'm prepared to panic over all this if it's still in the news in a week, though....

If We Were in Spain

Then this blog would look something like this:



Hello everyone, welcome back to my blog. I haven't updated things around here very much over the past few months, but that's probably because nothing much has happened since I last wrote a whole bunch. Remember, this blog is about my poor foot and its experiences on the soccer field, in the various medical posts, and of course during its recovery from surgery. Naturally, had anything related to that central matter happened over the course of the summer, I'd have been all over it. Since I have nothing but more of the same to report on that end of things, I'll have to make up some more interesting stuff to talk about. So here goes.

Alicia and I spent the early half of the summer (after her graduation and before her birthday) visiting friends and family in Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. You may well ask yourself how we could justify such frivolous travels, but I should point out that we were doing all this in preparation for a more extended trip overseas than we normally undertake over the summers. Thus, we were right to travel, as we don't expect to see much of our family or U.S. based friends over the next nine months. Back to the story: we were visiting friends and family over the first half of the summer, and of course had many wonderful experiences with loads of fishing and photography. After all that fun, we thought there could be no better way to decompress after our many travels in the car than to pack up all our belongings into various boxes and whatnots in order to jam them all into storage. I am sure you can imagine how much fun it was to pack everything we wouldn't need for the next 10 months into boxes, while at the same time setting aside whatever we would need (clothes, books, papers, etc.) for eventual packing into suitcases. So I won't describe that experience.

Finally, when it seemed that we could never enjoy a day of peace and tranquility, we discovered that it was Alicia's birthday, and we had spent most of the day moving our things into storage. Truly, it must have been the most unjust way to spend a birthday ever. Fortunately for everyone, we had also planned a double-party with many of our Cincinnati friends for that same evening, both in celebration of Alicia's auspicious day of aging, and (especially for everyone else) of our immanent departure into states and countries far distant from there. It was eventually an amazing and very enjoyable way to set a final period on our nearly six years in Cincinnati.

After the celebrations in Cincinnati, we departed northward to Wisconsin by way of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and were able to enjoy almost two final weeks of relaxation and leisure in what would soon be the frigid north woods. Alicia wasn't able to bring in the big one this year, though some controversy remains as to whether this was my fault (apparently you're supposed to pull the anchors as soon as someone gets a big fish on the line) or hers, but stories as to the actual size of the beast differ greatly in their details (by some accounts, it was easily as long as "my arm," while others assert that it would barely have provided a mouthful after proper cleaning). We're hoping to try our luck in the same general area next summer, if we end up with any free time...

We left Wisconsin for Spain on the 1st of September, which if I remember correctly was Labor Day in the US. I have no interest in reconstructing the details of our flight from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Philadelphia to London to Lisbon, it was an uneventful series of flights and unremarkable in most ways. We were only able to spend a night in Portugal, in part because my parents are elsewhere and because we needed to get to Mérida as soon as we could to secure permanent lodging. Our bus ride to Mérida from Lisbon was as uninteresting as the flights, so on to Mérida. For the first time in our many visits, we opted to take a taxi from the bus station to our temporary lodgings--too many suitcases to justify bumping along across the bridges and around the crowded sidewalks in the middle of the afternoon. Our favorite hostal, Hostal Anas, was unbelievably booked solid, so we were forced to accept accommodations at the Hostal Bueno, which is nothing of the sort, though were it entitled "Hostal Barato" we'd be more than happy to agree.

The next two days are a blur of walking this way and that throughout all the streets of Mérida, writing down numbers and (eventually) calling them to get more details as to the nature of the apartment advertised. Our first stop was at a pair of message boards on the entrance to the Ayuntamiento, and we were able to gather a large number of numbers from that site. After I had called every number that had an even remotely interesting ad, and scheduled two or three apartment visits, we were forced to seek other means of bolstering our list to make sure we scored something before leaving town on the 8th. Much of this time was spent wandering the streets and trying to figure out which part of town we like the most, which was the most expensive, and which buildings were even worth considering. After all, in a city known for its Roman ruins, we weren't exactly excited about living in one...

The second day of our search was pretty miserable. We had called nearly every apartment we could (on one of these highly inefficient pre-pay cell phones) and by early afternoon were willing to consider stopping by agencies to see what they could show us. One in particular had some real "winners" to offer, complete with dirty dishes in the sink and cockroaches under the beds! We were sorely tempted to sign on one of those on the spot. That was also the agency that promised to show us places at 5:30, then at 6 or 6:30 (having assured us they could have us back to the place we were scheduled to see another apartment by 7:00). When we arrived, they said it would be more like 7, to which we replied we'd have to be leaving because of our prior engagement. Truly, a terrible agency. I won't name them, but the initials would be similar to those of a well known Italian fashion brand called "Dolce & Gabbana." Anyhow, we were able to squeeze in those nasty places I mentioned above before jogging back across town (it's a good thing it's such a small town) to meet the owners of one of the first places we had called.

As it turns out, we decided to move into the first apartment we had arranged to see--we just saw it on the second day because that's how the scheduling worked out. I had liked the place just from the ad--it claimed to be close to the Plaza de España, which is Mérida's central square, and had one of the lowest prices we saw for a furnished place near the city center. When I called to schedule a visit, I discovered that it was actually within about 150 yards of the city center, about 50 yards from the end of the Roman bridge, and right next to one of my favorite archaeological sites in the city. I told Alicia right away that that was the place for us, but naturally we were going to have to see it before we could sign the papers. I actually started referring to it as "our apartment" in discussing all the other places we had scheduled to visit, saying things like "after we talk to these people at the agency, we'll head over to look at our apartment" and "sure, this place is nice, but the location is nowhere near as good as our apartment's" and so on. When we finally made it to "our apartment," it was about 7:15 (fortunately, I had called to let them know we'd be late, which wasn't a problem because the owners live upstairs).

It's not a huge apartment, but it has two bedrooms (that was our minimum requirement) and two of these "light wells" that run through the whole 3-story building from top to bottom, allowing a lot of light into the rooms that don't face onto the street and providing a place for us to hang our laundry (they don't really go for the dryers in Iberia). When I told the landlords that we were from the U.S. they were a little surprised, as they had guessed from my accent that we were French or something like that. I didn't know whether to be proud that my Castellano doesn't have an obvious "American" accent, or to be deeply offended at being mistaken for a Frenchman. In the end, I decided to go with the former, because the landlords have lived in the U.S., Germany, and France, and he's Australian. This means that both of them speak very good English, and in fact they're both English teachers at the local public schools, which means we're all very comfortable talking with one another.

After seeing the place and talking with the landlords, Alicia and I were both ready to have a look at the lease terms, so we took a copy of that over to the Plaza de España and looked it over. Since there was nothing interesting to see there, we decided to call back and see when we could come by and sign the paperwork, and it was no later than 9:30 when we had the papers signed, the keys in our pockets, and a new home in Spain. I think my favorite thing about all this was that we could move out of the Hostal Bueno the next morning!

We're pretty well moved into the place now, but we signed on it on the 4th of September and moved in on the 5th, so we've had some time to get things in order. However, during the past 10 days we also had a 5-day trip to Madrid, where my Fulbright orientation took place, and where we met some really cool people that we're hoping to be able to visit in different parts of Spain while we're living here (and we've insisted that they all visit us in Mérida as well, what with the extra room and all). Madrid is a pretty amazing city, and we're fortunate to have a good friend in Madrid/Cincinnati who was able to show us around some and feed us at his home on the north side of the city. I can't go into all the Madrid excitement here, I'll do that some other time, but I strongly encourage anyone to visit there sometime, it's a great place to visit for any length of time, as near as I can tell. There, my foot's still fine after all this typing and all the apartment searching, so I can't really say much more about it.

Things That Aren't The Way I Want Them

This started out as just a quick update on my foot and the healing process. So here goes: my foot is probably at 100%, because there's no pain, no annoyance, no discomfort whatsoever. The scar feels kind of weird, but I feel perfectly comfortable getting stomped by 250 pound guys in indoor soccer games on occasion, so it must be all better. I think I might have waited about a month longer before returning to my normal running and kicking activities (I think it was 2 months after the operation that I started some more strenuous activities, like running), but otherwise I feel that the surgery and recovery processes were a complete success.

Now for a brief update on my life over the past 4 months. Sometimes, so I have been told, it's healthy (they probably said "therapeutic" or something like that) to express some of one's frustrations, lest they all bottle up inside and come bubbling out at just the wrong moment. Maybe the opposite is also true. I'm not so sure, but being such a positive person has often caused me to explode in torrents of well-wishings and exuberance. Naturally, one can imagine how this might be a problem in many circumstances, so it's imperative that I work to avoid such embarrassing outbursts in the future.

Since I don't really have an exciting list of complaints and frustrations, my faithful internet readers must assume that I have been bottling in everything since my last post, way back in December. I don't have a list of celebrations and rejoicings either. I suppose it depends entirely on how we look at things, but my personal perspective casts a rather negative light on the past few months. Ironically, having introduced the following with that tone, I will start with a very brief description of the most meaningful and amazing experiences of my life, my brother's Brazilian wedding. The members of my immediate family were all able to be present in Brazil in late December to share in the celebration of my brother's wedding to his dream girl. Our family was so well received and hosted by our soon-to-be in-laws that I, for one, would have loved to stay much longer than the 9 days we had.

The wedding itself was in a smallish town in central Brazil, but we still managed to spend some time in Brasília and then in Rio de Janeiro. Our time in Rio was fantastic, I highly recommend a visit to anyone who is willing to take the extra precautions needed in a city that has it all. We returned from our great escape to Brazil just in time to really take advantage of the Chicago winter. I participated in a professional conference there, and we also got to spend some time with a couple of our closest friends while visiting the upper central midwest.

Having finally returned to Cincinnati, I discovered that I left one of my favorite pairs of shoes in Chicago--an excuse to go back, or at least to force Grant to try to visit us sometime! I also discovered that my dissertation had been stubbornly refusing to write itself while I was away, so I was forced to drive myself back into the writing rut. I spent a brief period (merely a month or so) in Spain, adding to my databases full of pottery and small finds, and conveniently missing out on some of the worst weather Cincinnati has seen in decades. Much to my dismay, however, I found myself quite sick for the weeks on either end of the trip, meaning that the enjoyment that one normally experiences upon visiting his home (that's still Portugal) and workplace (Mérida) was largely absent. Actually, despite this unpleasantness, I was able to spend some time with some old friends and colleagues, and because my dad was currently in Angola, I had some good one-on-one time with my mom.

This last fact brings me to a subject I'd really rather not discuss, but I will anyway. My mom was diagnosed last week with tongue cancer. Usually people blame this particular sort of cancer on tobacco or alcohol use, but my mom hasn't really taken advantage of those particular vices in life, so we are left to speculate as to the actual cause of her condition. Her medical team has removed the cancerous lump from her tongue, but today she underwent a second surgical intervention in order to remove a safety margin around the affected area. I don't know anything about these processes, but there is also the possibility that she will get to have some radiation treatments after the operations are all completed, if any of the lab reports come back positive.

Most of my family is probably still more in shock than anything else. It's not every day that you get the news that your mom's going to have a substantial portion of anything removed. I don't expect that the operations will significantly improve my mom's Portuguese, but an adversely affected accent is probably not a major concern, given the alternatives in this situation. I am told that today's procedure went very well, with no complications or problems, and this is the best we could have expected from all we have been told up to this point, so I'm quite relieved. I'll probably be updating this new topic from time to time, but I don't expect to change the title of my blog.