Eight-thirty in the morning, bathed, dressed, trussed and tired. The sun is glowing behind the cloud cover and it isn't raining, although they're saying something about another storm due on Thursday. The Napa river overran its banks last night, so I think I'll walk down the way and get a paper. I used to live in Napa, once lived in a house that overlooked a portion of Silverado Trail that became a giant lake during the flood of 1987. Or '86. Or '88. Or whenever. The area not far from where they've since built the big Mondavi Copia Wine and Culinary Center. Which means not a nonce, come to think of it.

Ten-thirty now, paper in hand. Picture of a guy in the Bay Area section with a flooded garage in Napa. So much for local tragedy.

Two in the afternoon. I've just returned from the Grand Lake theater district, a longer walk, a conversation in a computer store about buying a box for my firewall, an ice cream cone and a small gift for the nephew. The paperwork they gave me after the operation said the incontinence would go away in the following order: First, lying down (as in sleeping), second, walking and third, sitting. The lying down happened almost immediately. I'm not sure I had any trouble keeping dry that first night. Walking was a problem, although sitting pretty much took care of itself within the first few days. Walking for twenty or thirty minutes just now was an adventure, but an adventure in the sense of skittering along the abyss without an accompanying accident.

I think I could go into work now and survive, although I'd be pretty easily tired. My compatriots have said they've planned to keep me at a desk, no running around, no pushing for the first few weeks after I return. Nice of them, but I think coming back up to speed will go quickly, but no more quickly than it should. I'm not embarrassed about asking for a time out if I need it. They know me well enough to understand I wouldn't ask if I weren't hurting.

Four in the afternoon. Back from having my hair cut. A successful foray into the downtown. Time now to kick back and recover.