What I learned in Boston and on the way home

These stem from my visit Monday to the opthamologist who repaired the area under my eye after surgery to remove a squamous cell cancer.

1: The area is healing nicely.

2: Despite the opinion of another eye doctor who I saw recently, my bottom eyelid is not drooping from the surgery. (Good news because my upper eyelids are droopy enough.

3: I go back in November (six months).

4. The medical assistant who checked my vision is a Mount Holyoke graduate whose husband is in the Air Force. They met after she and her friends had a midnight radio show that was popular among a group of guys at Westover Airforce Base in Chicopee. Ultimately the bunch of them got together. The medical assistant and one of servicemen started going out, and now they are happily married.

5: A bagel with cream cheese from the Finagle-A-Bagel near Government Center hits the spot after two hours in the doctors' office.

6. The Starbucks at Government Center is too hectic.

7. Jeffrey Eugenides' book "The Marriage Plot," which I read on the T going into and of downtown from Diane's house, gets better near the end.

8. Driving home on the Mass Pike, I still get tired right around Worcester.

9. Despite my snobby suspicions, the coffee at the McCafe on the turnpike isn't bad. (It's Newman's Own.)

10. It's nice to get home and find your son is cooking dinner.