⚕ Regarding my health: I got some good news from my oral surgeon yesterday. Although I have tremendous bone loss in my mandible from the keratocystic odontogenic tumor, the panoramic x‐ray taken yesterday showed the first signs of slow but significant bone tissue regrowth compared to the image from three months ago. At that rate, he estimated another six months to a year before the final surgery to cut out the tumor. (The bad news is that he’s moving on to another institution and I’ll be assigned another surgeon in the new year.)

👅 Regarding language: Two other surgeons, both Jewish, were also looking at the radiographs, and the older one used a Yiddish expression that the handsome younger one, bedecked in a kippa, did not understand. (Unfortunately, I missed the expression itself, only paying attention once I heard them discussing the Yiddish language.)

Also, I don’t associate the neighborhood with Semitic languages but rather with Indo‐European and Sino‐Tibetan ones; however, another attractive Semitic man was talking emphatically in Arabic into his mobile telephone on 82^nd Street and then a couple sitting next to me in the hospital waiting room were talking in Arabic as well.