General ickiness

Y'all remember how I feel about going to the dentist.

Monday and Tuesday, my jaw was bothering me. Not too bad, just sore. Last night? Much worse. After brushing and flossing my teeth I noticed my gum looking all swelled up behind my left wisdom tooth, so I called the dentist's office. They got me in at 8:30 today - after an xray and some poking around it was determined I had a popcorn hull stuck between the tooth and my cheek (your gum doesn't really go behind your wisdom teeth) and it got infected. So eww, now I have this cheek/gum thing, Keflex fercryingoutloud, and some horrid swish flavored-peroxide stuff - and believe me when I say it's not fooling anybody. This kind of thing doesn't go away by itself, and dentist said it was lucky I came when I did. So ow. (PS, i *really* like the new dentist.)

My face is kinda swelled up and it just hurts. So I was going to blog some more, but I am just not up to it. I hope y'all have a really good weekend.

Dental madness

Certain things come to mind when I am sitting in the chair at the dentist.

When I was a kid growing up in Northern Michigan, one of the things that bound us all together was a program called Swish. Maybe you had it too? Anyway, once a week important-looking people came into our classrooms with trays of small cups filled with a vile liquid I can still smell if I think about it. We had to swish it around in our mouths while a timekeeper made sure we weren't skimping. Y'all know - it was flouride. I don't think city water was flouridated up there in the 70s, and we had to do that all through grade school.

The next thing that comes to mind is my clean, clean robot dentist, who never had any smell except clean and who always freaked me out.

Third on the list is the stitches I had to get after the abovementioned incident, and how the Novocaine wore off in the grocery store and I kept following mom around and saying stuff like "I can't feel my lips yet, but there's my tongue!" and I think everybody in the store generally felt sorry for her.

Fourth up is how I used to go to a dentist who had a mild form of Tourette's, and I always wonder why I let him drill on my teeth when he had such a tic. But he never twitched while he worked on me. (I am not making this up.)

That makes me think about how I'm sitting in this chair and I don't even know who's going to look at my teeth because my dentist was killed recently in a car accident. Turns out the new guy is super friendly and a kidder. The hygenist, referring to the fact that I have all my teeth including my wisdom teeth and no cavities, says "You're going to LOVE her teeth." I clamp my hands in front of my face and giggle. He says, "They must be that good, huh? Let's see!" Still hiding my teeth I blurt out "I file my teeth into points!" and he makes some joke about National Geographic specials and then everything was okay. But it was dodgy.

Last, the story I finally tell my hygenist while she's picking a toothpaste is how they always did the flouride trays at the dentist when I was a kid, and I always swallowed it and threw up in the dentist's office. My clean dentist! No wonder he was so clean. I vividly remember running for the toilet and hoping I'd make it. You know what she said? That to this day when she smells "dentist office" she thinks that vomit-cleaner-upper stuff is part of the smell. Because so many kids get sick at the dentist.

All that was happening when she sprayed air on my teeth to check for something (sensitivity, maybe) and I jolted out of my chair and heard her say "well, that's not good." I don't know if it's the whitening toothpaste I use or what, but something made my teeth really touchy. So I have to use prescription toothpaste for two weeks and hope that clears it up.

At least I didn't have to get flouride. Four more rows on Clapotis complete. And yes, I'll be turning the light out when I leave. I am fully aware that I am the last person in North America to complete this scarf.

FO coming soon

I finished the knitting part of the Fetching mitts last night - thankfully the yarn shop had another ball. I have a couple of ends to weave in and a hole or two to plug in the thumb area and then it's photo shoot time.

The Flower Basket shawl is probably never going to get finished, but it for sure won't be done by my stepmother's birthday. I talked to her about it last night, and she's fine with it but requested a hat, something warm and thick she can pull down and fold up over her ears. (Think I'll go yarn shopping.)

My dentist got killed. He and his wife were driving and they got into a bad wreck and died the Friday before Thanksgiving. I will miss his Hawaiian shirts and jeans and bright blue eyes and cheery personality. He did the best job of anyone at getting my bonded teeth to bite properly, and he was all around a nice man. I'm very sorry for what happened to them. Because until I started going there, I was really nervous at the dentist. So nervous that there have been whole, eight-year-long stretches of my life with no dental appointments at all. (He always said "you have such nice teeth. We rarely see people with all their teeth." - because I have all my wisdom teeth and no cavities.)

Rest well, Dr Graham.

Three Little Monkeys

Ok, the time has come for A Story, in which you find out what a funny little kid I was. I never got to go to Disneyland as a kid, but once my aunt Carol brought me back a t-shirt and some Mickey Mouse ears. Y'all. I wore that t-shirt to tatters, and often was seen riding my Big Wheel around the neighborhood in my black plastic Mouseketeer ears (Y'all know the ones - remember that creepy black fabric that made up the hat itself? I still get nightmares).

So anyway. When I was little I went by Jenny, my middle name was Lynn and my best friend was Jennifer Jo, so we were Jenny Lynn and Jennifer Jo. I had crazy Napoleon Dynamite hair and a ratty Mickey Mouse t-shirt and she had smooth blond hair like my plastic Barbie and a ratty pink nightgown. (I called it a nightground.) We were four. We used to get into all manner of mischief, like Staying Up Past Midnight To Watch Planet Of The Apes! Also Eating Doritos! Also Jumping! On The Bed! Our moms were friends - they would stay in the living room talking and we could do whatever we wanted. The possibilities were endless.

So Jennifer Jo had this bed. It was metal with all kinds of scrolly things in the headboard and the metal scrollies were about an eighth of an inch thick. It was painted white, and there was a center silver medallion shaped like a flower that held them all together. The bed was angled into a corner of her bedroom and the bedspread was pink, because y'all, it was the 70s, and pink was for princesses. And that bed was mighty good for jumping.

And we loved jumping on that bed. We jumped and jumped and shouted THREE LITTLE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED, ONE FELL OFF AND BROKE HIS HEAD. TOOK HIM TO THE DOCTOR AND THE DOCTOR SAID, THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR JUMPING ON THE B-

And wouldn't you know it, I fell. Pristine, perfect, tiny Jennifer Jo did not fall. But me, I went Napoleon-hair-over-Mickey-Mouse onto the headboard and smashed my lip into the scrolly things. Fortunately or unfortunately, our Moms were Nurses. (Which meant no fooling them on days I wanted to stay home from school. You could only stay home if you had a Fever.) Once our Moms determined I wasn't going to die and got me some ice, they cleaned up the bedspread and we got a talking to and I forgot all about it.

Until I was seven and my front tooth started coming in crooked. Mom took me to the dentist, who always breathed loudly through his nose and smelled too clean for any human, and who scared me to death because he was always giving me flouride in those vile little tooth trays and I swallowed it and barfed all over his office. Going to the dentist was very traumatic for me, and I remember him leaaaaning in to tell me and smelling all soapy they were going to CUT MY MOUTH OPEN and take out the little flap of skin (frenulum) that held my lip to my gum. I was petrified, but after a little gas and a lot of Novocaine it turned out to be one of my better dental visits, and no puking! I had three stitches and a reminder from my Aunt Ester to push on the crooked tooth so it would remember to grow straight (it did). I don't know whatever happened to the bedspread or Jennifer Jo. And if I don't remember to hold my lip down my smile is gummy. Occasionally I have dreams where my front teeth fall out (in one I replaced them with Lee Press-On Nails.)

Now I have a 13-month old niecie who is just learning to stand properly and is very wobbly. She likes to lean on the dog a lot, and the other day she was leaning on him and he walked away, and she fell like a ragdoll and hit her head smack on her daddy's computer chair and y'all. Busted her frenulum just like her auntie. The doctor doesn't think it will be any trouble. But I hope her hair grows in big and curly and I'm going to get her a Mickey Mouse t-shirt.

Because, DORITOS. And Planet of the Apes! Charlton HESTON!!!