Two years of marriage for hubs and me!
Astonishing that he has managed to put up with me for this long, eh?
Archive for June, 2008
Deep breath in.
Long breath out.
whoosh!
It’s been something of an insane week, I must say. My article was turned in—ahead of deadline, might I add—despite my slight trauma on Monday. What trauma, you ask? Two words:
The dentist.
While I acknowledge that going to the dentist is quite necessary and should be nothing more than a minor inconvenience for an adult, I also have to admit that I had to be forced into going. See, the last time I went to the dentist, it bloody hurt. And I mean the “bloody” in the most literate sense possible. All for a cleaning. A cleaning! This was a few weeks before I had to have all four of my wisdom teeth cut from the tender flesh of my gums, so there for a good month and a half, I was in severe pain. Thanks to dentists.
So, I think my reluctance for a repeat performance should be pretty understandable.
Nevertheless, I was coerced into making and keeping a torture session dental appointment this past Monday. I’ve had a bit of an achy mouth lately, so I figured a few pokes with the pointy metally scrapey thing, some disapproving clucks of the tongue, and perhaps a stern lecture on fluoride pastes and proper “up and down circular motion” brushing techniques. An hour of having latex-covered fingers poking in my mouth, trying to answer questions without moving my tongue in odd and perverse-looking ways. Why do they always ask questions when their hands are elbow-deep in our mouths? Anyway. Despite pepping myself into a confident saunter as I strode into the office, things did not turn out as I’d hoped.
Oh no.
Let’s talk removal of an old filling because the dentist who put it in almost two decades ago blessed me with an overly-large filling that was causing problems for the tooth surrounding the silver filling. One good thing, the dental hygienist was a quick-draw with the nitrous oxide mask, so I did get to float on the ceiling for quite some time. Unfortunately, they were extremely busy that day, so after the dentist had happily removed the offending filling, I was left with a remote control, a pat on the head, and a “Feel free to change the channel of your TV while you wait. It won’t be long,” for almost 45 minutes.
I have to admit one thing: Blue Lagoon is pretty darn entertaining when you have enough nitrous oxide in your system to power an illegal street race.
The bad side, however, was that Novocaine injections don’t stay effective after such a long wait. So when the dentist (who, while I may consider him the Torture Master—and his vast collection of swords and other lethal blades hanging on the walls in the office’s hallways lends credence to that title—is actually a very nice, very soothing, very funny gentleman) came back with the announcement, “We’re drilling your tooth down and giving you a crown!” and commenced drilling, I literally came up off the chair, clutched the armrests, and instinctively tried to stick my tongue between my tooth and that wildly whirring instrument of dental destruction. I don’t recommend that, by the way.
At this point, the NOS-happy assistant blurted, “She’s hurting!” and the menacing whir ceased. “I thought that might happen,” said Dr. FeelPain. In went another shot. Little waiting, with him trying to cajole me off the ceiling and back into the chair (I swear, I felt like a cat being threatened with a fire hose at this point), and then back to drilling.
Thank goodness for the assistant. She cranked up my NOS a bit, bless her.
Over three hours after I entered the office building, I staggered back to my car a few hundred dollars lighter (thank you, insurance . . . otherwise I would have been almost a grand lighter!) with a very ghetto-fabulous silver crown on my back tooth, and an appointment to be back in two weeks for the permanent enamel crown to be applied.
Three hours after that, I stopped looking like a stroke victim as the right side of my face began to regain feeling and capability of motion. I still looked like a chipmunk planning a six-month hideout, though. And that lovely “goosed in the face with a steel-toed boot” sensation didn’t dissipate until yesterday.
Oh! And lucky me, I get to go back!
Woo.
Hoo.
I just counted my pens.
87.
I have 87 pens.
Didn’t even count the pencils.
I really should buy stock in Bic.
I’ve been told that I seem to attract the weirdest people in the world. I don’t necessarily think that’s true, but I do tend to come across the most unusual folks and have the oddest encounters of anyone I know.
Here’s one for you all. A work of total non-fiction, coming up!
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I was at Books-A-Million, buying a few writing magazines. Ventured to the check-out line, and waited for the lady in front of me to finish up. Early to mid-forties, rather dumpy, very bland clothes, she was buying a copy of “The Secret,” like all good lower-middle-class American house fraus are supposed to do nowadays. The cashier fellow asks for her B-A-M card, and she says she doesn’t have it with her. So she gives her phone number, he pulls it up in the computer, and says, “Are you Susan Burchess?” (or something like that last name)
She says, “Yes. Well, I was, but I’ve changed my name.”
He says, “No problem, I can change that in the computer right now. What’s your new last name?”
She replies, “No, I changed my first and last names. Both of them.”
He just nods, and waits for her to tell him her new name.
She says, “Yellow.”
He asks, “Huh?”
She repeats, “Yellow.”
Looking very confused and as if he can feel his leg being tugged upon, the guy says, “Yeah, sure, and is your first name Canary?” with a grin and a chuckle, thinking she’s joking.
She pulls out her driver’s license, shows it to him, and says, “My new name is Yellow.”
Sure enough.
Yellow.
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I suppose if Prince can do it, why can’t Yellow?
Oy.
A friend of mine sent me this story, and it has absolutely infuriated me:
‘Pro-Life’ Drugstores Market Beliefs
When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.
That’s because the drugstore, located in a typical shopping plaza featuring a Ruby Tuesday, a Papa John’s and a Kmart, will be a “pro-life pharmacy” — meaning, among other things, that it will eschew all contraceptives.
The pharmacy is one of a small but growing number of drugstores around the country that have become the latest front in a conflict pitting patients’ rights against those of health-care workers who assert a “right of conscience” to refuse to provide care or products that they find objectionable.
“The United States was founded on the idea that people act on their conscience — that they have a sense of right and wrong and do what they think is right and moral,” said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Society. “Every pharmacist has the right to do the same thing,” Brejcha said.
“I’m very, very troubled by this,” said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women’s Law Center, a Washington advocacy group. “Contraception is essential for women’s health. A pharmacy like this is walling off an essential part of health care. That could endanger women’s health.”
(full article here)
Now, I am ALL FOR pharmacists having the freedom to open their own “thou shalt not do whatever we don’t like” pharmacies, if only because of my loathing for censorship and a belief in freedom of choice.
What I cannot fathom is the mentality behind the statement made above, that “all pharmacists have the right to do the same.”
Pharmacists in Wal-Mart have the “right” to tell a customer that they will not fill their medication, no matter how many times it has been prescribed, if that individual pharmacist has a theological objection. We’re not just talking morning-after pills here, folks, they can refuse to fill scripts for anything from birth control to acne medications such as Accutane (due to its high probability of birth defects and a mandatory birth-control-use clause.)
Why do holier-than-thou Bible-thumpers go into medicine? To play God, naturally . . . even though their most vehement argument against contraceptives and the like centers around people using medication to play God themselves. You know, because if God wants you to get pregnant, by golly you should. No matter what!
Just ask the Duggars.
It simply pushes me past my boiling point when I read yet another story about a person in power using their personal religious beliefs to control the lives of others. The phrase “separation of church and state” hasn’t held water, holy or not, for many moons now. When are we going to begin insisting that those pesky little pieces of paper called the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, be upheld?
If I ever go to a priest for migraine medication or birth control pills, then I’ll deserve the religious lecture I’d likely receive. Until that day comes, keep the church out of my medicine cabinet, will you?
When they outsmarted this guy:
“I did it, I did it, oh yeah yeah yeah!”
Yay!
Did the interview today. Lo and behold, it was actually fun. The fellow I spoke with is an incredibly nice guy, even though he isn’t the one I remembered from our old gym. The one I remembered couldn’t be there, as they had some business something-or-other pop up.
So, whew.
Maybe I can get over this fear of interviewing by, oh I don’t know, actually doing more interviews? hehe . . . baby steps, folks. Baby steps.
I have discovered that I am a silly pants.
All the hesitation about calling to schedule the interviews I need, and it turns out I once taught yoga to the fellows I’m interviewing! So he got a bit of a laugh at my “professional” persona. hehehe
Today is vet day for the puppers. He’s not sick, but he needs a check-up for his bladder condition, his annual worms test, and to hopefully be given something that will make his skin less itchy. Poor little guy is constantly gnawing at his leg, because it’s red, inflamed, and I presume itchy as all get-out.
Poor lil’ tyke.
So, I think it’s high time I stop insisting on something witty, funny, or even remotely interesting to pop into my head before I’ll post here.
Let’s face it, I’m just not that intriguing at all times. Maybe I shouldn’t confess to that, but I figure you’ve figured it out by now, anyway 
Today has been spent in a welter of domesticated scut work. Laundry, grocery shopping, and pet-tending. Fun fun fun! Luckily, I did get more work on my upcoming article completed, so that was a touch of productivity. It’s really coming along well, I’m just waiting on my scheduled interviews for a few professional quotes and commentaries, and it’ll be time for final editing, smoothing rough edges, and getting the sidebar information put together.
*pant*
I’m here, I am! I’ve not disappeared into the ether just yet.
If only I could grab a few hours of sleep, I think my head might just spin around into its proper position, so that I may continue forward.
For now, however, I am thoroughly enjoying my new musical crush, Jonathan Coulton. My buddy-buddy Sarah-the-painterbug posted “Skullcrush Mountain” on her art blog, I watched it, and immediately became enthralled with the giggles this fellow brought out of me
Aaaaand, since my brain is a wee bit mushy right now (a writer with no coffee in the house! ahhh nooo!) it seems appropriate that this tiddlebit of music is now stuck in my mush. I mean head. Yup.