Archive for September, 2018

Sep 26 2018

Fair

Published by under Country Life

But it hasn’t been all dental nightmares. At least, not entirely.

Megan and I intended to meet Erica and Jessica at the Fair that Friday, but fate and dental issues had other plans. That was the day I went to the walk in clinic, and by the time I was seen and picked up my second prescription for antibiotics, I was done for the day. Unfortunately, it was likely the last Fair we will share with Erica and Jessica, since they are planning to move to beautiful British Columbia in the very near future. Even more unfortunately for Erica, she spent the last Fair parrying questions and comments about her mother’s sudden and tragic death at the location of her memorial service. No wonder she is ready to get the hell out of here.

By Saturday afternoon, however, I had recovered sufficiently to venture to the Fair. Megan found yet another great parking space, and it was a delightful and humane 73 degrees instead of blasting us with oven-like heat as it usually does on Fair day. I wore my pink straw Fair hat just in case, though.

Once we were through the gates, we were immediately taken with some lovely outdoor lanterns. I wasted no time in buying one, even though I had to carry it around, purse-like, for the rest of the day. I’m looking forward to installing it outside next summer.

After we equipped ourselves with delicious, icy tropical drinks, complete with little paper umbrellas, we strolled among the farm animals, enjoying the antics of the goats and sheep in the hay-scented cool of the barn before heading over to admire the bunnies and exotic birds.

This guy was the coolest bunny at the Fair. Or maybe anywhere:

This turkey was quite magnificent:

And I love the curly plumage on this lovely pigeon:

The theme for the flower displays this year was love. So of course there had to be a kissing booth:

Plant one here! 🙂

Though the biggest pumpkins were a bit on the modest side:

I was delighted by the potato pigs and egg chickens:

So cute!

There are always such interesting ways of arranging flowers. I would never have thought of putting carrots in a vase like this:

So simple, but yet so striking.

All in all, it was a great time. Spending time with my sister at our little country fair is one of the great joys in life.

A YEAR AGO: A lovely evening at Rio’s place with dear friends.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A memorable and magical visit to the amazing B. Bryan Preserve.

TEN YEARS AGO: The ever-amazing Jessica was amazing even at the age of five. Some things never change.

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Sep 22 2018

Painful

Published by under Bullshit,Calamity Suzy

When we last saw our heroine, the right side of her formerly lovely face was swollen up like the Great Pumpkin. She figured she should give the antibiotics time to work, and the swelling would go away. As so often happens, she was wrong about this, because the swelling mutated overnight and started creeping under her lip.

Of course, it was a Friday, and rather than the prospect of the weekend being a happy one, it was a frightening abyss of no available dental services other than the dreaded and expensive ER. Dr. Megan nagged her resistant sister into going to the walk-in clinic at the clinic where she works. The doctor examined her with that fascinated look on his face that doctors get when something is really horrible*, and prescribed another antibiotic to join the first one. This is not the kind of cocktail our heroine enjoys. He left the room with the cheery news that the itchy indignity of a yeast infection would almost certainly ensue**.

Hoping that the pharmacy staff didn’t suspect her of having a particularly resistant STD, our heroine picked up the second antibiotic. The pharmacist suggested applying ibuprophen instead of ineffective opiates to attempt to dull the pain, and this suggestion was actually helpful in dealing with the astronomical pain, though taking 2 antibiotics and 4 ibuprophen every 6 hours is suboptimal and not without its unpleasant side effects.

On Thursday, the dreaded endodontist appointment rolled around, the fifth dental appointment in two weeks, a personal best (or worst). It was 96 degrees in the County seat, versus 63 at the coast. The endodontist’s office was quite fancy, and staffed by girls with giant false eyelashes***. Sadly for our heroine, the Valium she had taken did nothing to allay her quite reasonable fears. It was hard not to cry as the endodontist spoke cheerfully about opening up the tooth. Or the fact that the procedure would take about an hour or more.

Despite the application of nitrous oxide, our heroine remained inconsolable as the operation proceeded, with its alarming noises, smells, and the sight of smoke rising before her horrified eyes****. That horror, however, was nothing compared to the bill. The Eyelashed One expected nearly $700 to be paid immediately. She expressed surprise that no one had informed our hapless heroine of this term and condition.

The solution was to get Care Credit. The charges would go on that account and have to be paid off within a designated number of months in order to avoid the 30% interest that would ensue. Other unwelcome news was that a crown was required to cover the root canaled tooth, and I seem to remember from the last time that this was in the Beverly Hills neighborhood of $900. Oh, and this is WITH dental insurance. Though mathiness is not our heroine’s strong suit, this means that she has to come up with around $1,500 while spending half of her monthly pittance on rent. It’s hard to see how this is economically feasible. It is not surprising that the long withheld tears were finally indulged in once the sanctuary of the car was reached.

There are still at least two dental appointments to come, so it’s not over yet.

*I will never forget visiting my ex-boyfriend, who was hospitalized for a raging case of meningitis, and going up in the elevator with two doctors. One said to the other, “You have to check out that meningitis case. All the classic symptoms! You gotta see it before he dies.” He didn’t die, but it was close.

**So far, the plague has not descended. That’s something to be thankful for.

***What is it with dental assistants and their false eyelashes? They are sported to a cartoonish degree among the dental assistants and receptionists where I work, too.

****When I mentioned this to Megan, she said, “Yeah…I didn’t want to tell you about that.”

A YEAR AGO: At the County Fair with our beloved Ben.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A triumphant Fair for Erica.

TEN YEARS AGO: The thrill of the sheepdog trials at the County Fair.

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Sep 14 2018

Ouch

Published by under Calamity Suzy

I’m coming to you from Dental Hell. I’ve been here since Sunday, and I really don’t recommend it. Stay away if you can!

On Sunday, the right, lower side of my mouth was bothering me. This was the site of the last filling, which took an hour and a half to complete, and which I thought was bad until I arrived in Dental Hell. The filling was a mere preview. I was up all night with the incredible pain on Sunday night. On Monday, I went to the dentist. They did x-rays and various tests. Although they could see that a different filling had popped off, they could also see that it wasn’t infected and was innocent of decay. They opined that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep and that’s what caused the filling to pop off.

They made an appointment for me to get impressions done for the indignity of a mouth guard, an unwelcome return to the retainer of my youth, and another for the filling. I began to wonder if they were going to charge me rent on top of my ever-escalating dental bills. They also gave me a prescription for painkillers, even though one of my recent life lessons was that despite their name, they do not in fact kill pain.

By the time the first appointment rolled around on Wednesday, it was clear that something was really wrong. Not only did the pain laugh merrily at the application of its would-be assassins, it had escalated to the point of being totally unbearable. If I ever wondered about my ability to stand up to torture, I no longer do. The right side of my face is swollen up like a seasonable Halloween pumpkin. Trick or treat!

I kept the appointment for the impressions. It is proof of how dreadful the pain was that the gagging and grossosity of the impressions process just seemed like nothing compared to the agony of what I now know is an infected tooth. The dentist prescribed a strong antibiotic and is going to refer me to an endodontist, who is of course located in the County Seat, which is a three hour round trip drive. So I get to look forward to doing that at least twice, once for a consultation and once for – gulp! – a root canal. If I weren’t in so much pain, I’d be horrified.

A YEAR AGO: Being a cat servant can be challenging.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Giving away dear Schatzi’s things. I still miss her.

TEN YEARS AGO: Ah, the strange dreams swirling through my head!

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Sep 10 2018

Progress

Published by under Cats

There were some breakthroughs in Kitty World this weekend.

First of all, they were all on the bed at the same time on Sunday morning:

On the weekends, I like to take my laptop back to bed with my coffee, and the cats decided to join me. Of course, they only do this kind of cute thing when the bed isn’t made. During this temporary Sabbath détente, Dodge gave Clyde a bath. Well, he licked Clyde’s neck about three times and Clyde let him. Roscoe used to do this, and I always found it endearing. I wonder if Clyde was reminded of his long-lost brother or if cats just don’t think like that.

Lately I have been wondering what Clyde is thinking more than usual. A couple of weeks ago, a guy with a big, noisy truck came to take away scrap metal at Megan and Rob’s. It definitely made a racket, in addition to breaking the (old, disused, and graffiti-covered) water tower at the turn off to their house along with a couple of trees here and there.

Clyde was out playing at the time, and hours later, had not come home. Needless to say, I was panicking as darkness fell. I put on the outside lights and kept calling him, even though he knows perfectly well where his house is and calling him makes no difference. He showed up around 9:30, to my immense relief.

Ever since then, he has been pretty much uninterested in going outside. I am keeping Dodge in while he gets used to his new home*, but Audrey is being let in and out by doorman services. Clyde goes out and either turns right around and comes back in, or comes back in about 10 minutes later. He is hanging out in his clubhouse a lot (aka the storage space over the bathroom), but otherwise seems normal. I’d love to know if it’s because of the truck trauma or if he is trying to make a point of establishing his territory now that Dodge is in it. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

Whatever the reason, I think they were playing yesterday, chasing each other around the house. No growling, hissing, or spitting involved. Audrey does still growl at Dodge, but interestingly, he simply sits there peacefully and gazes at her with his big blue eyes. He doesn’t hiss or growl, but he doesn’t back down, either.

Dodge also learned how to use the cat door which separates the house from the studio/cat cafeteria/cat salle de bains. I’m pretty sure he had never seen one before and he definitely seemed to find it weird, but he figured it out. Such a clever boy! It seems the vet was right about him being smart and curious.

*This is a whole new worry: how and when to introduce Dodge to the Wide World. He is used to living on the streets in town, not in the woods. Part of me wishes I could just keep him in forever.

A YEAR AGO: A lovely evening at a historic inn, both past and present.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Nothing like having a subpoena home delivered. I’d rather have pizza, thanks.

TEN YEARS AGO: At the gym in unsuitable footwear. And on a stranger’s lap.

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Sep 06 2018

Updates

Published by under Cats,Family,Friends,Memories

I took a couple of days off around the Labor Day weekend, and I am pleased to announce that nothing horrible happened for a change. Faithful readers may remember that when I took time off last Labor Day, it was about 5,000 degrees every day, and when I went to Eureka over the Christmas holidays to meet up with friends, I got the Flu from Hell.

So I was a little worried about what might happen on this long weekend – being a worrier – but nothing untoward occurred, unless you count going through the two blanket chests from Megan’s house which supposedly contained Depression glass, but in fact contained 100% junk. It reminded me of when my brother and I cleaned out Mom’s storage in Santa Rosa and found that it was mostly junk, including a phone book from 1982 and an empty answering machine box. It did not make me happy to know I had been paying for years to store Mom’s crap collection.

I have admit that I was hoping for some of Nana’s square, emerald green plates and dishes, like these:

And in my heart of hearts, I was also hoping that maybe, just maybe, there might be a couple of the miniature creamers decorated with rabbits which we used to pour milk on our cereal at her house. Even though I never use milk. Such is the triumph of nostalgia over practicality.

Megan and Rob are out of their house and into their new home. It’s still hard to believe that they aren’t just down the secret path through the woods and huckleberry bushes. They are now in the throes of figuring out where to put everything. Unpacking is almost as much fun as packing when it comes to moving.

Our friend Carrie came up for the weekend with her daughter Miranda. It had been a whole year since they were here last! Erica and Jessica came by for a BBQ one night, full of plans to sell their property and move to British Columbia as soon as possible. I will miss them if they do move. At least we’ll see them at the Fair in a couple of weeks.

Clyde and Audrey are coexisting with Dodge. I think Dodge would like to play with Clyde, but it’s going to take a little more time. Audrey will continue to disdain the interloper like she does everyone else. As long as there are no fights and the older cats are happy, I’m happy.

Included in the adoption fee was a free exam at any local vet, so Dodge got the once-over from Dr. Susan*, Dr. Karen’s partner. She said in 30 years of veterinary practice, she had never seen a cat with markings like Dodge’s. She believes he is a pure-bred Siamese, and that he is very smart and curious. Here he is, exploring his new home:

She was also impressed by how friendly and affectionate he is. So other than needing his fur to grow back and to put on weight, he is in good shape. She agrees that he is around two years old. I wonder what his story is. I guess we’ll never know, but it has a happy ending.

*He’s lucky he didn’t end up being a boy named Sue, considering all the Susans in his life: the one that found him, the one that adopted him, and the one who gave him a check-up.

A YEAR AGO: Having a great time with family and friends.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Lounging in the fabulous spa in Reno.

TEN YEARS AGO: Oh, Ray. I think I miss you most of all. In fact, you may be the only thing I miss about Oaktown.

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