I think my clock is broken, because it's been Tooth Hurty all day

yeah, I love a good pun.  Sorry.

So, a few years back...long before Sandy, when I was still dealing with poor Jamie (my VW Jetta?), I had an abscessed tooth.  You may remember my problems trying to see a dentist and the subsequent root canal, which I chronicled here and here.  The dentist who ended up finishing my root canal, and fitting the crown, was kind of shady.  Well, it wasn't so much the dentist who was shady, but the dental group on a whole.  I'm sure many of you have been through it.  They take some X-rays, then confer to see what insurance will cover, then come back to you with a laundry list of things you absolutely MUST have done or your teeth will fall out, you'll become a pariah, and you'll never be happy again.  Well, I really needed the root canal, and the crown, and I needed a cleaning, so I agreed to those things for some exorbitant price and never went back.  In fact, I never finished the cleaning because they wanted to do it in four separate visits at $175 each and I don't have that kind of money.  Well, roughly four months later, the crown, which they made in their offices and was supposed to be some wonderful porcelain something or other, broke.  I called them and told them, but their answer was "sure, we'll fix it.  For $1000" or however much a new crown was going to cost. Yes, I could have fought about it, gotten the insurance company involved, blown a gasket until they relented--I didn't.  Frankly, I was exhausted from dealing with Jamie and her slow and steady demise, and I just didn't have any fight left in me.  

The broken crown didn't really bother me so I forgot about it...until this week.  

It's a little hurty.  Okay, a lot hurty, but only really when I eat something that, you know, requires biting or chewing.  Yeah, I'm kind of screwed.

So, I spent a good deal of time researching new dentists, because the one that is on my insurance card (not the one mentioned above, but just as bad apparently) is no longer open for business. I Yelped and found that this whole upselling of stuff is rampant among dental groups these days.  I'm not talking teeth whitening or braces. I'm talking about trying to sell you on the more expensive filling materials by claiming they don't use amalgam anymore, or claiming you really need the deep cleaning because your gums have gone to pot, or scaring people (with no risk factors, mind you) into getting an oral cancer screening.  What happened to filling the damn cavity, cleaning the damn teeth, and leaving it at that?  

I think I found one.  It's highly rated on Yelp, takes my insurance, and is not in Ventura County.  I have a back-up dentist chosen just in case.  Stay tuned.

I got a package!

I won a contest on San Diego Momma's blog and then promptly forgot about it.  So, when I came home from work the other day and found a package on my front porch, I was excited and intrigued.

Fanscape? I didn't order anything from there.

I opened the box with trepidation, carefully slicing the top in case the contents were fragile or alive.  

A box of snacks!!

Ohhhhh, I remembered.  I won the Escape from Planet Earth contest which included snacks and $25 to see the movie.  As it was after work and I was peckish, I immediately dug into the snacks.  I know, I was supposed to sneak them into the movie.  Does is count if I was watching movies on Netflix?  

Who  can resist some classic Lay's and a Butterfinger? No one, that's who.

The $25 gift card arrived separately.  I am all set for a big night at the movies...or since movies are so darn expensive, a big matinee at the movies.  Thanks, Deb from San Diego Momma and the Weinstein Co.  

Oh, yeah, I'm just going to jump back into the whole blogging thing as if nothing ever happened.  What four month absence?  I don't know what you're talking about.  :)  It's good to be back.

I need an intervention

I have needs.  Knitting needs.  I have gifts to knit, and projects that must be started because they are wonderful and must be knit.  And, I may be a little ADD.  

I wanted to knit a sweater vest for my baby nephew (grand nephew? great nephew?  He's my niece's son)  I needed size 5 and 6 circulars to do so.  I knew I must have them somewhere in the great mess that is my knitting area.  

This is after I straightened it up a bit.

So, I began searching through every bag and collected all my needles. If they were stagnant on a project that hadn't seen daylight since the Clinton administration, they were ripped out of the stitches.  I was ruthless. I also started collecting yarn for the next Stitch n Bitch swap.  

I sat down, watched Midnight in Paris, and sorted all the DPNs by size, then labeled them and cataloged them for future reference.  Do I have Size 8s? Why yes, plenty.  And now I know exactly where to find them.  (I used old fortunes from fortune cookies as the wrappers in most cases).  

Then, I moved on to the circulars, where I found the necessary 5s and 6s, flagged them and put them all in plastic bags.  

I have far too many size 8s, 16"

The straight and DPNs were placed in separate wine bottle tubes (you know, like you use as gifts?), and the circulars where placed in a larger plastic bag.  Phew.  

All this and I managed to knit up about 6 inches of vest.  Oh, and I accidentally threw away some cable needles, but a bit of digging in the garbage saved the day. Double Phew! They were the Knit Picks Harmony ones.  

Now, I think I need shelves and boxes for the yarn.  It's a mess in there.

A message from Claudette and me

It's Election Day, and that always reminds me of that time my former roommate and I gave our County Treasurer a facelift.  I wrote about it here in 2008.  It was one of my favorite times and also one of my last hurrahs as a 20-something.  That is why today, when I Googled images of my buddy Claudette to give her the 2012 treatment, I was overwhelmingly proud to find this as the second result.

I finally feel like I'm living up to my family's reputation.

Ah, poor Claudette.  I'm sorry, ma'am. You've done a fine job as Monroe County's Treasurer.  But, just because I can and because it's important, here's a little message from Claudette on this Election Day 2012.

You know what you have to do. Vote, my friends. Vote your little hearts out.  

Internet, I love you.

I read this cartoon (see below)

Which lead me to search for images of Count Chocula, since we weren't allowed to eat those cereals growing up and I therefore have no frame of reference.  That search brought me to this...

...which is delightful.  I dare you to look at Count Chocula now and not think Liberace.  Who knew CC was such a dandy?  And to drive the point home, I found this...

...which looks like he's saying, "FAB-ulous!"  

Don't you hate this?

You know when you're the only woman in a meeting and you feel something, so you excuse yourself to go to the ladies room and discover that your period decided to show up. And since you weren't really expecting it you don't have any feminine hygiene products on you.  So, you fold up some toilet paper and tuck it in the crotch of your pantaloons and hope it holds for the rest of the meeting. And then the meeting stretches on forever, like an hour more.  And then, when you finally get a chance to run downstairs to the little store in the lobby, it's closed. So, you go to the restaurant whose owner also runs the little store and you ask her if the girl running the store will be back soon and she shouts at you from behind the counter, "Why? What you need?"  But you can't answer her back because you don't want to shout, "I got my lady problems and I don't have no pads, gurl."  So, you quietly say you can wait if she's coming back soon, but then you find out she's not coming back soon because one of the employees called in sick so she's covering the coffee stand in front of the building, which is also owned by the same people.  So, you go outside and talk to the daughter who's running the coffee stand and quietly whisper, "heeeey, I, um, need to get some Kotex." But she has to wait for the other girl to come back from break, so you wait a little while.  And then the nice daughter comes and saves you by opening the store for you to buy some waaaay overpriced pads, and double bags them so you're not embarrassed when you get back to the office.  You know that?   Yeah, I hate when that happens.

One Saturday at the car repair shop...

On Saturday, I spent the better part of the day waiting for my car to get new brakes and an oil change.  What follows is a series of texts between my friend and me concerning a somewhat handsome and nerdy guy who was also waiting around the waiting room.  I named him Beards Magee (because he had a beard). 

His knees were seriously knobby as all get out, but I couldn't snap a decent picture to illustrate this point.