Back to the grind

Well, I got a new phone late last week after dropping mine in the goldfish container pond. What a hassle! None of my contacts (or photos, which hurts) were recoverable from the drowned phone, no matter what the nice young guy at the Verizon store tried. On the bright side, I was still able to trade it in for a good discount on the new phone. Gregg went ahead and traded his in for a new model, too. He'd been having charging issues for a while, so when I killed mine off it seemed like the logical time to replace them both. It seems like a luxury to have the very latest model of our phones. We're not given to buying stuff for ourselves just purely for enjoyment. 

I had a dental appointment yesterday. I need a crown (and possibly a root canal) asap. I knew it was coming, but I still hate it. I had to put down a hefty deposit to book the initial appointment, which will be November 3 (if the tooth doesn't fall apart before then). It had a huge filling from long ago that got decay underneath, and while it doesn't hurt, apparently it's pretty fragile. Sigh. I've had so much dental work, and it never seems to last long term, no matter what. The woman cleaning my teeth made me feel so much worse when she informed me that even zero sugar sodas (the only kind I drink) have citric acid that wears away tooth enamel and contributes to cavities and decay. Sugar, of course, is a non-starter. And then it was with the high-fluoride toothpastes...and mouth rinses...and always rinsing/brushing after every soda or coffee... and on and on and on.  It was so discouraging when I'm already upset about the uncomfortable work to come plus an $800 out of pocket expense after my dental insurance pays. I hate the dentist and I hate their bills even more.

Work has been super busy. Our annual fall festival and costume parade is coming up next week, and that means loads of money coming in for tickets, requisitions to pay for all the supplies and vendors, contacting payroll to arrange for overtime for custodians, arranging for transportation for the high school bands and cheerleaders that lead the parade, plus all my other regular duties. This first week back from fall break has been hectic and I'm already tired. 

Thankfully, today's Friday and I have the weekend to look forward to.

A day off

 I had a dental appointment early this morning. When I went for my six month cleaning a couple weeks ago they found the tiny beginning of a cavity and advised me to go ahead and fill it promptly. It was the quickest, easiest trip to the dentist I've had in years (not counting cleanings) because we caught it so early. Much to my dismay, though, the dentist is insistent that I need to have some crowns redone very soon. A few of you may have been reading here for long enough to remember when my old dentist retired and a series of awful temporary ones filled in while the practice looked for a permanent replacement. I ended up spending thousands of dollars for very badly done work. Now it's going to cost another $2000 or so out of pocket to fix everything. Since I'm not having any pain or problems I keep trying to put it off, but it's soon going to be necessary to avoid trouble in the future. Why does dental work is so damn expensive? I'm going to try to hold off a little longer, maybe until the fall. 

I decided that since I've hardly missed any days of work this year and my personal paid time off keeps accruing, I would take the whole day off work even though my appointment was easy and I was done by 10am. I had tentative plans to go to the bookstore or the library or even a couple of thrift stores this afternoon. Too bad for me, though, and it's a good thing I took the rest of the day off, because Gregg's truck broke down and we're currently having to share my car. Yesterday he had to have the repair shop come tow it in and it looks like the clutch may need replacing. Sigh. There goes another $1000+ , and all the more reason to put off the next dental bill as long as possible. We just can't seem to catch a break in the money department lately! It's always something!

But it's nice to have the afternoon off even if I'm stuck at home. It's a cool, cloudy day and the porch and my garden are calling to me. I'll leave you with a few pictures of the garden progress and the kids:

Tomatoes are coming along...

We finally planted something in a big concrete planter a friend gave us last year. It was one of several outside a restaurant he used to own and he had salvaged them for his home garden.  He also gave us the plant we ended up putting into it: a small ornamental pomegranate. 

Finally, for all you Marco fans out there....here he is on his porch swing the other day, eating a lime and jalapeno potato chip. He loves chips, as you can see.

Week 10...just catching up

As hard as it is to believe, yet another week of staying at home has flown past. Some cautious forays out into the world have been necessary, though.

I worked on Monday. It was an easy day, answering phones (that barely rang) for four hours. There was almost no one else around. It's been a silent building for months now, which is kind of sad. It was never meant to be so quiet for so long!

On Tuesday morning I went to a long-delayed dental appointment to have a permanent crown put on. I'd been living with a temporary since early March. For the first week or two after the permanent one came back I was afraid to go out in public, then the office closed for a month due to Covid-19, then when they reopened I was too afraid to make an appointment right away. The temporary was holding up fine, so I kept waiting. Finally the office called and explained to me all the steps they're taking to protect patients and staff from the virus, so I decided it was time. What a relief to have that done!  I've had so much bad/painful dental work done over the last couple of years that going to the dentist has become somewhat torturous to me, no matter how minor the procedure. The temporary crown did not want to come off, and the scraping, pulling, and loosening that was necessary to make that happen had me so rigid with stress that tears started rolling from my eyes. (I wasn't in any actual pain. I think it was just adrenaline and fear). I was so embarrassed, but my new dentist, Dr. Abbas, was very kind and patient. I like him a lot, and I'm beginning to trust him. He finally got that stubborn temporary off, and the new permanent crown in place, and I'm still relieved a week later. 

Then I had a doctor's appointment with my regular GP on Thursday. I wasn't thrilled about going to her office, but I had to because I needed refills on a script that she didn't originally write for me. I wore a mask and hoped for the best--the office was taking every possible precaution, like calling ahead to check for flu-like symptoms, checking temperatures at the reception desk, spacing out chairs in the waiting area, etc. So that was okay. One funny thing: two days prior, they took my blood pressure at the dentist's office, and it was on the high side. Not crazy high, but elevated enough to alarm me a little bit, you know? But then on Thursday at my regular doctor's, my blood pressure was perfect again, just as usual. That will tell you something about my fear of the dentist!!  :)

On Friday morning I met up with two of my book club friends for our weekly date: doughnuts and coffee bought at a drive through and eaten in our parked cars while we talk. Our book club is talking about resuming meeting next month and how we can do it safely. I think our June meeting will be held on a back patio with plenty of room to space out chairs. I sure hope we can do it; I've missed that group of women and our book club nights so much! Fingers crossed.

Friday was also a special day: my little heart-niece, Carsen, turned two years old! It's hard to believe that she's already a toddler.

For everyone's safety, her creative mom and dad gave her a Zoom birthday party! They did a good job of making sure everyone knew how to access it, including Marla's parents and 90 year old grandmother. Everyone got to sing "Happy Birthday" and watch the birthday girl blow out her candles. She was sitting at a table with a huge arch of colorful balloons above her that her daddy had assembled. It was the most unusual birthday party I've ever "attended"!

After such a busy (well, busy by 2020 standards) week it almost feels like life is getting back to some sort of normal.....except not. Things seem more weird now than ever. I work for 4 hours this coming Tuesday and then I think I'm done for the summer. Who knows what school starting up in August is going to look like? I just hope we can start. It's so strange to still have weeks of staying at home in front of me after being here for 10 weeks already.

Gregg is thinking about returning to his pet store job next week--the beginning of June--barring any sudden large leaps in our local numbers over the next 7 days. He's planning to try to limit the number of people allowed to browse the aquarium aisle at any one time, asking them to observe 6 feet of distance. If the store gets too crowded for that, he'll either retreat to the back office for a while, or else come home altogether. He'll wash his hands often and avoid touching his face. Will that be enough? I sure hope so. We're both pretty nervous about it. Good information about the risk is just impossible to discern in our current political climate. It's scary and frustrating. We're all just doing the best we can, I suppose.

To end on a happier note, here is another (bad focus, but good color) photo of our male Painted Bunting. I say "our" because this beautiful bird, and a female, have been eating at our feeder for several weeks now! I'm the envy of the people at the Wild Birds Unlimited store where I buy my seed. Painted Buntings are almost never seen in this area.

The female is gorgeous golden-green color. Much more subtle than the male, of course, but very beautiful. I have yet to get a photo of her. They're shy birds that visit the most early, early in the morning and then again right before sunset. We've also had another new-to-us species visiting the feeder these days: a pair of Blue Grosbeaks. They're the most gorgeous shade of blue you ever saw, and it's been impossible to capture it on my cell phone camera. Here's a picture I lifted from the webs to show you:

All the while, we've still been seeing tons of Cardinals, House Finches, Titmice, Carolina Wrens, a pair of Red Bellied Woodpeckers, and a few pesky Cowbirds and a small flock of Grackles with fledglings in tow. The squirrels are also beyond bold at this point, which is going to end badly one of these days when Ginger or George takes them by surprise. We saw a deer the other night when we were out walking the dogs (it ran past under a streetlight) and we've seen a couple of rabbits lately, too. We're going to miss all this time at home to watch the animals and birds and the seasons change when we're finally able to fully return to normal work schedules. It's been a memorable three months, that's for sure!

I've got my smile back! (finally)

After months of work and waiting, and a lot of money spent, I'm finally done with dental work for a while! (Knock on wood).

Yesterday I got my three crowns and one bridge tooth put on and they're a perfect fit. Ever since the one tooth broke in January, it's been an ordeal. First I had to have the tooth surgically removed, then I had to wait for the socket to heal, then I had to have the three teeth behind it prepared for crowns. The lab that creates the crowns, and the bridge, normally takes two weeks to complete their work. The first time they were done I went in, but one of the crowns wasn't a perfect fit, so everything had to be sent back. It took three weeks the second time, but yesterday I went to the dentist and everything fit just right. What a relief!

My smile looks and feels completely normal again, for the first time this year. Everything looks great--which it should considering that all this work cost me $3900, only $1000 of which my insurance covered. And that's not counting the money I spent at the oral surgeon's office in January, or the cost of the two root canals that led to all this misery last June. Still, who can put a price on a big, happy smile? I might be broke, but at least I can smile with confidence again!

And I don't want to see the dentist again for at least another year.

Early morning, just-crawled-out-of bed selfie.

Can't catch a break.

Yesterday I decided to call out sick from work. I've been self-treating a urinary tract infection, which is almost better, but mostly I simply felt I needed a mental health day. The past week has been hard for a whole host of reasons.

I decided that I'd go grab a taco salad for lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant and then spend the afternoon at the public library. It was a nice plan until I got about halfway through my salad and suddenly felt a pain in my gums--kind of like when you get a hard piece of tortilla chip stuck up beside a tooth. But this was no tortilla chip. It turned out to be a giant crack (to the gum line) in one of the teeth that had a root canal this summer. I knew that the two teeth that had root canals were weakened and needed crowns, but I was putting it off until January as my dental insurance is maxed out until the end of the year. I already had to spend over $1000 out of pocket after the second root canal. Crowns are super expensive and I was trying to just be careful and wait out the year.

So I rushed to the dentist and got bad news: I'm going to lose that tooth altogether-it cracked in half--and even worse, I have to have an oral surgeon remove it. Once it's out, I'll have to wear a fake tooth in the spot for 6-8 weeks while the socket heals, and then they're going to have to crown the tooth behind it with a permanent bridge tooth attached to the crown. Even with insurance, between the oral surgeon and the dentist it's going to cost about $2000 more dollars out of pocket. There goes any Christmas shopping I'd planned to do, just like we missed out on our vacation in June because of dental expenses and the pain I was in. I feel so guilty about how much this is costing us. We keep having to dip into savings to pay for it all.

The dentist was very sorry. I embarrassed myself because big tears started flowing when he explained everything to me. He had to pull the broken bit of tooth off (thank goodness it's on the inside of my mouth so it doesn't show when I smile) and I trembled all over and cried as he did it. I was horribly embarrassed. I used to be a great dental patient, but a few years of bad experiences has left me with almost a phobia. At least now nothing hurts, and they said that if I'm very careful I can probably put off doing anything until the beginning of January. I have an appointment on Monday with the oral surgeon, but that's just for a consultation and to set a date to have the work done.

I just can't seem to catch a break. And I wish this shit year would just hurry up and end, already.

Here's a recent clip of John Oliver's 2016 season finale show, which sums up exactly how I feel about this terrible year. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!  (Warning....language.)

ps....I adore John Oliver. This whole show, from last Sunday, can be found on YouTube and is worth watching, especially if you're still reeling from our recent election and wondering how to get through the next 4 years. Inspirational.

Declaration

Today I head back to the torture chamber dentist for another filling. And I swear by all things holy, if that jerk hurts me again like last time, I will find a new dentist! Crossing my fingers (and taking a Zanax) and hoping for the best.

A longer blog post will follow later, with my thoughts on why I'm still (at almost 40 years of age) a wimp about standing up for myself. It's been on my mind a lot this week.

Sunday wrap up

It's a beautiful spring day here. The dogwoods and azaleas are in bloom, the birds are singing (and flocking to our feeders), the bees are out, the sun is shining, and it's warm. A nice day to be off work, and to have a little "me" time.

Last week was rough. In addition to the depression my husband and I were both experiencing, I had several bad days at work that made everything seem that much worse. It's no secret I hate my job. It's a retail store at the local mall, staffed by adults who act like they're in high school, and there is always some silly drama unfolding...blah blah blah. Same old story. Despite my best efforts to just show up, act in a professional manner, do my daily tasks, and go home, I still occasionally get dragged in to the middle of angry confrontations between my coworkers. Our store manager is a nice lady, but a terrible leader, and so there is no one around to effectively deal with the immature, counterproductive behavior. I hate the atmosphere this creates. I'm a peaceful soul; I abhor confrontation and arguments, and I refuse to play "office" politics. I'm kind and helpful to my coworkers, even when they drive me crazy. I work hard. I'm dependable and stable and never make trouble for anyone. And most importantly, I actively try to avoid any storms I see brewing. So how do I still get sucked into these stressful situations? Especially at times (like this week) when I'm least emotionally up to it? I left work in tears on Monday for the first time in months. I've gotten much better at letting this kind of nonsense roll off my back, but the timing was especially bad this week.

Topping off my week of woe was a dental appointment on Tuesday that resulted in a toothache that didn't really get going until Friday afternoon (after the office was closed for the weekend). I got two fillings in back molars on the left side, one on top and one on bottom, and the bottom one isn't....right somehow. It's uncomfortable to chew on and I have a constant, deep ache in my jaw. I've been taking Motrin every six hours and waiting for tomorrow morning to get here so the dentist can do something about it.  Why do toothaches (or any medical problem) get worse on the weekends? It never fails: if offices are closed and the only medical attention available is urgent care or the ER (with the prospect of  hours and hours of waiting) that's when a toothache or pain of any kind will really get down to business.

To sum it all up, this week was: depression, work stress, tears, and toothaches.

So I'm finally off today and it's gorgeous out, and I'm making the best of it, toothache be damned.  I'm going to take the book I'm reading (Ian McEwan's Atonement) and sit out in the warm sunshine, in the hammock, with a glass of sweet iced tea. I'm hoping that such a nice day is a sign of a better week to come.

The bees are working hard on this beautiful April day. I wonder
if they sometimes want to strangle their coworker bees...