Sunday, February 27, 2011
Thin mints
I'm interested to know how many thin mint Girl Scout cookies anyone has eaten in a day. My total today was 10-12. I refuse to count more closely.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
A View of the Ship...
We got up at the crack of dawn on this icy morning and drove over to San Francisco to view the ship we'll be sailing on in April, the S.S. Marina. From the Bay Bridge, looking west, we could see a large very white ship with an "O" for Oceania Cruises on its stub of a funnel (a mere formality for the modern cruise liner?).
The ship was docked at Port 35 South, not far from Pier 39, and there was a long line of taxis waiting for disembarking passengers, who looked windblown and startled by the cold, all with large-ish suitcases (and I mean many 25" or larger, for anyone about to go on a cruise). Only the upper decks of the ship towered over the pier building, so we had a view of the very top decks and the bow of the ship, but not much else. Didn't matter. It was glorious.
I'd brought my passport and the receipt for our cruise with the vague hope of getting on board to view the inside of the ship, but no luck. Two men guarded the entrance to the pier and assured me that not even President Obama himself could board that ship unless he had a ticket for the voyage shipping out later this afternoon. Forget about it. Two travel agents and the cruise line had already told me this, but I thought it was worth a try.
Best of all: I accosted a couple waiting out in front of the pier to be picked up, and asked if they had just disembarked. "Oh, yes," they said, enthusiastically. 'It's wonderful." I told them we had tickets for a cruise in April. "You're going to love it," said the wife, who was very trim with that leathery look that comes from lots of outdoor living before we all knew about sunscreen. "The specialty restaurants, the service, all of it." It was their third cruise with Oceania. They'd had the same class of stateroom we'll have, and they thought it was great.
I took several pictures of the top of the ship, waved good-by, and said "See you in Rome," exactly two months from today.
The ship was docked at Port 35 South, not far from Pier 39, and there was a long line of taxis waiting for disembarking passengers, who looked windblown and startled by the cold, all with large-ish suitcases (and I mean many 25" or larger, for anyone about to go on a cruise). Only the upper decks of the ship towered over the pier building, so we had a view of the very top decks and the bow of the ship, but not much else. Didn't matter. It was glorious.
I'd brought my passport and the receipt for our cruise with the vague hope of getting on board to view the inside of the ship, but no luck. Two men guarded the entrance to the pier and assured me that not even President Obama himself could board that ship unless he had a ticket for the voyage shipping out later this afternoon. Forget about it. Two travel agents and the cruise line had already told me this, but I thought it was worth a try.
Best of all: I accosted a couple waiting out in front of the pier to be picked up, and asked if they had just disembarked. "Oh, yes," they said, enthusiastically. 'It's wonderful." I told them we had tickets for a cruise in April. "You're going to love it," said the wife, who was very trim with that leathery look that comes from lots of outdoor living before we all knew about sunscreen. "The specialty restaurants, the service, all of it." It was their third cruise with Oceania. They'd had the same class of stateroom we'll have, and they thought it was great.
I took several pictures of the top of the ship, waved good-by, and said "See you in Rome," exactly two months from today.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
A Cake Worthy of Barbara Pym
Three pals and I gathered for afternoon tea last week, and I don't know if you have to have had an English mother or to be an avid fan of the novelist Barbara Pym to appreciate it the way I did, but it was a highly pleasurable experience.
Valerie, one of the pals and English herself, made a Walnut Cake based on a 1939 recipe served at Fuller's Tea Rooms in London, now lost to time. She found the recipe in the Sunday Times of London some years ago, recreated by Shona Poole, who had eaten the original.
Poole says, "it was the high quality of the three layers of walnut-studded sponge, sandwiched between vanilla butter cream and covered with a thick layer of white icing, which put it above reproach."
Val carried the cake from the car in a small plastic milk crate. The rest of us held our breath. We'd been hearing about this cake for months and had more or less browbeaten Val into making it for us. The cake looked unpretentious, smallish in diameter, yellow, with a translucent white icing. Yum. Our hostess had provided pretty painted tea mugs and plates and a small centerpiece of garden flowers. We sat down. Val cut four generous pieces, about half the cake.
Forget the kind of cake you see on Betty Crocker boxes, with inches of shiny frosting between overblown layers. This cake was dense (a fine crumb, to you bakers?), with a very thin layer of butter frosting between cake layers. The cake itself tasted very egg-y and intensely sweet. The boiled icing poured over the outside had the slightest crunch to it.
You could picture this cake on a low table in front of the fire, with mother pouring out strong black tea. Better yet, being produced by one of Barbara Pym's characters, possibly the pair of sisters in "Less Than Angels," who provide comforting teas for the often upset and bewildered younger people in the novel. The sisters sometimes put their feet up and listened to the wireless after tea, but only after the washing up was done.
Val has kindly typed out the recipe and I am happy to pass it on, if requested. There are no tricks up the sleeve of this cake, just straightforward ingredients and a fair amount of work.
Valerie, one of the pals and English herself, made a Walnut Cake based on a 1939 recipe served at Fuller's Tea Rooms in London, now lost to time. She found the recipe in the Sunday Times of London some years ago, recreated by Shona Poole, who had eaten the original.
Poole says, "it was the high quality of the three layers of walnut-studded sponge, sandwiched between vanilla butter cream and covered with a thick layer of white icing, which put it above reproach."
Val carried the cake from the car in a small plastic milk crate. The rest of us held our breath. We'd been hearing about this cake for months and had more or less browbeaten Val into making it for us. The cake looked unpretentious, smallish in diameter, yellow, with a translucent white icing. Yum. Our hostess had provided pretty painted tea mugs and plates and a small centerpiece of garden flowers. We sat down. Val cut four generous pieces, about half the cake.
Forget the kind of cake you see on Betty Crocker boxes, with inches of shiny frosting between overblown layers. This cake was dense (a fine crumb, to you bakers?), with a very thin layer of butter frosting between cake layers. The cake itself tasted very egg-y and intensely sweet. The boiled icing poured over the outside had the slightest crunch to it.
You could picture this cake on a low table in front of the fire, with mother pouring out strong black tea. Better yet, being produced by one of Barbara Pym's characters, possibly the pair of sisters in "Less Than Angels," who provide comforting teas for the often upset and bewildered younger people in the novel. The sisters sometimes put their feet up and listened to the wireless after tea, but only after the washing up was done.
Val has kindly typed out the recipe and I am happy to pass it on, if requested. There are no tricks up the sleeve of this cake, just straightforward ingredients and a fair amount of work.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Jerry's reaction to the iPANT...
He said, "Is that one of those things you have to lie on the floor and wriggle into?"
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Hope on a Hanger
Such a relief: a designer named Carmen Marc Valvo has written a book called, "Dressed to Perfection: The Art of Dressing for your Red Carpet Moments." I have so many.
He says "it's about making a beautiful entrance and a beautiful exit," and "you want the coming and the going as if you were walking down a church aisle for a wedding." My wedding consisted of standing on my parents' back lawn, heels digging into wet grass, while wearing a $49.99 polyester dress I later wore to work. But you never know. And, by the way, the worst thing a woman can do is to "cut the body in thirds."
I was already bemused and feeling left behind by an ad I got with some undies I ordered online. Wacoal, the bra-and-panty company, has come up with the "iPANT." It looks like a plain old panty girdle, but it's constructed of "Novarel Slim nylon microfibers containing caffeine to promote fat destruction." Wired thighs! Also: vitamin E to "prevent effects of aging," plus retinol, aloe vera, and something called ceramides. The iPANT "shapes and sculpts" as you move throughout the day. That would be 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 28 days. It is, according to Wacoal, "hope on a hanger."
Do we order it or weep? I just heard on NPR that there are "pro-ana" websites that promote anorexia nervosa as a lifestyle. Several public health specialists and doctors were ranting in a low-key, fact- filled way against these. They want women to accept their bodies, fat, thin, tall, or short.
I'm trying. Next month my sister and I are going shopping for my "cruise wardrobe," meaning something besides the usual jeans I wear 24/7, a few skirts and tops for the dining room. I was thinking of wearing Spanx, some sort of "nylon microfiber," to make the clothes fit better in the dressing room, but now I'm thinking, why bother? Who are we kidding? And why?
He says "it's about making a beautiful entrance and a beautiful exit," and "you want the coming and the going as if you were walking down a church aisle for a wedding." My wedding consisted of standing on my parents' back lawn, heels digging into wet grass, while wearing a $49.99 polyester dress I later wore to work. But you never know. And, by the way, the worst thing a woman can do is to "cut the body in thirds."
I was already bemused and feeling left behind by an ad I got with some undies I ordered online. Wacoal, the bra-and-panty company, has come up with the "iPANT." It looks like a plain old panty girdle, but it's constructed of "Novarel Slim nylon microfibers containing caffeine to promote fat destruction." Wired thighs! Also: vitamin E to "prevent effects of aging," plus retinol, aloe vera, and something called ceramides. The iPANT "shapes and sculpts" as you move throughout the day. That would be 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 28 days. It is, according to Wacoal, "hope on a hanger."
Do we order it or weep? I just heard on NPR that there are "pro-ana" websites that promote anorexia nervosa as a lifestyle. Several public health specialists and doctors were ranting in a low-key, fact- filled way against these. They want women to accept their bodies, fat, thin, tall, or short.
I'm trying. Next month my sister and I are going shopping for my "cruise wardrobe," meaning something besides the usual jeans I wear 24/7, a few skirts and tops for the dining room. I was thinking of wearing Spanx, some sort of "nylon microfiber," to make the clothes fit better in the dressing room, but now I'm thinking, why bother? Who are we kidding? And why?
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Witness
Yesterday I witnessed a man dying. This morning I've been fishing through the disordered pile of notecards I keep on hand so I can write a note to his widow. She's a neighbor of mine.
I heard a siren around 4:30 in the afternoon and then the powerful surge of a diesel fire truck rounding the corner of our block. It was the rescue truck, the kind that comes when you dial 9-1-1, and from a window I saw it slow down, as though the driver were looking for an address. It advanced slowly up the street. I held my breath. It stopped at a house across the street, a few doors up, and several firemen with a canvas stretcher and a big black bag rushed up the driveway. I called my neighbor Reina, and she went outside in the rainy late afternoon gloom with an umbrella to see what was happening.
An ambulance followed, and the paramedics wheeled a gurney covered with a yellow plastic sheet up the driveway. From a bathroom window, I could see right into the back of the ambulance, doors wide open, red lights flashing. The street was blocked, and drivers were making U-turns.
Reina and I were on the phone when suddenly the gurney came careening down the driveway and across the street, where it crashed into the curb and tipped over. We gasped in unison. It turned out no one was on it, and for some time it lay in the rain, white blankets scattered. Presently, two paramedics appeared, righted the gurney, and rolled it back up the driveway.
And then the final act, which I wish I hadn't seen: The gurney, this time with a person on it, guided down the driveway by four men, with a fifth pumping fast and furious on the person's chest. On the wet gurney. In the rain. I turned away. It was the husband of the couple who lived there. The paramedics collapsed the wheels of the gurney, loaded it into the ambulance, slammed the doors, and took off.
I wandered around my house in the near-dark, wondering a) why I felt compelled to watch, and b) what to do next. Afterwhile, Reina called and said the man had suffered cardiac arrest. Later, I googled "cardiac arrest" and learned that 95% of victims die before they get to the hospital. Today I found out that he had died.
I'd met this man only once, in his living room, while I had sherry with him and his wife and talked about a neighborhood matter. He taught at San Jose State, and it turned out he knew my dad, who was also a professor there. I didn't know this man, really, but I witnessed the last desperate moments of his life. For awhile, I beat myself up over being a voyeur, but now I think: I cared. I feel haunted by what I saw and also more unavoidably hooked into the human family.
Now I've got to stop so I can take a note and maybe a camellia over to his wife.
I heard a siren around 4:30 in the afternoon and then the powerful surge of a diesel fire truck rounding the corner of our block. It was the rescue truck, the kind that comes when you dial 9-1-1, and from a window I saw it slow down, as though the driver were looking for an address. It advanced slowly up the street. I held my breath. It stopped at a house across the street, a few doors up, and several firemen with a canvas stretcher and a big black bag rushed up the driveway. I called my neighbor Reina, and she went outside in the rainy late afternoon gloom with an umbrella to see what was happening.
An ambulance followed, and the paramedics wheeled a gurney covered with a yellow plastic sheet up the driveway. From a bathroom window, I could see right into the back of the ambulance, doors wide open, red lights flashing. The street was blocked, and drivers were making U-turns.
Reina and I were on the phone when suddenly the gurney came careening down the driveway and across the street, where it crashed into the curb and tipped over. We gasped in unison. It turned out no one was on it, and for some time it lay in the rain, white blankets scattered. Presently, two paramedics appeared, righted the gurney, and rolled it back up the driveway.
And then the final act, which I wish I hadn't seen: The gurney, this time with a person on it, guided down the driveway by four men, with a fifth pumping fast and furious on the person's chest. On the wet gurney. In the rain. I turned away. It was the husband of the couple who lived there. The paramedics collapsed the wheels of the gurney, loaded it into the ambulance, slammed the doors, and took off.
I wandered around my house in the near-dark, wondering a) why I felt compelled to watch, and b) what to do next. Afterwhile, Reina called and said the man had suffered cardiac arrest. Later, I googled "cardiac arrest" and learned that 95% of victims die before they get to the hospital. Today I found out that he had died.
I'd met this man only once, in his living room, while I had sherry with him and his wife and talked about a neighborhood matter. He taught at San Jose State, and it turned out he knew my dad, who was also a professor there. I didn't know this man, really, but I witnessed the last desperate moments of his life. For awhile, I beat myself up over being a voyeur, but now I think: I cared. I feel haunted by what I saw and also more unavoidably hooked into the human family.
Now I've got to stop so I can take a note and maybe a camellia over to his wife.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Serious business
The sister of a fellow blogger/friend thinks bloggers are narcissistic and who cares about someone's every thought.
I am on the brink of taking this to heart and writing only about the swell of democracy in the Middle East, books of interest, and state and federal budget priorities. To hell with sodden wallets and wall switches.
I am on the brink of taking this to heart and writing only about the swell of democracy in the Middle East, books of interest, and state and federal budget priorities. To hell with sodden wallets and wall switches.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Small domestic bulletin...
For anyone who has ever been a guest at my house: We now have a light switch in the downstairs bathroom. Oh, yes! A switch on the WALL that turns on a real light fixture over the sink. Plus a new plug, in case you need to dry your hair.
For anyone who hasn't been a guest at my house: You used to have to step into a dark bathroom and grope behind the door for a light fixture on the wall that had a tiny switch at its base. For a long time, this item was affixed to the wall with the help of a wire coathanger cunningly employed by Jerry, who thinks anything can be repaired with duct tape, cardboard, and/or a coathanger.
Two friends have admitted to me, now that they've heard the news, that they used to pee in the dark due to complications re the light fixture.
So, is this a step forward or what?
For anyone who hasn't been a guest at my house: You used to have to step into a dark bathroom and grope behind the door for a light fixture on the wall that had a tiny switch at its base. For a long time, this item was affixed to the wall with the help of a wire coathanger cunningly employed by Jerry, who thinks anything can be repaired with duct tape, cardboard, and/or a coathanger.
Two friends have admitted to me, now that they've heard the news, that they used to pee in the dark due to complications re the light fixture.
So, is this a step forward or what?
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Cruise?
We're going on a cruise in April, our first. Jerry resisted the idea for about 30 years, but I finally prevailed, largely due to bad traffic in Seattle last summer. A cruise brochure arrived in the mail while we were gone--A Sign!-- full of enticing photos of people lounging with cocktails while somebody else was in charge. We were so fried by navigating freeways, so overheated and disoriented, that the idea of a boat being driven around the Mediterranean by someone who knew where they were going seemed like paradise. Why drive IN Italy, which we'd been thinking of doing, when you could float AROUND it?
So I signed us up. To be on the safe side, I booked a cabin with a veranda and made sure there was room service and a mini-bar in case we wanted to escape the other 1258 people. We're going on a brand-new ship with a "Lalique Grand Staircase." Also, a "Bon Appetit Culinary Center," with hands-on cooking classes, my idea of hell. But no assigned restaurant seating and no formal nights.
Yesterday, I found a website called "Cruise Critic," which is very helpful about ports and shore excursions and exactly what kind of jeans aren't allowed at dinner. It turns out there are "roll calls" for every cruise. You sign up with a chat group for your particular cruise so you can meet people before you meet them. Our cruise has people bonding like mad, arranging shore excursions with perfect strangers, and trying to get a jump-start on the cruise by meeting for drinks in the U.S. ahead of time. I recoiled. Doubt Has Set In.
The ship is coming to San Francisco on February 25-26, and we plan to drive over and gaze at it (can't go on due to security). Will there be any passengers coming and going who look like introverted curmudgeons?
Stay tuned.
So I signed us up. To be on the safe side, I booked a cabin with a veranda and made sure there was room service and a mini-bar in case we wanted to escape the other 1258 people. We're going on a brand-new ship with a "Lalique Grand Staircase." Also, a "Bon Appetit Culinary Center," with hands-on cooking classes, my idea of hell. But no assigned restaurant seating and no formal nights.
Yesterday, I found a website called "Cruise Critic," which is very helpful about ports and shore excursions and exactly what kind of jeans aren't allowed at dinner. It turns out there are "roll calls" for every cruise. You sign up with a chat group for your particular cruise so you can meet people before you meet them. Our cruise has people bonding like mad, arranging shore excursions with perfect strangers, and trying to get a jump-start on the cruise by meeting for drinks in the U.S. ahead of time. I recoiled. Doubt Has Set In.
The ship is coming to San Francisco on February 25-26, and we plan to drive over and gaze at it (can't go on due to security). Will there be any passengers coming and going who look like introverted curmudgeons?
Stay tuned.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Laundered money...
He's done it. Jerry washed his wallet, flang it right into the Maytag, due to it being in the back pocket of a pair of pants. He discovered this pre-dryer. I heard him muttering as he trudged up the back stairs, "so this is what a clean wallet looks like." He seemed bemused.
The wallet, a three-section fold-over number with the imprint of a tiny golfer, mid-swing, on the front, now looks like road-kill, thrashed to hell, and still damp. But all the stuff in it, including his driver's license, health insurance and credit cards, a blank check, and a $10 bill are fine. I would be frantic, can't stand even a Kleenex overlooked in a pocket pre-washer. It's a guy/gal thing.
Happy Valentine's Day to all. I got a dozen pink tulips, Jerry got two dozen homemade cookies, and we exchanged cards. Tonight we eat Mexican lasagne (don't ask) at home. End of Valentine's Day.
The wallet, a three-section fold-over number with the imprint of a tiny golfer, mid-swing, on the front, now looks like road-kill, thrashed to hell, and still damp. But all the stuff in it, including his driver's license, health insurance and credit cards, a blank check, and a $10 bill are fine. I would be frantic, can't stand even a Kleenex overlooked in a pocket pre-washer. It's a guy/gal thing.
Happy Valentine's Day to all. I got a dozen pink tulips, Jerry got two dozen homemade cookies, and we exchanged cards. Tonight we eat Mexican lasagne (don't ask) at home. End of Valentine's Day.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Yarn bombing Snooki
Bloggers can see the stats on how many hits they get and from where. My post about Snooki has by far the most hits, from as far away as Slovenia and Greece.
This has led me to think I could dramatically increase my web traffic by including "Snooki" in the title of every post. From there, it's just a matter of figuring out how to work her into the story.
I could yarn bomb Snooki, cover her with a giant tea cozy, including a special compartment for her pouf. I saw a wonderful show of knitted pieces at the Renwick Gallery a couple years ago showing towering figures completely covered in what looked like mega onesies, including a drop-seat compartment for convenience (will not take this further re Snooks, leave it at that).
I could go real estate hunting with Snooki. I know what New Jersey Italian housewives want based on careful study of Carmela's house on The Sopranos: an open floor plan so you can yell at your kids and freeze out your husband. Also, indoor pillars.
I could take her to the endodontist. She could sit in the waiting room and read stories about herself in People magazine while I have a root canal, which she would not find interesting at all, or as she has been known to say about anything that doesn't involve drinking or sex, "it's a waste of time."
And the Queen Mum and Snooki! They are practically one and the same: getting drunk, ignoring their stoutness, loving off-color jokes. The Queen Mum, though, opened a lot of hospitals and wore HER high heels to the East End of London during WWII to comfort people who'd been bombed out of their houses. This wouldn't work for Snooks.
Anyway, you see my thinking. Don't be surprised if you see Snooki in the title line.
This has led me to think I could dramatically increase my web traffic by including "Snooki" in the title of every post. From there, it's just a matter of figuring out how to work her into the story.
I could yarn bomb Snooki, cover her with a giant tea cozy, including a special compartment for her pouf. I saw a wonderful show of knitted pieces at the Renwick Gallery a couple years ago showing towering figures completely covered in what looked like mega onesies, including a drop-seat compartment for convenience (will not take this further re Snooks, leave it at that).
I could go real estate hunting with Snooki. I know what New Jersey Italian housewives want based on careful study of Carmela's house on The Sopranos: an open floor plan so you can yell at your kids and freeze out your husband. Also, indoor pillars.
I could take her to the endodontist. She could sit in the waiting room and read stories about herself in People magazine while I have a root canal, which she would not find interesting at all, or as she has been known to say about anything that doesn't involve drinking or sex, "it's a waste of time."
And the Queen Mum and Snooki! They are practically one and the same: getting drunk, ignoring their stoutness, loving off-color jokes. The Queen Mum, though, opened a lot of hospitals and wore HER high heels to the East End of London during WWII to comfort people who'd been bombed out of their houses. This wouldn't work for Snooks.
Anyway, you see my thinking. Don't be surprised if you see Snooki in the title line.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Queen Mum and the Big Red Bus
Just finished a 943-page biography of the Queen Mum, mother of Queen Elizabeth II. My favorite part is on p. 922, her theory of the Big Red Bus. It goes like this, as the QM explained it to a friend:
"Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't eat things, took lots of exercise, all the things you don't want to do, and suddenly one day you were run over by a big red bus, and as the wheels were crunching into you you'd say 'Oh, my God, I could have got so drunk last night!' That's the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you'll be run over by a big red bus."
What I love is "I could have got SO drunk." A hedonist in draped chiffon, high heels, handbag on bent arm held close to her body because she thought it made her look less stout. She adored gin martinis, French champagne, and off-color witticisms from Noel Coward, and she danced well into her nineties. She lived to be almost 102, when the big red bus came to pick her up.
You gotta love the girl.
"Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't eat things, took lots of exercise, all the things you don't want to do, and suddenly one day you were run over by a big red bus, and as the wheels were crunching into you you'd say 'Oh, my God, I could have got so drunk last night!' That's the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you'll be run over by a big red bus."
What I love is "I could have got SO drunk." A hedonist in draped chiffon, high heels, handbag on bent arm held close to her body because she thought it made her look less stout. She adored gin martinis, French champagne, and off-color witticisms from Noel Coward, and she danced well into her nineties. She lived to be almost 102, when the big red bus came to pick her up.
You gotta love the girl.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Follow-ups...
Several people have asked if I really worried about an earthquake while having a root canal. Yes, I did. I've had the same worry while having fillings. I wish a dentist could be stashed in a "secure, undisclosed location," like Cheney, just in case.
Judy Hanlon says someone has knitted a cover for a SmartCar.
I got an infection after my root canal and am now taking giant blue pills every six hours, four times a day. It's getting better.
Suzanne has come up with a price, chosen a realtor, and is going to list her house for sale. Watch this space for a link to the website. House B that we viewed is now in contract to someone. I am envious.
Judy Hanlon says someone has knitted a cover for a SmartCar.
I got an infection after my root canal and am now taking giant blue pills every six hours, four times a day. It's getting better.
Suzanne has come up with a price, chosen a realtor, and is going to list her house for sale. Watch this space for a link to the website. House B that we viewed is now in contract to someone. I am envious.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Flying Blind
Root canals have a very bad rep. People are truly pitying when you tell them you have to have one. Yesterday afternoon I had my first. I went to an endodontist (in Greek, "endo" means inside, and "odont" means "tooth"). Something had gone wrong inside one of my teeth.
I will not go into details--I can't because I didn't see what went on and felt very little--but it was a weird experience. I was anxious as I drove to my appointment, telling myself to breathe deeply. When I opened the door to the waiting room, I was deeply reassured: all was new and plush, color-coordinated in deep forest green and burgundy with a blush of red. A suave parabola of granite for the reception counter, a pair of blase receptionists (implication: nothing ever goes wrong). This was the Business Class of endodontists.
My treatment room had a floor-to-ceiling window and a second-floor view of trees and houses. I had fantastically comfortable chair that went flat and much leg room. Then the endodonist appeared, and we got down to the matter of my tooth. He demonstrated that the nerve was dead. I felt a (psychological) pang and signed papers agreeing to the procedure, which was very efficiently carried out, the drilling, x-rays, more drilling, a computer that measured the roots of my tooth, the doctor telling me each step of the way what he was doing. This was a bit like a pilot telling you every button/lever/switch he's manipulating in the cockpit, and really, I preferred not to know. I kept my eyes shut, tended by him and his deft assistant.
It all went smoothly, but pinned down in that chair, mouth clamped open, with a blue plastic "napkin"shielding the rest of my mouth from whatever was going on, I had a certain amount of worry about a) being trapped, and b) the possibility of an earthquake, The Big One, happening just when the deep recesses of my gum were exposed. What would I do with no one to put it all back together? (Jerry thinks I am the only person in the world to worry about an earthquake during a root canal.)
The trust we put in these people! The first thing I said after they removed the clamp and the blue plastic napkin was "How long does it take to learn how to do one of those?" The doctor said, "Three years beyond dental school." I asked what would happen if I hadn't had the root canal done, and he said eventually the nearby bone would deteriorate and the tooth would fall out. I thought of a quilting book I have about pioneers who were quilters, women who all seemed to have caved-in mouths.
So it's done. Wasn't I brave?
I will not go into details--I can't because I didn't see what went on and felt very little--but it was a weird experience. I was anxious as I drove to my appointment, telling myself to breathe deeply. When I opened the door to the waiting room, I was deeply reassured: all was new and plush, color-coordinated in deep forest green and burgundy with a blush of red. A suave parabola of granite for the reception counter, a pair of blase receptionists (implication: nothing ever goes wrong). This was the Business Class of endodontists.
My treatment room had a floor-to-ceiling window and a second-floor view of trees and houses. I had fantastically comfortable chair that went flat and much leg room. Then the endodonist appeared, and we got down to the matter of my tooth. He demonstrated that the nerve was dead. I felt a (psychological) pang and signed papers agreeing to the procedure, which was very efficiently carried out, the drilling, x-rays, more drilling, a computer that measured the roots of my tooth, the doctor telling me each step of the way what he was doing. This was a bit like a pilot telling you every button/lever/switch he's manipulating in the cockpit, and really, I preferred not to know. I kept my eyes shut, tended by him and his deft assistant.
It all went smoothly, but pinned down in that chair, mouth clamped open, with a blue plastic "napkin"shielding the rest of my mouth from whatever was going on, I had a certain amount of worry about a) being trapped, and b) the possibility of an earthquake, The Big One, happening just when the deep recesses of my gum were exposed. What would I do with no one to put it all back together? (Jerry thinks I am the only person in the world to worry about an earthquake during a root canal.)
The trust we put in these people! The first thing I said after they removed the clamp and the blue plastic napkin was "How long does it take to learn how to do one of those?" The doctor said, "Three years beyond dental school." I asked what would happen if I hadn't had the root canal done, and he said eventually the nearby bone would deteriorate and the tooth would fall out. I thought of a quilting book I have about pioneers who were quilters, women who all seemed to have caved-in mouths.
So it's done. Wasn't I brave?
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