Middle of the Week Stuff

On Abscessed Teeth

For one, they are no fun. When Dr. Weir's charming assistant, Tammy, saw me come in with a bottle of water in one hand, she knew immediately it was an abscessed tooth. This was at 2 pm yesterday afternoon, Bedford time, after my morning of living with my little friends who were having some kind of party neath one of my teethies. It turns out that the bacteria that cause the infection and the pain were producing gas which swelled up, expanded, whenever I introduced anything warm into my mouth, like the usual delicious morning cup of coffee or later my own saliva; and contracted with the introduction of anything cool to cold. Thus the saving grace of the ever present bottle of water. Of course, you quickly become aware of how much of a weenie you are: you know the pain is coming; you know you can stop it with cold water; and you by golly make sure your mouth is full of cold water before the pain arrives. Way before the pain arrives. What a bore and a bother it all was but you sure weren't going to let that cold water get very far away: it got in the shower with me, it went on a walk with me, it drove to Bedford with me (I packed spare bottles in case I needed them); it joined me in the dentist's chair and yes I did tell the good doctor that he would have to excuse me if I suddenly reared up and got myself a drink of water.

In the end, we did find the dastardly culprit and blasted it with novacaine and then drilled a couple of holes in the tooth to vent the offending gas. And set a date with another good doctor, this one in Bloomington, to do a root canal. No fun but I have been down this road before and it beats losing a tooth.

Republicans and Fun or Non Fun

The NY Times has a front page article on the woes of the Republicans what with all the scandals of the past, well let me think now, is it months? or more like years? I think years. Scandalous behavior everywhere one looks. From the article:

“The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness,” said Mr. Reed, sounding exasperated in an interview on Tuesday morning. “You can’t make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass-roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country.”

Buffoons you say?! Total disregard for, among other things, the law of the land? My oh my. Bad time to be a republican. The article does list the many undesirable behaviors of the past several years that have been visited upon a whole slew of republicans but fails to mention the root cause of it all, that guy in the wh, until deep within the article. Possibly the worst president in history. You think that may case the grand old party some grief somewhere along the line? Deserved grief, for sure.

(I have to stop cause I think I hear republicans out there trying to figure out some way to get a few more bacteria to come a visiting my mouth, to give me a little something other than politics to think about... Think I'll see if Diane wants to watch a movie - we got two in the mail today, one with Gong Li which has to be good - she'll take my mind off of political shenanigans, in a new york minute.)