Hilary Booth... of course!

So the inspectors for the county just left. All they needed to do was verify the number of rooms and bathrooms. *breathes a sigh of relief* On the bright side, the apartment is cleaner and less cluttered than it has been in ages. I still need to attack the piles of paper. It's rather disconcerting having things so neat for a change. The bulk of my clothes actually fit in the closets rather than in haphazard piles.

On the minus side, I had a dentist visit this morning. Three fillings! However many hours later, my jaw and tongue now have sensation again. I hate getting numbing injections with a passion, but I hate recovering from them even more. I also didn't work the extra days this week. I was really only annoyed I didn't find out until after I'd come all the way into work, after the nastiest morning thunderstorm I've heard in DC in a long time. We usually get the nighttime ones that spook me. And less than fifteen minutes later, it was gone. Weird!

Oh, yes, I nearly the other ongoing drama for November and December. Monday was the second half of the root canal treatment, for which I say thank god for painkillers, because that hurt a bit more than the first half. Apparently my roots are very long and curved, making it doubly difficult to get out. *winces*

I've also had two visits with a TMJ doctor up in Bethesda. Lots of fun navigating strange parts of Maryland and bus routes I don't know. *clings to familiar haunts* He took a tomograph of my jaw. To our great surprise, there doesn't appear to be any bone damage. What happened is my jaw shoved a little forward, so it's out of the socket it's supposed to reside in. So I have a brand new mouth guard, since the old one couldn't cut it. And he wants me back in a few weeks, so guess who gets to do a temporary crown and then the following day chat with the TMJ dentist again? *headdesks* It's feels like a carousel of dentists here.

Couple of amusing things: I was the fourth person they'd seen with my given name that day. I hadn't realized it was that common of a name.

Elderly Chinese couple came in for a checkup. They'd just been to Shanghai for the first time in three years. Apparently they're so completely Westernized now. They could barely understand all the language changes with the new slang.

And this will amuse pinkpolarity since we discussed accents once: My dentist asked me where I was from and I said Virginia and he stared at me. To his ear I had no accent, certainly not one he associated with Virginia. Then at my second appointment, I used some turn of phrase that amused him (and me). "That's Philly talk" he commented. My grandfather is from Philly and my mother grew up outside there. Product of your backgrounds, yeah, right.

Ow! And more ow! It's funny. The tooth didn't hurt when the anesthesia immediately wore off. Many hours later when I'm curled up trying to sleep and then it started hurting like whoa. Thank god for painkillers.

So the molar has been dutifully filled. I had some issues keeping the jaw cracked open wide enough for their purposes. The dentist understood this and occasionally gave me chances to close my jaw for a brief respite. I have a small mouth to begin with, so trying to put in all their drills and tubes and mirrors was entertaining. The numbing agent is starting to wear off now. Ow. I will definitely want painkillers and something soft to eat when I get home.

I went to the bookstore afterwards. At least I'll have something to read on the short way home.

Off to shuffle more books to the other building...

The periodontal exam went better than expected. I need to have more cleanings, which is irritating, but doable compared to full oral surgery. They had a charming time getting me to bite down for the x-rays, since the film kept digging into my mouth, caused by the oddness of my palate.

I saw a rather amusing pillow in the needlework shop today: "Don't make me get my flying monkeys!" Alas it was needlepoint. I thought perhaps it was warn off the grandchildren, but apparently they're a big hit at work.

Back to finishing off the word count for the night.

Really lousy day. I knew this would start out that way with the dreaded dentist appointment. I thought it would just be another frustrating cleaning session, only to discover two cavities, plus they want to see a periodontal expert because my gums aren't cooperating. *bangs head on wall* Okay fine, my morning is shot quite nicely to Hades and gone, so I'll go over to the Books a Million for a needed graphic novels & manga shot in the arm. Except for some reason, they dumped their crates and bins of the incoming materials in front of that section. Obviously thinking hey, school's back in, so no one could possibly want to look there. It's one of those days I desperately want to disappear back under the covers.

Randomly, the girl behind me on the bus ride home to Ballston was knitting what looked like a Gryffindor scarf. My knitting friends will be pleased I could identify circular needles and everything.

"So Elizabeth will have to ascend the throne without me, teeth are all I'm going to see crowned for the next couple of years..."

Yes, the dreaded dentist appointment snuck up on me, so I had to go hum with the airhoses again. It wasn't the "Midas Touch" or even "Simple Little System", more like that awful sea-shanty "Anyone want more fillings?" At least I didn't have my usual lecturing dental hygienist. For added enjoyment, the rain returned to look like every other day for the past month. Not that I'm bitter or anything...

I hate packing for trips. It's even stranger this year because I'm going to see my parents. Except I'm not coming from school to home like those years in Alabama. I'm not really "going home". I'm just visiting my parents for the holidays. It's very bizarre.

Reading the trip preparation stuff from TSA is frustrating as hell. I'm glad I opted to ship my orders directly to my parents. They want you to keep your presents unwrapped if they need to be checked, assuming you'll have ample time to wrap stuff when you get there. They also want you to leave your suitcase unlocked for security checks. They'll be providing security seals eventually. Forgive me for not being terribly trusting of airport workers.

And I'm still not sure about getting to the airport. I had been delighted when the government was supposed to give their workers an extra four hours. Guess who that doesn't apply to? Hopefully I'll get lucky and they'll close things down at 1pm so I can home to get ready rather than rushing for the airport. This is not my ideal traveling conditions, especially if the weather acts up.

Another trip to the dentist for another cleaning/scale root thing on my upper right of my mouth. One of those things they don't tell you about the numbing injections. They only have to give you one for the bottom part of your mouth. For the top, they have to do each individual frigging tooth. I'm glad I still opted for one part of my mouth rather than gamely doing the whole top. I'm not that much of a masochist!

I met and trained the person who will cover for me while I'm away on vacation. I hope I explained everything all right. With my memory being what it is, I tend to do things by second nature, which means I have to slow myself down to explain how to do things. Some names and departments and newspapers I just remember -- there's no logic. Not much I can do about it though, except print out all the slips for her ahead of time and hope all goes well.

Life in general sucks though. I just want the year to be over. I just want a lot of things to be over. It may be coming on Christmas, but there isn't a damn river big enough for me to skate away on...

with the sounds of high school football! Yes, the local high school is clearly playing at home again. I can hear the marching band and I can occasionally hear the announcer... now it seems almost normal around here.

Almost makes up for the rest of the day.

I came in at my normal time today in protest, since I had a dentist appointment that morning and had intended to take the full day off. I guess because it was last minute they indicated to me through my temp agency that they didn't have someone to cover for me. So I adjusted my appointment a half an hour to accomodate them. Only to bump into my "backup" coming downstairs as I was leaving who thought she'd be doing the newspapers and they'd be a little late going out. She was as surprised as I was. The agency has said that I should tell them ahead of time so they can plan for something like this. My own worry is: okay, what if I'm sick? What if it's weekend? There are all kinds of permutations of last minute disasters they're not taking into account here. I really have to talk to them about this issue because coming in for the sole purpose of doing the newspapers just to leave seems ludricrous.

I went to bed last night without checking the local news. Given the election stuff, I figured I wouldn't miss too much and I could catch up reading the headlines. Went into the work to discover we no longer had a chairman. Harvey is now the invisible rabbit. Then again, I look at my parents' careers and think how many chairmen/administrators they went through... not usually front page news on every blessed business newspaper.

The winds were whipping up a storm outside earlier and the skies are clear. Guess it's autumn, if the multi-colored leaves I can see from the window aren't indicator enough.

The dentist appointment went reasonably well. Dr. D offered me some advice about my front teeth problem. I'm opting for the cheap solution which is filling and bonding that cavity so it looks better. He added the other two alternatives were crowns or orthodontics again to handle the spacing. And he nicely suggested that a regular cleaning checkup or two wouldn't hurt my cause. He didn't lecture thankfully. So I'm getting bonded. I'm sure there's a joke there somewhere. The appointment is in the afternoon so that shouldn't interfere with the papers. God forbid anything should keep people from their morning headlines!