Pulling teeth, wiping up poo, and gas

For all of you too weak to walk to the corner paper box, or too cheap to shell out three bits, here's a link to my column "Blessings amid Recession".

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Yesterday was a pip. Immediately after dropping the girls off at school I headed off to the dentist for an extraction.

Once I was in the chair, the dentist took a look and said the tooth was badly infected. He launched into a long explanation as to why this meant pulling the tooth was a no-go, something about acid and base and the anesthetic being rendered weak. Blah-blah. I asked him what he wanted me to do.

"You should go home, take antibiotics for a week to ten days, and then come back for an extraction," he said.

"But?" I said.

"But . . . you have a good tolerance for tooth pain. I would forgo ten days of constant pain, deal with pulling the tooth now, and take a few minutes of bad pain in exchange for feeling nothing at all in a half hour. But you will feel some of the extraction."

So we went for it.

The extraction was one-two-three, but the tooth did break, costing us a few minutes.
"It boke?" I said, after he quietly cursed.

"Of course it did. Why should my day be easy?" the dentist said, lacking a wee bit of perspective.

Yeah, the extraction hurt more than normal, but it wasn't anything compared to living with the thing. I'm A-OK now, and was fine within minutes of the pull.

Afterwards, I filled a prescription at Walgreens, where I sat and talked to an old man named Zimmerman visiting from Whitewater. He was named after his uncle, the former sports editor of the L.A. Times, and had volunteered to sit with his ill son-in-law while his daughter was at work. The in-law in question was a Vietnam vet, but he also mentioned having a son-in-law who fought in Korea.

"Korea?" I said. "That's almost sixty years ago. Was he much older than your daughter?"

He had to be; a Korean vet, even one that caught the tail end in '53, would be at least seventy-six. Mr. Zimmerman was in his mid to late eighties, but not much older.

"Oh yes, he was. But he's passed away now."

Huh. There are great stories to be found everywhere, if you just keep one ear open.

When I got home, a (bad) surprise. The gas company, which has been tearing the hell out of my lawn for weeks laying pipe, needed access to the house. They were turning the gas off, and once it was back on they wanted to verify all the pilots were re-lit. That meant they needed to go on all three levels of the house (we have two furnaces), which meant . . well, it meant I had a couple hours to get three floors of a house whipped into passable shape. That . . . wasn't fun.

Worse yet, just before the guy showed up Ginger shat her pants, then scooped it out and rubbed it into her hands, face, blanket, and bedroom furniture. I'm talking 'mud bath'/Al Jolson coverage here.

Disgusting little kid.

Then, a complete reversal of the days weather. The sun came out, temperatures were in the sixties, and it was a pleasant reminder of summer. I took the opportunity to cut the grass, which might have been overdoing it for the day, as it wiped me out. The rest of the day was grocery shopping, dinner, baths for the kids, a bit of the Phillies clinching the NLCS, and of course, Glee.

And after that: the first uninterrupted nights sleep in weeks. Heaven!

Thank You for the Birthday Wishes!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Spent the AM w/ Smiley at the pumpkin farm fieldtrip, early afternoon napping, and Danny made beef roast w/ potatoes for dinner, yum. Kids sang happy birthday and we ate chocolate cake. Received a new blender (margaritas!), and lots of kisses and hugs. A good birthday. :) Thanks for dinner the other day too mom :)  - Lisa 

Lisa's Birthday, and another column in the Journal-Sentinel

Lisa's birthday was low key but went well. She went with Smiley on his class trip to the pumpkin farm, and then we just chilled out at home. No one offered to take the kids off our hands, killing our plans for a dinner out, so I popped a roast and potatoes in the oven. It *should* have been ready by six, but finally finished around nine. Oopsies, Chef. Because of this, the kids wound up eating frozen corn dogs and chocolate cake. In the end, not so bad an outcome, because it left the roast to be enjoyed by grown-ups later in the night.

Happy Birthday Lis!

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Seven and a half hours until the dentist pulls this piece o' pain out of my jaw. Hot dog!

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A column of mine appears in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel today. The editor wrote me the following after she read my submission:

Dan, what a wonderful column! I read it start to finish in seconds because I kept wanting to read the next line and find out where you were going. It just brought a little light to my day.

As you can imagine, I was very touched by her words. Go on, buy a copy dangnabbit!

Introducing the "Nook"

Barnes & Noble is launching the "Nook" in November to compete w/ Kindle.

Hannah Montana The Movie

There wasn't much chance of avoiding Hannah Montana: The Movie, not with two (well, three) girls under age eight.

If you don't know the premise of the show, kindly go back in your time machine and return to 1997. Miley Cyrus stars as Miley Stewart, an everyday teen who just happens to don a wig and perform, unbeknownst to anyone but her best friend and family, as the world's biggest pop star, Hannah Montana.

In the movie version Miley has gotten a big head, preferring her Hannah persona to her 'real' self. She's certainly not looking forward to a visit to her family in Tennessee, but when she gets there things start to change. Her father (played by real life Dad Billy Ray Cyrus) falls in love, she develops a crush on a farmhand, and she begins to see the value in a 'normal' life.

Will she continue as Hannah, or are the days of "the best of both worlds" coming to a close?

I like the movie. Oh, I wouldn't have taken a date to see it, thank you very much. But for what it is, it's pretty decent. There's adequate emotional turmoil, beautiful scenery, some zany action, and a few good songs.

[The song that she sings in the finale, The Climb, is occasionally played on the radio, and my girls sing along at full volume]

The ending is absolute HOKUM, but whadaya want? I also missed the subplots and running gags involving Hannah's brother and Rico, the stingy child entrepreneur. Both appeared in the film, but only briefly.

I'm going to grade this for what it is, a pleasant family film aimed at girls ages 5-10.

3.0 out of 4

Happy Birthday Lisa! Happy Birthday Pop!

Today is the start of the busiest week of the year in my household. Today is my lovely wife's birthday, and my father's. In a few day it's YaYa's turn, then our wedding anniversary. Mix in the various birthday celebrations and Halloween activites and it'll be a doozy of a week - but a happy one :)

Happy Birthday! (x 2)

Paradise Landing

With the bulk of her First Communion money YaYa decided to splurge and enjoy a night at a local waterpark called Paradise Landing. It's inside the downtown Hilton and once upon a time Lisa and I took our niece and nephew there, many moons ago. I'm not sure if YaYa had been there for a party or just seen the pictures, but she was very adament about the destination.

Lisa and her Mom accompanied her overnight, and YaYa invited her friend Meadow too. The dates on the camera phone were obviously well off on that day.






I know she enjoyed spending the night in a hotel with her friend.


She had a great time and wants to return for another visit. Fine with me - as long as she pays again ;)

Because I've heard it every single day of my working life . . .

If there's a cashier that's having trouble finding the barcode on an item. . .

If there's a salesman who needs to step away and ask a manager what discount he can authorize . . .

If there's a sales clerk who isn't sure of a price because the tag is ripped off or you grabbed it out of the wrong bin . .

If there's a cashier whose scanner isn't working quickly enough, or who stops to correct an obvious error . . .

If any of these things are going on, and your brain tells your mouth to spit out some variation of:

"Huh chortle chortle. I guess it must be free then eh?"

Then . . .

.

.

.

.

.

YOU ARE A DICK.

Family Update

Howdy. My self imposed 'intermission' continues as I try to get my world clicking again, but here's an update.

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On the 12th LuLu woke up at 6 a.m. with shortness of breath and pain in her chest. I don't know how I heard her ragged cries of "Daddy, Daddy" from our room, but I give Ginger all the credit. The two share a room and once Lu woke her up, Ginger mimicked Lu's cries at an impressive volume. In the end my girl spent three hours in the E.R., getting breathing treatments and steroids to finish off her asthma attack. She spent the day home from school, but went back the next day as if nothing ever happened. Oh, btw, she also lost a front (baby) tooth yesterday (Thursday).

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Dorky quote of the day: YaYa called me into her room at bedtime and asked me to read a page from an old edition of an Encyclopedia Brown book. "Look at this. Just look at this!" I read the passage:

"Do you think it was him?" she said?

"There's no need for the second question mark Dad! It's bad editing!"


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YaYa has developed a big crush on the stepson of one of Lisa's friends. The boy is good looking and quite sweet, and its all quite innocent, but I was worried there were going to be fireworks between YaYa and LuLu. For a minute there her younger sister seemed to worm her way into the mix, quite unconsciously I think. She has a natural and easygoing way with people (especially boys), and even YaYa admits she'll ride her LuLu's coattails at times.

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Smiley's just a good boy. Plain and simple, a good and kind boy that warms your heart. He talks constantly, and only 5% of it is understandable, but there's no mistaking the love he exudes.

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Ginger . . .well, she's Ginger. Twice this week she's woken up at night and smeared her poop on the walls, once so bad we actually had to scrub the paint off to remove the revolting mess. Ugh.

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Meanwhile, I am plagued by a bad tooth that needs to be pulled. If you've been with me awhile you know I'm as familiar with dental pain as Michelle Duggar is with childbirth, but this one's kicking my ass. It's not bad during the day, but the minute my head hits the pillow it's on. I get a half hour sleep here, an hour there, and then wake up in agony. It's starting to affect my day. I went to work Thursday a mixed up jumble of pain and exhaustion. At least I looked good, as always.

And yes, I have a dentist appointment scheduled, but the wait is (as always) long. But by 8:30 next Wednesday morning I should have this bugger out.

My front yard is all torn up

Why? Because Gwen Moore got an ok on a project to run a gas line from Franklin to Jones Island, with my street being smack in the way of the deal. It should be done by Nov 1st.