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Pity Parties are best attended by one. They do *not* promote wellness. They can, however, satisfy the whiny need to complain. They can delay dealing with the effort required to move on. Pity parties are useful when you really do not want to leave the Land of Denial where all is good and lovely and no one loses teeth or ages or gets wrinkles or encounters any progressive challenge whatsoever. It is NOT a desirable place to live. All that negative crap is demoralizing.
Getting off the pity party guest list requires some effort but having puppies and grandchildren are a BIG help.
Puppies console you and kiss your boo-boos.
Grandchildren take you out of yourself and remind you of the grand adventure to be found in your own living room…
(in the enlarged version you can see Liam’s head emerging from the far left of the tunnel)
…and in your very own back yard (cue music for Dorothy in the original “Wizard of Oz.”
The pain meds didn’t do boo, but the puppies and grandchildren made a huge difference in surviving the Pity Party. The tree smiles we put on the trees are still a fun sight from our back windows. “Painting” snow faces on the trees was our compromise because the snow wasn’t the kind you could make snow sculptures from. We tried a snowball fight anyway. The scoops of snow exploded in the air the minute they left our palms.
A call from the dentist admits that …um… additional adjustments to improve the cosmetic interim implants *was* desirable. I get to do it again this Wednesday… well, not the tooth extraction part (did I mention the pain meds sucked?) — the teeth aren’t there anymore, but the temporary bridges can be improved.
I second that. My boss will love the additional time away from work… not.
Demolition:
Farewell incisors. Farewell bicuspids and molars. It took regular infusions of Novocain to complete the five excisions, but eventually you all released your hold. You were all almost as old as I am, but of late we both know your lease on life was extended a bit too long.
My tongue wasn’t numb. It could feel the toothless gums still spurting warm blood, but my tongue (chicken!) refused to go there. Did you know that one of the reasons they add epinephrine to Novocain is to reduce and slow the bleeding? It also helps the Novocain last longer. I, unfortunately, can’t take it, hence the multiple shots into my gums to keep the level of numbness high enough to counter the ongoing dental work.
Ongoing for four and a half hours—with no breaks, two dental surgeons working in tandem and up to three dental assistants welding sucker tubes, spraying tepid water to clear out the work areas.
Reconstruction
The temporary replacement for my teeth was built from molds taken over a month ago. The resulting resin cast was over-sized and misaligned. An extra hour was spent in grinding and shaving it down to fit within my mouth and simulate teeth.
My mouth looks like my mothers dentures. The dentists are thrilled. I am not.
The final replacements will be shinier, less thick (right now the bulk in my mouth feels like a cows cud, even the incisors), and with a better alignment that wont cause my lips to protrude
I go back in a week for further adjustments. Right now the swelling and continued bleeding make it difficult to make the aesthetic refinements that would help my fragile, vain ego accept the inevitable aging (not to mention the expense–debt free for the past ten years until I took on a hefty two year chunk for this process).
DH had a lovely bouquet of gerbera daisies and freesia on the table when I finally got home.
Dixie keeps coming over to sniff at my mouth and lay her paw on my arm. Duncan trades places with Dixie on the couch next to me, sprawling his soft, furry body along my thigh.
When I finally stop whining and feeling sorry for myself, it’ll all be good. Just maybe not right right away.
I track new bruises regularly (because I get them regularly, you see), trying to recall the event that left its mark on my body. Frequently I do not remember so I make something up. The made-up things often involve a chandelier.
Some I do remember. DSis has a back door that lives to crash closed on body parts. The handle is cleverly designed to gouge forearms, mid-backs, and unsuspecting knuckles caught in the quick-closing door jam.
No, I am not providing pictures, but I wish I did photograph the progression of some of my bruises. Like the cat attack, the puppy face-plant (wait – I did show some of that), or the moving marks created when my department moved upstairs (I cannot claim compensation for it was clearly forbidden to heft those boxes, but the alternative was being unable to work AT ALL which I simply could NOT deal with). That activity left marks that you could almost make out a few constellations.
Bruise Rorschach tests could be a new field of exploration. I could be a moving, mobile exhibit… um, wait… not all of the bruises are in publicly viewable areas. My arse and upper thighs are grey areas but more for your sensibilities than my own. I seem to have misplaced my sensibilities a while back…
The latest bruise conundrum is a trail of three fingertip-shaped bruises on my thigh. I have no clue what I did that caused them. I hope it was fun. I wish I knew…
I read a lot of blogs…or what seems like a lot to me. I have a couple dozen on my subscription list and they often lead me to others I enjoy. If I really enjoy them, I have been known to go back to the beginning of the blog and read it through to the present.
If they are long-winded verbose write a lot, this can be a HUGE time-sink. Enjoyable, yes, but not the most productive use of my time. There are many entries I come across that were written months and years back that I want to comment on, applaud, query, or otherwise touch back with the writer. then I wonder… How weird would it be to read a comment skatey-eight months after you posted it? What if, as I read on in the entries, the issues I was interesting in commenting on change so much that my comment is redundant or worse, rude and inconsiderate?
This is why lurkers exist.
(melody fades in)
I lurk you. You lurk me. We both lurk too easily…
(melody fades out…)
Anyway, the phrase that started all this meandering was:
“Don’t be afraid of failing; be afraid of succeeding at the wrong thing.”
Swistle wrote it, saying it came from theKate blog. It was #16 on Kate’s list.
I thought a bit about that ‘succeed at the wrong thing’ bit — and recalled many tasks I get stuck with doing simply because I am good at them. I may be bored to tears with them, but I can’t get anyone else to do them because why go for new and inexperienced when you can get old (sigh) and experienced for the same cost?
This ‘oldie’ is going to practice the word *no* as often as possible for those projects… you’ll let me know if the world ends, won’t you?
KaliDo 