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the good, the bad, and the painful as hell
November 18, 2008
It was a pretty quiet weekend, for once. And yet moderately productive. After a month�s worth of crazy-busy, stressful weekends, Spouse and I committed to a weekend at home. And it was nice. We both pitched in and got the house cleaned up (way overdue), I puttered my way through 8 loads of laundry (did rugs and bedding, on top of the usual) and some baking (a coffee cake for Sunday morning and a batch of peanut butter cookies) and we got our grocery shopping and errands done. I bought an inexpensive storage bin and stowed the CDs and cassettes out of the old entertainment center, thereby reclaiming my laundry basket from storage detail.
We shared cooking duties, although Spouse kind of drove the menu-planning. He must have been powerfully hungry for Italian, because we made homemade pizzas on Saturday. Since we are lucky enough to have a great Italian deli in town, they came out beautiful and delicious�his was your standard Italian sausage and mozz, but mine had pepperoni, black olives, mushrooms, green peppers, and artichoke hearts, with mozzarella & parmesan cheese, and with garlic and lots of Italian herbs to finish it. Wowie-wow-wow, was it ever good. I didn�t even need to add my usual eggplant salad as a topper. (And the leftovers are in the freezer for a future dinner.)
And Sunday--Spouse made a really good meat sauce and I boiled up a pot of mostaccioli, made a salad, and assisted in the creation of one of Spouse�s masterpieces�the world�s best garlic bread.
I got the smelliest job�peeling and micro-planing 5 cloves of garlic. Which was then gently and patiently saut�ed (by Spouse) in a tablespoon of butter until mellow and straw-colored, then added to 8-9 tablespoons of softened sweet butter, with a quarter-teaspoon each of ground sea salt and black pepper, and mixed well. I split and quartered a fresh loaf of Cardinelli�s best, spread the heavenly concoction on, reassembled, wrapped it in foil, and baked it at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. After unwrapping it and letting it crisp a bit for another 10, it was ready to put the rest of dinner to shame.
Both days were pleasant in the extreme, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Sunday�I spent the entire day in my bathrobe. And any day where I get to do that is my kind of day. I probably should have seized the opportunity to dye my hair, but no regrets. I did give myself the all-too-rare treat of a good old Queen Helene Mint Julep facial mask. (I can tell it�s all-too-rare, because I had to reconstitute the damn tube of goop before I could use it!)
And we watched a bit of television, played some computer games, enjoyed the company of Mr. B, got some reading in, and just plain old relaxed.
Which was needed, because Monday? insane. Worked my hinder off all day, coding at a furious pace. I managed a breakthrough on the issue that had me stumped all of last week, and once I did, I was off and running. Not to mention simultaneously re-writing my design doc and unit testing, as well.
Then, at 3:15, I got a call from my dentist. I'd asked to be put on the short-call list for an evening appointment, because my crafty strategy of completely ignoring my damned tooth was starting to backfire on me, and I really didn't want to wait for my new filling until the next available slot on December 4th.
So--they called. There's an opening at 5:00--could I make it? Spouse being home with a bad cold, I didn't need to get home to the dog or anything, so I jumped. The ever more frequent and intense pangs from my bicuspid were starting to get to me.
But as tired as I felt, I admit I would have skipped the whole thing if I'd known it was going to turn out to be a two-hour, $650.00 ordeal.
Yep. Advanced decay. Abcess and infection. Root Canal.
And me broke as Bush's brain after the Big Entertainment Upgrade of Aught-Eight.
After the procedure, I went into the office to get the bad news. Presented with the bill, I announced that since I'd gone from "No Appointment" to "Root Canal" in the space of 90 minutes or so, I couldn't give them their required $250.00 today. I laid down the last 50 bucks in my wallet, and told them they'ed see the rest after payday. And if you know the financial staff in my dentist's office, you'd know I must have been one tired out wreck of a human being so sass them like that. They are a rather formidable lot.
And I still had to drive all the way across town, in the snow (oh, yeah. SNOW.), and borrow a twenty from Spouse so I could go BACK out and spend an hour getting my prescriptions filled. fortunately, amoxycillin and Tylenol-3 are on the cheapest tier of my co-pays, and it only ran to $20 for them.
I am telling you--by the time I finally got my coat off, I was ready to drop. I heated up a can of soup and got about a third of it down me, And about a third down my front, since I couldn't hold my novacained mouth closed. And Mr. B finished it, because it wasn't very good soup, anyway. Then I took my pills, and promptly passed out on the couch for an hour, before falling into bed.
Where I spent a shitty night, periodically whimpering in pain, and laying there feeling the left side of my face swell up like a balloon.
So all the fussing and finagling to get an evening appointment went for naught, anyway--I had to call in this morning and miss work.
So here I sit, nattering way with my fingers, because my mouth ain't feeling so hot. And mildly stoned on codeine, which seems to be helping, much to my surprise. As I've mentioned before, codeine isn't much good to me--it makes me irritable as all fuck and constipates me to boot. But this time, it's actually taking the edge off the pain.
I think I'll go take another one.
Reading: �The Crass Menagerie: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury� by Stephen Pastis.
Surfing: Design Sponge.
Listening: �Light From Heaven� unabridged CD audiobook. By Jan Karon, Narrated by John McDonough (Book 9, The Mitford Series)
At Random: click here
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