Hello??? Is This Thing On???

Sorry I've been so silent of late.  I've been off in search of my blogging mojo, which seems to have done a runner.

I'm blaming the whole radio silence thing on my lack of permanent choppers.  I was de-fanged both literally and metaphorically, it seems.  It's very weird, but being very self-conscious about speaking really has made me self-conscious about blogging as well. 

Fortunately, I should have the white, shiny, pretty new teeth within the next week or so. Then look out, world!

In the meantime, here are a few more things they don't tell you at the beginning of this whole adventure in replacing every tooth in your mouth at once:

• They can put your temporary teeth in the same day that they take your real ones out.
  
• You'll have your temporaries put in and taken out at least four times, on the other hand, before you get your permanents:
  
• Your oral surgeon will take them out to make sure your implants have bonded properly.  He'll take another set of x-rays at that time.  You'll feel like just like this guy:
  
  
  Actually, you do look just like him.
  
• Your regular dentist (or the good folks at the implant clinic if you go that route) will take your teeth out to take a preliminary set of impressions to start in on making your permanent bridges. Once again, you'll feel lovely:
  
  
  
• Your dentist will have you back in to take the temporaries out and put in the bases for the permanent bridges.  He/she will build a Mini Cooper in your mouth, plaster it in Bondo and yank it out again.  You will look like Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me and probably could chew through cables for a couple of hours, anyway.
  
  
  
• Your dentist will ask you to come back in again, wherein one thing will happen if your last Bondo job (set of impressions) went well or two things will happen if it didn't (and you can guess, with my luck, which was my fate).  First, teeth come out and they build a moped in your mouth.  No, it's not as big as the Mini Cooper, but it comes with some seriously scary spikes and you're not allowed to shut your mouth for fear of impaling your gums on the damned things.  More Bondo is involved.  Second (or first if your prior Bondo job was successfull), they yank the motor works and insert a concept car so they can adjust the carburetor and kick the tires a few times.  The concept car is comprised of your pretty, permanent porcelain teeth set in a wax mold.  ( You'd better hope like hell that they work faster than a pit crew or the wax will start melting.)  More tinkering ensues, then the concept car is sent back to the laboratory for more work.
  
• Here's the good part -- you finally get your shiny new teeth.  I, of course, am not there yet... but SOON.
  
• Remind your dentist to take the bottom bridge out before taking the top bridge out.  It gives 'em more room to work and and doesn't make you feel like your jaw should be hinged so that they could just flip your head wide open.
  
• Remind your dentist to use the longer screwdriver.  Just trust me on this.  It's the longer screwdriver that will make the job go faster.
  
• None of this, of course, happens in a day -- it takes months.  Months after you've healed. 
  
• If having unwieldy temporary teeth makes eating difficult, even more so it shoots the hell right out of your love life.  Yes, I look pretty, but I'm not comfortable with the concept of making out with a mouth full of acrylic. 

Here are the temporaries:

More pix to follow when I finally sport the permanent pearlies, and I hope my blogging mojo is reinstalled at the same time!

Drive-Bys

As some of you are aware, I recently underwent major oral surgery -- in 16.5 hours I went from a mouthful of teeth to no teeth to a mouthful of temporary teeth.

Here are some observations:

• Now I know what the phrase "like pulling teeth" really means.
• My brother tells me that toothless is not my best look.
• My brother tells me that I should be commended for having the guts to go out in public looking like Jacob Marley's ghost. He also confessed that he wouldn't have. (The big chicken!)
• 16.5 hours is a very long time to sit in a dentist's chair.
• If you're going to get implants, get 'em all done at once. It's not brave. Brave would be willingly going through that more than once.
• If the dentist offers you more novocaine -- TAKE IT. Don't gut it out.
• Apparently I have a very high pain tolerance.
• You are going to need more than four days off before going back to work -- mostly to wait for the swelling to go down and bruising to fade so your coworkers don't think you're a domestic battery victim.
• Buy a couple of large gel packs and have them in the freezer before going to the oral surgeon. The eensy weensy ones you'll get from your oral surgeon are a joke.
• It's a good thing you can't get stretch marks on your face, because the amount of swelling is amazing.
• You'll look fine the day after. It's the day after the day after that you'll start looking like crap.
• "You look pretty good, considering everything we did to you," is not a morale booster.
• I just don't have it in me to do an all liquid diet for six months.
• Mushy food mostly sucks.
• On the other hand, I finally took my brand new food processor out of the box an put it to good use.
• If toothless isn't my best look, neither is two black eyes and a purple Fu Manchu.
• With your temporaries in place you'll be lithping like Winthrop Paroo. Temporaries are made of acrylic and are very thick.
• My temporary choppers are bee-yoo-tee-ful... but I want my permanents, and I want them right now.
• I am hyper-aware of the temporaries and of the lithping; therefore, I'm talking a whole lot less... and I was much more of a listener than a talker in the first place.
• Oddly, talking less has lead to blogging less. Don't ask me why -- I surely don't know. And I'll try to do better.
  

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Quote of the Day:

“As a child, I had an inordinate fondness for Orange Circus Peanuts. Colored like an orange, shaped like a peanut, flavored like a banana. What the hell was I thinking.” – Phil Vettel

What was your favorite childhood (purported) food that now makes you scratch your head in wonder? (I've got too many to count!)
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PSA:

Do you have a universal life insurance policy? If so, you may just want to request an in-force ledger illustration. Prepare to be shocked when you get it.
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Things I'm Digging This Week:

I'm not in any way, shape or form an oatmeal for breakfast kind of girl. I want eggs, bacon and toast on a regular basis. But, given that bacon is not on the list of mushy foods I'm allowed, I've gotten a little desperate. Fortunately, I tripped across BetterOats' mmm... muffins old fashioned instant oatmeal with flax. Yummy stuff, and not the texture of wallpaper paste.


I have a 9" Tiffany pewter bowl on my desk that I got for hanging around the company for 10 years. I put it to work as the world's largest candy dish. Normally I fill it with Hershey's kisses, Starburst jelly beans, and all sorts of appallingly normal American candy. This weekend, however, I trolled the ethnic aisles at my local Shop 'N Save and found Mieszanka Krakowska in the Polish section. Not reading a word of Polish, I figured they were fancy hard candies (and cheap), so I threw a bag in my cart.

I'm not a big candy person. Give me salt or tart. I'm the one that will choose the savory dessert plate over the chocolate mousse at a fancy restaurant. I have a piece of candy out of that ginormous candy dish maybe once a week or so. Until now.

"Named after Poland's most romantic city, these chocolate covered jellies come in a variety of flavors: orange, lemon, pineapple, raspberry. Each jelly is slightly tart, not too sweet and covered with a rich dark chocolate which makes these a favorite with adults."

Oh. My. Gawd. They're like crack cocaine.
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Here's another Facebook scam to avoid.
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Ear Worm of the Day:



I wish Gavin Coyle's version was up on YouTube, because it's absolutely haunting (and has been stuck in my head for days).
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Update: I just noticed that Gavin Coyle will be playing at the Fifth Province Pub at the Irish American Heritage Center on June 9th. Does anyone want to go??? This is fabulous news!

Quick Stops

Spit-Take Alert:

I wish someone had warned me first about this.
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On the other hand, I'm glad I've had plenty of warning about this:

The National Weather Service has issued an unusually dire blizzard watch, calling a storm expected to arrive Tuesday afternoon over much of northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana "dangerous, multifaceted and potentially life-threatening."

All told, forecasters expect at least a foot of snow over much of the watch area. White-out conditions are expected at times Tuesday night, with snowfall rates of at least 2 to 3 inches per hour possible with northeast winds of 25 to 40 mph and even stronger gusts.

Localized totals in excess of 18 inches are possible, especially near the lake.

Conditions are expected to deteriorate from north to south across the region Tuesday afternoon with travel becoming "virtually impossible" at times Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning, according to the weather service. Plows will be unable to keep up with the downfall.

(And, yes -- I changed that appointment.)
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Ear Worm of the Day:


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One More Thing:
Paraguay! That's a first!