Dentist, etc.
Went to dentist today and mostly have my face back now. Wow, even my ears were numb. There are temporary caps on my two lower back teeth, which have ragged edges that I keep unconsciously worrying with my tongue. One of them popped off when I did this; my jaw and tongue were still mostly dead at that point, and I didn't immediately realize what was happening. So I dropped it back in place, bit down hard, and kept chomping on it in hopes that the glue or epoxy or whatever it is simply hadn't completely set yet. It hasn't come off again. We'll see.
Going back in two weeks for the more permanent arrangement. Unless I really can't stop myself prodding the ragged edges. Unless this stupid thing decides to pop off again before that point.
In the meantime... One of my mom's two cats had an infected tooth, which had resulted in her not eating. The vet had given my mom some antibiotic that must be squirted into the cat's mouth, a course of several weeks. So we managed to trap and wrestle the cat into submission for several days, then I got wrapped in the fanfic thing and completely spaced the whole cat-squirting deal. So at christmas, since she hadn't called me about her cat, I assumed she'd figured out a way to medicate her solo. But when I asked how her cat squirting had been going, she told me she hadn't been doing it at all. She couldn't catch the cat, and I hadn't come over.
This triggered my pissy lecture mode: I am allowed to forget things once in a while like a normal human, and no one likes a martyr, and I appreciate being reminded when I've forgotten something important. Grah. So she called me the next day, and I walked over, and I trapped the cat in the bath towel, and she medicated her. Only a little of my blood was involved that time. We've gotten much, much better at this maneuver after all this practice, and no blood has been spilled at all the past several days.
My sister roadtrips to Bloomington at every opportunity. One of her daughters lives down there with her boyfriend (the daughter being an I.U. student), and my sister has an Eternally Unfinished Dissertation that she (strictly in theory, from what I've observed) is working on. Her latest plan is to quit her teaching job, rent her house, and move to Bloomington next year. She's decided to move in with her daughter/daughter's boyfriend/their dog. I have seen the overstuffed, glorified closet they call an apartment, in which you can't take a step without treading on clothes and books and dirty dishes and god-only-knows-what. So. Three terminally messy people. I'm sure that will be great fun for all. Sanity is not strong with these people.
So my sister's school hasn't started up again yet; she left others to feed her cats and beelined for Bloomington. Today, the dude from the water company started knocking on my mom's back door. It seems my sister's water line between the meter and the house had broken underground and was flooding her yard and the street. The water company couldn't contact my sister, so they wanted my mom to give them permission to shut her water off. Which, naturally, she gave them. Since the leak's on my sister's property, she's responsible for fixing it. Which means she has to come home...
My mom has also been working on me for over a month now. I'd decided to just let my hair grow out again. They'd discontinued the color I liked, so I lost interest in messing with it and figured it was time to give it a break anyway, pick it up again in the spring. But for some reason it's been making her nuts. "I will help you," she said (repeatedly). "I will let you use my bathtub if you'll just dye it again."
But I still wasn't that interested until I found myself in the position of being trapped in a dentists' chair while two people with their hands in my mouth were having a discussion over my head about how fast my hair must grow to get that effect... OK FINE.
So I took the bottles over this week and let her pick a color, since she's the one who has to look at it. She wanted it green again, so green it is. On the plus paw, she's been very smiley whenever I show up. "It's so green!" she says. Indeed it is.
The worst thing about the dentist wasn't the shots or the caps or the bite-this, now-bite-this, now-bite this ... the worst thing was the TV. This is one of those places that puts a small TV on a swivel over your chair to keep you occupied while waiting for someone to get around to you. I do not want to be occupied by TV, but usually I can ignore it. But today it was playing repeated airings of Mitch Daniels's fucking "Right to Work" commercial, in which he explains how his amazing plan will bring new employers to our state by getting rid of obstructive employee unions. Mitch's Right to Work commercial played over. And over. And over. By the time the Indy news started -- and, no kidding, the talking heads started praising the wonderful Right to Work legislation -- I'd had enough and kicked the TV. Dentist walks in, sees their TV turned completely around, sees me glaring at the ceiling, says not a word. I cannot express how much I hate Mitch Daniels. Make. Him. Go. Away.
It's a source of constant wonder to me that the Republican party has managed to convince the very people whose unions are pretty much the only thing still standing between them and Wal-mart level indentured servitude that Unions Are Bad. But manage it they have. It's like living in bizarro land.
Oh, and while I'm at it, how about a fic rec? This one, all by its ownsome, made yuletide worthwhile for me:
Yip et Non (by longwhitecoats). Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairveaux are naughty Pomeranians.