Flip, flop, and fly.

(Two of those are four-letter words beginning with f, which are perhaps suitable euphemisms for another four letter word...)

I quote that song title because it contains the line, "here comes my baby, flashin'* a new gold tooth"

(*or maybe it's "sportin'," it's been a while since I heard the song.

Dentist appointment today. Turns out one of the fillings in one of the way-back teeth (the second molar, for those of you who are familiar with such things) is splitting and the best course of action is to get a crown put on it.

It will be a gold crown, because it's in the back where it can't be seen.
Sadly, I doubt it will cause me to become slender enough to "mambo in a pay-phone booth." (Should I be alarmed that I have such a high degree of familiarity with the lyrics of a long-gone R&B song?)

But anyway. I have to go through the dang process again, on the other side of my mouth, even FURTHER in the back.

Flip.
Flop.
Frack.

Money isn't the object - thank goodness I have dental insurance; my co-pay isn't that bad. But it's the process...

And the fact that I feel almost like it's a personal failure, somehow. Even though the hygienist always comments on what good care I take of my mouth (and how little crud she has to scrape).

The dentist wanted it done within two months, but the only timeframes for having that done would involve me having to travel with a temporary crown on (the first open appointment that fit with my schedule was shortly before Thanksgiving). And after the agony of the poorly-fitted temporary last time I do not want to be away from my dentist for any length of time during the process. So I pushed the time back to early January, and will just have to hope that the tooth doesn't crack or anything bad happen to it. (The dentist assured me the tooth was sound; it was just that the large old filling - it is one of the old amalgam types - was slowly splitting. Funny, I don't have any pain from it.)

I will finally have to break myself of the habit of chewing ice whenever I get a drink that has ice in it.

The hygienist did tell me to start using that fluoride rinse junk. Apparently my down does not/no longer puts fluoride in the water. And you can hate on fluoridation all you like, call it a Communist plot or claim it used industrial waste; I won't listen to you. Not when my dad the geohydrologist studied fluoridation in its early days and came to the conclusion that it was safe and would most likely prevent some degree of decay.