one more appointment

Me, last week: "oh, thank goodness, I'm done with medical appointments for a while"

The dental checkup I scheduled six months ago: "ha ha, I don't THINK so."

Yeah, early this week I got the texted reminder. I knew it was coming up but I thought it was a little later. But I confirmed, "being tired of medical stuff" isn't a sufficient excuse, so I went this afternoon.

My dentist is good, his hygienists are good, but I still don't like going to the dentist. Too many unfamiliar noises, too much stuff crammed in my (small) mouth, too much anxiety about "what might be wrong this time." 

My least favorite part is "sonication" - they use some kind of super-vibrating thing that also uses a very high pitched sound to remove tartar. And, unfortunately, some people just MAKE a lot of tartar (different saliva chemistry, the hygienist once told me) even with good dental hygiene.

I remember some years ago Nick Seluk ("The Awkward Yeti") drew some comics about a gallbladder that had to be removed because of stones, and one of the panels was the dumb little gallbladder holding out stones and saying "I maded these!" with some pride, and I imagine my salivary glands doing the same about the limestone they're depositing on my teeth. (I know, that's not quite accurate, but)

So I had to lie there with my mouth open for what felt like at least 15 minutes while she worked. And I don't like the upper back teeth being done; there is an annoying sound that gets conducted by the bones in my head (the lower jaw is a lot better)

I also had to have a fuller set of x-rays done, it's been a couple years.

The good news was that my teeth are fine; I don't need to go back until September (barring some emergency). And they did the ultrasonic cleaning on my mouth guard - even with brushing it it gets gross over time. 

And even better: the good dentist I see (one of two in this practice) who had been ill, has recovered, and he looked like he was doing pretty well. (Not just because he's a fellow human and I don't like fellow humans to suffer, but I'd hate to have to break in a new dentist)

So maybe now? Maybe now I have until May before the next medical thing?

***

A long awaited item I ordered came today. It's something for my little "Island of Misfit Toys" group - you may have seen pictures of the goofy bootleg "Garfield Movie Garfield" plush cat that's made by some random Chinese factory. Well, I had looked at them online going "they're so ugly, ha ha" and after a while I was like "I kind of want one" and shortly after I hurt my leg (so you can see how long it took to ship here), I found one for sale and ordered it. It was stuck in LA for FOREVER and I was on the verge of saying to myself, "They didn't actually ship it; I got ripped off, I'll have to see if I can get a refund" when I saw it had moved to "Missouri City, Texas" (it's near Houston) and then finally was out for delivery today

"Oh baby what did you do?" hahahaha

Yeah, he's pretty janky. I'm calling him Gorf because he's not REALLY Garfield. He looks like he's lived pretty rough:

But yeah, worth the $12 or so I paid for the laugh. He's a little bigger than Beanie Baby size.

Though I admit, this kind of thing makes me miss the days of Dakin. When I was a kid, there were a few "gift shop" brands of stuffed animals - Dakin was probably the nicest of the widely available and reasonably priced ones, and had the highest species diversity, but there was also Russ Berrie and Applause (which eventually bought Dakin, and now I think they're both gone). And Kamar, though I didn't see that brand as often.

When I had a little spending money as a kid, it often went towards some Dakin plush animal or other. I still have a few of them (And I bought an echt Garfield - vintage 80s Dakin - from a seller on Etsy to replace the one I no longer have). 

But yeah, they were one of the Good Things of my late childhood. 

This guy is maybe a little scary but he's also funny in the way that ugly dogs are funny, and I think I'm glad I bought him.