Hiphopopotamus vs Rhymenoceros

This is hilarious!

Enjoy!!

My tooth is finally getting better!

May you never have to have a root canal. Or, if you must (because really they're not that bad), then may you have no complications. Or extra pain. A few months ago I tried to avoid having a root canal--they're rather expensive--but alas, the problematic tooth never calmed down. So a few weeks ago I went in for my routine cleaning and told my dentist I thought I should probably go ahead and have it done after all. *sigh* The following week I had the root canal. I'd had one before and had had no problems, and I was expecting much the same from this one. Of course, it seemed like Murphy's Law was in full effect this time! Apparently generally speaking people have 3 roots in their molars. So my dentist was rather surprised to find a fourth canal in my tooth. Which means the root canal was going to take a little longer. I was sitting there in the chair listening to him work, with the mp3 player playing softly in my ear (I like to be able to hear what's going on...I ain't skeerd) and several times I heard him ask his assistant to suction up the water. Water? Huh. Interesting...he must've been rinsing or something. Right. He couldn't finish the root canal process (the filling the empty canals and all that), partly because of that fourth canal, and partly because the one sick root that had been causing me the discomfort was quite the bleeder. He told me (afterward) that as soon as he touched it, it had started "gushing" and wouldn't stop. So of course he couldn't finish. He gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and instructions to take lots of ibuprofen, and scheduled me for Part Two the following week. The girls at the front asked if I wanted a prescription for something stronger for the pain, and I told them no. "Stronger is for wusses," I said. Three days later I was calling the office again--my tooth was still quite painful. After talking to my dentist on the phone for about 10 minutes, answering his questions as truthfully as I could, and probing my gum above the tooth (and finding it painful!) I was relieved that he was going to give me something for the inflammation. Except that what he gave me was prednisone, a steroid--steroids cause water retention and weight gain. Yippee. BUT it did help clear up the inflammation in the tooth (and the pain thereof). The following week I went in for Part Two. Things went much much better, according to my dentist. The root had stopped bleeding, and he was able to fill it and everything. But then toward the end, I started feeling really...uncomfortable. Everytime he pressed on that tooth, it HURT. Even when the assistant was cleaning it to remove the excess adhesive, that hurt like you wouldn't believe. He couldn't think why it would be hurting like that, but he told me to go ahead and take ibuprofen and if it wasn't significantly better the next day to give him a call. Fortunately, it was. Even today, it's so much better than it was last week...but there's still some mild discomfort. But since it seems to be sssslllloooooowwwwllllyyyy getting better, I'll just keep an eye on it.

Holiday Weekend Do-Overs

So my friends invited me and the Bratdog back to their lake house, this time to have a much more relaxing weekend---the one we were supposed to have over Memorial weekend. They put up a small, plastic-y fence, about 2 feet tall, so that hopefully my stupid dog wouldn't get loose again. Just to make sure, I took her 12-foot tie-out and her retractable leash.

Wouldn't you know it, Hannah sometimes would just sit and watch the deer come up...but then other times she would take off trying to chase them, only to be foiled by the little fence. And the leash/tieout, of course. I don't trust her nearly as far as I could throw her! Little brat! The type of fence they put up requires staking down the bottom edge; Hannah made sure to quickly find the areas that still needed stakes.

Occasionally she'd bite the fence in her frustration, and at least once she had her paws on the top edge, ready to take off and get her some deer! Obviously she learned nothing from her Memorial weekend overnight adventure. Sheesh.

It took a couple weeks for me to have the time, but I finally went to the Williamson County Humane Society and got Hannah microchipped for $15. Which won't help her much if she runs off into the wilderness again and gets bitten by a snake or something, but it would help if she got picked up and taken to animal control or a vet or something. (Assuming someone could move fast enough to catch her!)

Eventful holiday weekend

Whew, and when I say eventful, I mean it! I went to visit some friends at their lake house on Canyon Lake. It was gorgeous! (I mean, except for the rain..though even that was beautiful!) I drove the Devil's Backbone on my way there--an awesome drive, which I had never done with the Miata club (my own fault). Though I did take a little side trip through Wimberley, almost to Driftwood--I forgot that I wasn't supposed to turn off right there.

Saturday night was an awesome lightning storm that woke everyone up, including and especially the dogs. I had taken Hannah's collar off so she wouldn't wake everyone up all night, but I needn't have worried since the storm took care of that. The following morning, we let the dogs out to pee, and lo and behold Hannah found some deer to chase!

That little dog of mine can run fast!!! We hollered at her to come, but she was so focused and having so much fun that she of course ignored us. Unfortunately in her fun she managed to get lost. I have never been so...scared...for another being in my life, I think. How could a five-pound dog survive living in the wild? We kept searching for her, combing the woods, checking the campgrounds, walking the neighborhood. The neighbors all knew we were looking for a little black dog, as did the owner of the beer and bait store up the road. We kept calling for her, we put food out on the front and back porches, and we kept an eye out for her. At some point we tried calling animal control (closed until Tuesday, it would be a $500 fine if they had her) and I dug out the phone book and started leaving messages with area vet clinics.

Sunday night there was another storm, not as scary as Saturday night's but still a big one. We all hoped that Hannah had been taken in by someone so she could at least have a warm, dry place to sleep.

Monday morning I was wide awake at 6, and praying that my little dog would be returned to me...after all, she is rather indestructible! Finally at about 9:30, the guy at the store called--a lady had found my dog but couldn't catch her! We hauled ass to the store, getting there in about five seconds (seriously!) and she said to follow her and she'd take us to where the dog was. Sure enough, Hannah had apparently found some houses and was basking in the sun on the concrete driveway, seemingly none the worse for wear. We profusely thanked the kind soul who had found her and had asked at the store. Bless her!

I don't think I have ever been so happy to see my little Hannah bug. After drinking lots of water and snoozing even more, I think today she is back to normal. Whew!

Above pics are of my friend Pat reassuring my parents' dog Bo, and of Pat and Amy's dogs Tara and Bean recovering from the stress of missing Hannah. :)

P.S. I did call back all those vet clinics Monday night to leave messages that my baby had been found.

Body Worlds

I went to Fort Worth a couple weeks ago to visit some friends and meet their 3-month-old baby girl, and somehow I managed to talk them in to going to the Body Worlds exhibit in Dallas. Wow! I totally recommend going to see it. Everything has been "plasticized", so it all looks a little unreal and is easy to forget that these were once-living people who donated their bodies to science and education. Except some of the bodies still had hair. But one of my friends managed to make it through--I was so proud, because she's not a scientist but an accountant. Then she told me that she had been expecting to see body parts in JARS, entire bodies in big windowed freezers, and other such things. Whoa! That would've been a totally different experience, indeed!

It was a very interesting exhibit, and one that we were all glad to have gone to. They had healthy organs alongside unhealthy ones: smokers lungs next to nonsmoker lungs, cancerous organs next to healthy ones, etc. It was amazing to be able to see what a difference disease really causes. I mean, I can look at diagrams and stuff all day (and have, in fact), but to see these, and to know they are real, is fantastically educational. Amazing, really. I highly recommend it!

(And, for the record, my friends' baby was beautiful and adorable! And my friend even cooked while I was there! ) We also went on a mad dash one evening to find the Grey's Anatomy Trivia Game, but we couldn't remember what store's ad we had seen it in, so we rushed to 3 or 4 different stores before we finally found it, right before they closed. Whew! Then, of course, we stayed up playing a few games of it, and even my friend's husband won a game! (he's not a fan...)

I need another vacation!

Every time I go back and look at the pictures from France, I really really want to go back. Or at least somewhere that I don't have to work and don't have to worry. :) A beach vacation would be nice to do again. These pictures are from my trip to Puerto Vallarta in 2005, for my 30th birthday. My friend Christy took the picture above, but she hadn't yet figured out all the particulars of her new camera. So, if you look really closely, you might be able to make me out posing on the rocks. ;) It was a fun trip, for all the things that went wrong (neither of us will ever make travel arrangements through Travelocity ever again, gnome guarantee or not!). We went swimming with dolphins, we went on a zipline canopy tour, we shopped, and of course we laid on the beach and by the pool and had tasty pina coladas.

We totally need to go again. Not necessarily to Puerto Vallarta, not necessarily even to Mexico, but definitely to a beach. Another sun and sandy beach vacation is most definitely in the plans.....even if it ends up only being a long weekend at Padre or some other Texas beach.

November 13-16, 2006: Back to Paris and then Home

We checked out after breakfast and went back to the train station; Anne and Bill had decided to take the train back to Strasbourg with me and then they’d rent a car there and we would part ways: them to spend another week in France, me to go back to Paris for a couple days by myself. I wrote this on the train to Paris—I was totally hoping I was on the right one, and was assured when I saw some highway signs. A word about France’s numbering system: it doesn’t make much sense to me, no rhyme or reason, just however they slapped the numbers on. The reason for this statement is because I had trouble finding my seat on the train and had to ask a very nice Frenchman. I had only been looking on one side of the train (where I found seats 25-28 but then suddenly I was at seats 17-18. I felt like such a doofus when the nice older man I asked for help went right to it—on the other side of the aisle, which I had ignored. Oops!

It was a long train ride—boring, and I was hungry—but we finally pulled into Paris Gare de l’Est (Paris East station) and HOLY COW, was it crowded! Especially once the crowd got to the metro and stalled at the little ticket gates.

I finally made it back to Rue Montorgueil and my hotel –and of course I was put on the third floor (American fourth). By this time I was hot and miserable and still starving, so I snuck out of my hotel room and bought a ham sandwich at a bakery, and then stopped at the little grocery and bought some potato chips (of all things! But it’s what I was craving) and snuck back up to my room. I ended up going to bed super early—I was SO tired.

The next morning I skipped breakfast and headed out to walk around a bit. I ended up circling the Pompidou Centre a lot and attempted to walk to the Musee Carnavalet but didn’t make it there. I bought a terrible chicken sandwich (by far the worst thing I had in France) and then went back to my room to rest and rehydrate—and get a new contact lens as one had torn. Later I finally again made myself go out—I walked to Les Halles and scoped that out to make sure I knew where to get on the train to the airport. Then I hopped on the metro to St-Germain-des-Pres to have hot chocolate one last time at Les Deux Magots. I stayed there a bit to people watch and then wandered around the (ritzy!) neighborhood. Then I went back to Montorgueil and had a dinner of confit de canard (duck) and dessert of mousse aux deux chocolats—which I discovered was white and dark chocolate mousse, a layer of each.

Back at the hotel, I didn’t sleep well that night because I was worried about getting to the airport. Wednesday I was glad to have decided to go ahead and leave the hotel at 9. I got the RER figured out (train to airport) but then the airport got confusing. I had to take a shuttle from the RER station to the air terminal and then check in and go through security. Gosh!

I stayed awake the entire flight from Paris to Chicago—I had read that doing so would help you adjust more quickly to the time change. Once in Chicago I discovered that I had to re-pack my bags so I could check the bottle of wine I had bought (and the foie gras). That was a long line to wait in. Then I had to go to the domestic terminal and wait in another long security line, and finally I was at my gate. Only to discover that my flight was delayed—I was on the phone with friends to find out who loved me best (translation: who would be willing to pick me up very late at night from the airport in Austin), when I realized that my flight was going to be delayed nearly 3 hours! I let my friends off the hook because a very nice fellow passenger lady was willing to give me a ride home. Bless her heart! She lives in Pflugerville, and my place was on her way. In the end, instead of landing in Austin at around 11:30 pm, we landed at 2, and by the time I got home it was 3 am. I was so wired for some reason, I considered just staying up all night because I had to work the next day, but I decided finally to get at least a couple hours of sleep—I had been awake for roughly 30 hours straight. Thursday I went in to work about 8:30 (not bad!) and ended up leaving at 1:30 when my eyes stopped focusing.

It was a wonderful trip! I can’t wait to go back!