In which I’ve had a BONE GRAFT!
Friday I went to the endodontist and had a bone graft. Local only, no sedation. I’ve had four (wisdom) teeth extracted and two root canals, and I’m not dental procedure-averse, but this surgery was pretty rough.
He numbed me thoroughly, so nothing hurt, but one is still aware of what’s being done. It’s stressful knowing the doctor’s taking a scalpel to your gums! And having a tooth root cleaned under the gumline with a sonic is dismal. Don’t even get me started on the sutures, ye GODS.
I got three prescriptions: an antibiotic, some generic Vicodin, and a twice-daily rinse.
Apparently my wisdom tooth extraction left a pocket of bacteria that have destroyed some of my jaw bone, so this procedure cleared out the area, removed calculus from the tooth’s root, and added cadaver bone as a sort of scaffold for my own bone cells to use.
The first 48 hours post-surgery were a little rough because of swelling, but not particularly painful. I made a batch of gruel of brown rice and chora dal (it came out really good!) and drank a lot of cool water. Ice pack on the face for 20 minutes each hour. Slept on the opposite side. Napped.
Today’s day five, and it feels fine. I made the mistake of looking in there, though, and it looks gross and the suture ends are sort of wound around my teeth in a weird but ultimately probably very clever way.
I go in next Tuesday to get my stitches out!
If, God forfend, I ever have to do this shit again, I’m getting sedation. Root canals are fine, but having my gums sliced and flapped over while fully awake is a bit too much for me.
in which THIS IS GETTING PRETTY EXCITING, GUYS
went over and loitered awhile this afternoon during the scope and inspection, and IT’S SUCH A GREAT HOUSE
the double closets in the master bedroom, the en suite, the storage in the laundry room, the covered patio, the fun open area between kitchen and living room that isn’t really a dining area but would totally work on the rare occasion we might host Thanksgiving or Christmas as a large dining room…
there’s a linen closet and a coat closet, and the smallest room will make an ideal guest bedroom, and behold the awesome built-in cabinets in the main bathroom:
look at all that space! all the towels can live IN THE BATHROOM so the linen closet can just hold bedding! and the drawers in the china cabinet can hold table linens! insanely well thought-out!
i even love a lot of the hardware and finish in the kitchen and bathrooms, they’re not merely retro, they’re original, i love this shit:
the back yard is generous without being huge, there’s already a concrete pad for a rotating laundry tree, and the creek (ok, irrigation ditch) runs along side for coolness and gurgle
the kitchen is adorable, plenty of cupboards and counter space. there’s room for a bigger stove if we upgrade. i love the weird little china cabinet, but i think i’ll paint it
~+~+~
so the back story is that we rented a great little house three Christmases ago, and we love this street because it dead-ends at an irrigation ditch, on the other side of which was an apple orchard which is even now being turned into a vineyard
no. through. traffic. lovely! big open spaces, just very nice
it’s a few blocks from the Freewater end of Main street, which may very easily be an up-and-coming area with the growth of the Rocks District wine industry and become charming and walkable
it’s just a great location, and the same builder built the house we’re in and the house across the street… which just went on the market, because the occupant passed away last fall
so we called the agent the day the sign went up in the yard, and found ourselves suddenly tryna buy a house even though we were in no way prepared
weirdly, it’s working out: we got pre-approved, we were eligible for a no-down USDA loan, and everything seems to be… happening?!
one of my aunts is even gifting us our closing costs, because she just… felt like it (!!!)
christ we’re lucky, it’s wonderful
~+~+~
the patio is covered and protected on three sides, but there’s air flow because there’s a breezeway that is also the walkway between the carport and the back door. it’s awesome. we could live out there: grill, patio furniture, windchimes, it’ll just be wonderful, just have to put in some greenery on the other side of the yard so we’re not staring into the rear neighbor’s sliding glass door
there’s a weird thing the builder seemed to do a lot (at least three of the houses on this street have these), and it’s roofed and sided like a garage, and it’s at the end of the carport, but it’s really just a workshop where you’d keep tools and repair things. probably a quarter the size of a one-car garage. we’ll probably use it as combo garden shed/bicycle parking. the lawn mower and weed whacker will either live in there too, or in the shed in the back yard.
~+~+~
haven’t yet received the results of the inspection and scope, but as far as i know there’s nothing terribly wrong with the place, the biggest issue so far is the shower/bath plumbing: it leaks when the shower’s turned on and has to be repaired. an access panel will have to be installed in the master bedroom closet to get to the pipes, but it won’t be terrible.
furnace is relatively new, water heater’s old but seems healthy enough. stove hood fan needs to be replaced. no idea about the roof yet.
this is fucking bonkers, but i’m very excited — hanging out in the house for a couple hours today made me realize that i freakin’ love it and hope this all works out!
in which there’s an observation
nobody else could have played greg house because the character is a complete, irredeemable fucking asshole as written, and the show only worked because laurie’s intrinsically as soft as a lop-eared bunny yet obviously brutally intelligent
the show never would have gotten a second season, or possibly even past the pilot, if they’d cast literally any other actor in the role, because house is SUCH a total dick no viewer would have warmed to him without that inherent compassion
you notice on re-watch that laurie almost always plays house against the script, making him gentler and more internal than the plot suggests through the character’s actions and behavior
(yes, i’m watching ‘house’ in the middle of the night again, it’s a pandemic, wtf do you want from me)
for the record, both laurie and house (even though the former is probably passive-aggressive af and the latter’s a drug-addicted sociopath) could totally get it, i’m not gonna lie, and furthermore this is based entirely on closeups of those eyes and the scene where house is seen chopping up a line like a true partier lol
~+~+~
in news unrelated to ‘house’, i’ve been having actual hot flashes lately, like genuine full-fledged ones, and HA HA HA they really DO SUCK, and also The Dread returned a week ago and i’ve had two or three utterly shitty episodes, so if you’re thinking of developing a panic and/or anxiety disorder may i suggest you absolutely really just DON’T
did some very gentle isometrics the other evening — because i was reading a book about menopause that told me all about muscle loss (muscle mass peaks in your 30’s and then it’s all down hill from there) and how to maintain bone density — and fucked up my left knee for the next three days, and it’s still tender and weak, goddamn it
fucked up my right arm while sleeping last week, too, and it remains sore, but at least i can still wrangle throughout the day multiple 20-pound wheels of cheese at work like i’m supposed to
keep resolving to bike more but then i don’t like the weather so i don’t, need to just make myself ride anyway, keep my quads from dissolving
aging while female is serious business, bitches, i swear i never realized how robust i’d always felt until i got this old and menopausaly, it’s a fucking racket
~+~+~
I MADE VEGGIE PULAO, DAL MAKHANI, AND TOMATO & ONION RAITA TODAY and it was yummy, and i also did a ton of laundry because the bedroom smelled like sweaty socks
paid the bills, did the dishes, and mended a favorite dress and a favorite tunic today as well, felt so productive!
we’re gonna walk through the house across the street tomorrow, hoping to buy it, i am dying to see the weird built-in china cabinet i saw on zillow
in which it’s a random brain dump! because that’s what blogs are FOR!
– my sleep schedule is WHACKED, with various levels of exhaustion and insomnia, i’m either sluggish af when i should be awake or wide awake when i should be deep in a REM cycle. was a few minutes late to work every day this week, boo
– it’s been 112 days since my last period, so in another 253 days (if i don’t bleed) i’m officially menopausal!
– i can’t regulate my body temp for shit when at rest (i’m fine at work, still), so i keep a pile of items next to me when i’m studying, reading, or watching movies: a pair of wool socks, a sweater, another sweater, and a shawl, and all these items come off and go on in a never-ending shuffle, plus when i get hot i get SO HOT it feels like prickles all over my skin, which is like a hot flash but also not like a hot flash
– 34,000 americans died of covid over the past 28 days; the government is weakly recommending boosters but is otherwise doing nothing. THIRTY-FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE DIED IN 28 DAYS, nobody’s doing anything of note, it’s literally fucking insane
– two of my co-workers are traveling for christmas, and no one is still in a bubble as far as i can tell. if anybody brings back covid i’ll be PISSED OFF
– i had an egg this morning and then didn’t eat again all day, so was starving when i got home. made myself a burrito out of various orphaned items from fridge and freezer and IT WAS AMAZING. so yeah, i do recommend you try putting a chopped-up tamale in a burrito with rice and beans, lettuce and tomato and onion, salsa and cheese guac, it totally works!
– i couldn’t finish the awesome burrito; ate a little over half and gave up: i can’t finish anything these days. i remember ordering and eating (!!!), a decade ago, entire mexican platters and it just seems impossible now, like, where did it even FIT lol
– yesterday someone asked if my nose ring “was a snowflake?” (my mask was low, oops) and it made me super happy because it DOES look like a snowflake and i’ve worn this thing three winters in a row without anybody noticing! yay!
– i watched die hard last night because it’s christmas movie season. hadn’t seen it in so long it was like seeing it for the first time (save the stills used in memes). fun!
– seriously considering (once my dental work is paid for, UGH) getting myself a Real Bike next year, maybe an e-bike, something with assist for longer trips? they’re expensive [well, expensive compared to $100 walmart bikes, but cheap compared to cars, of course] but the weather’s SO mild out here it’s always possible to ride, and maybe i could get a true step-through because (a) i wear long skirts more often than not and (b) i’m old, so getting on my bike is rough on the hip muscles when i’m tired after 6+ hours standing on concrete floors at work hauling 20-pound wheels of cheese, crates full of milk, and loaded delivery coolers
– speaking of which, some areas of the creamery are clean rooms, so i keep a pair of crocs at work. i wash and sanitize them at the end of every shift, and those shoes never leave the building, so this way i don’t have to put on slippers ten times a day to walk briefly into the creamery or the cave. the other day i took them off to wash them, and then walked around in my sock feet emptying all 7 trash bins, and HOLY SHIT IT HURT! age-related collagen loss is a bitch, i can feel the bones of my feet in ways that i never could have imagined twenty years ago, when the flesh on the heels and balls of my feet was so thick and plump. omfg those bouncy shoes are a BLESSING, i kid you not. bouncy and sanitizeable!
– my better half got a new job, he’s at whitman college now! likes his new pay rate. wants to buy a house. we’ve been looking, but goddamn the market is blown. reesty shacks are like a quarter of a million dollars?! insane.
– i knit a hat last month but it was too short so i had to pick up the hem, which i did half-assedly, to knit another couple inches so it’ll fit. still in progress, will look like hell
– my potted avocado, which i sprouted from a pit when i moved in with my beloved 8 years ago, seems to have died, and i think this SUCKS, but i’m keeping it inside and not letting it dry out in the hopes that maybe it’ll sprout again in the spring?
– i made cute little PROSCIUTTO-WRAPPED HALLOUMI kits at work: halloumi, prosciutto, a printed recipe, and a custom olive & cornichon mix, all in a little box, and people keep buying them and it pleases me a great deal to think of someone getting one as a gift and really enjoying it
– one aspect of studying in earnest for the CCP next year, which i am half-but-not-fully committed to sitting for because it costs a lot, is that i keep buying CHEESE BOOKS, so now i have a bunch of really cool CHEESE BOOKS in my house
In which I have to spend money on surgery.
Went to the periodontist last week and I need about $3k (initially) worth of surgery, including a bone graft, to help keep my teeth in my head.
Periodontal disease is bullshit. It’s basically bacteria eating your jawbones. Super fun. I used to feel so superior about never having cavities, but now I’d like to trade. A bunch of cavities would be much better than this bullshit!
Can I just fill the Waterpik with, like, something that will keep fucking bacteria out of my sockets?!
CADAVER BONE GRAFT, PEOPLE.
I’m not afraid of the surgery itself, I just don’t want to spend my savings on it and I don’t (think) I have insurance that will help.
And after the surgery, I apparently will want an additional procedure to help me not grind my back teeth out and an “appliance” to wear at night to stop the damage from bruxism.
Honestly wish I knew how long I’m going to live; it would be good information to help one decide how much to spend on keeping one’s teeth in one’s head. If I’m gonna die in a decade, I’ll spend the money on something else. If I’m gonna live ’til 80, well obviously stopping jawbone loss is a good investment.
Oh, he also thinks I’ll lose my most expensive possession, my root canal and crown. There’s bone damage so he thinks it’ll fall out somewhere between 5 and 10 years. So that’s exciting. Not.
in which i stayed an hour late tonight because of reasons
there’s new staff at the creamery (we lost five people in a single week a couple months ago) and they tend to leave their shit all over the work benches even when they’re not using them
“shit” in this context is buckets, scissors, slicers, knives, pens, vac bags, labels, tape, notes, and cheese. all these things have places they belong, and those places are NOT on on a work bench other staff need to use
nothing wastes more time than having to clean both before and after i do a task; workstations should either be actively in use or CLEAN, not abandoned and dirty
anybody starting a task should be able to do so from a fully reset kitchen, every single time, which means everybody needs to fucking clean as they go
when i went to slice and package charcuterie today, i had to clean the fucking slicer first, and then i had to clean & sanitize the bench, and then i had to clean the vac sealer
the number of times i have had to wash the wire cutter and knife and planer and bench and scale before i could even start cutting cheese lately is, well, too fucking many
i do too many dishes and bench resets for other people. like, i DO NOT mind helping out when it’s crazy busy, but this happens every single day now: i have to clean equipment and work areas before i can start to do my own tasks
i had to return an entire cart worth of buckets and molds (at least they were clean, i’m grateful for that!) to the creamery, where they belong (and where they traditionally sit to air-dry), from the kitchen, where they didn’t, just so i could clear enough room on the drying rack to do somebody else’s dishes after they left without doing them
all but one of the morning staff left without finishing their cleaning and dishes, and i staged their overflowing trash for them by the exit to go out but they all just walked past it so i took seven bags out myself tonight
i need to figure out how to communicate “clean as you go” and “take the trash out when you clock out” and “do your fucking dishes so i don’t have to wash equipment before i can work” and “don’t take a break until you’ve cleared your work area” without sounding as annoyed as i actually am
two of them have repeatedly told me they’re “so busy,” but they’re also standing around talking for the bulk of the first two hours of my shift; now, i know you’ve been there for hours already when i arrive, and i don’t mind if you sit down for awhile, please do take a break, but IF YOU FUCKING RESET THE KITCHEN FIRST, MAYBE I CAN ACTUALLY START DOING WHAT I NEED TO DO instead of waiting for a clean workstation and clean equipment or cleaning up after you again
i’m very glad i no longer have to package the hundreds of pounds of curds they do every week, and, as i said, i’m absolutely happy to pitch in WHEN NEEDED, but i don’t like having to clean the whole goddamned kitchen before i can do my job because everybody’s decided to just not clean up after themselves
so today i basically faffed around the shop for a couple hours when i got there, decorating for christmas, because i didn’t feel like doing everybody’s dishes and trash and bench resets, but i ultimately ended up cleaning the entire kitchen after they all left anyway, then doing my own work, and then closing (aka cleaning the kitchen again so it’s ready for them in the morning), which is why i clocked out an hour late
lol YES, I KNOW this is just another short stanza in the eternal open-versus-close-staff war, and basically, in spite of the above bitching and attitude and do-not-like nonsense, i’ve decided my approach: i’ll just fucking clean! i’m not too good for it, i’m not above it, i don’t need to have ego about it, and i’m just gonna set the standard and keep it myself without being invested in how other people respond, because the bulk of this rant is, i realize, just ego and attachment and judgement
yes.
in which i wish i could trust the society i live in to not be ignorant fuckheads.
went to the store today and a shocking number of people were unmasked, like at least 20%
saw three tweets tonight about breakthrough covid. one has damaged lungs, a damaged heart, and is in kidney failure.
went to the cdc site and i’m eligible for a booster, so i scheduled one for next week.
up to half the people who come into my workplace are either entirely unmasked, or they unmask to eat
i’m not high risk, like, i’m not immuno-compromised or ill, but jesus christ, no vaccine is perfect and any one of these fuckers could be asymptomatic and this disease KILLS perfectly healthy people all the time
in fact, if you’re unmasked i just assume you are a carrier and stand as far away from you as i can because your lack of masking probably indicates that you’re not doing anything at all to stem the spread of this disease
covid will never be over, because a third or more of the country “don’t believe” that covid is destroying people’s organs and over a thousand are DYING every day, we’re literally having a 9/11 every single fucking day but people think it only affects sick and fat people who somehow are disposable? what if i happen to LOVE somebody who is ill or old or fat but otherwise has a perfectly normal life expectancy, do they deserve to die because YOU won’t get your shots or wear a fucking mask?
the new normal is that you or someone you love might come down with covid and in the space of a month need organ transplants or be dead, because society just won’t comply with SIMPLE mandates: vaccinate, distance, mask, and wash your fucking hands
this shit is not a cold or flu, it’s putting people, including children and athletes, in the ground every single day
and it’s unutterably disgusting that for many, a death is ONLY sad if the person didn’t have pre-existing conditions. tons of people have pre-existing conditions (because thanks to science, we live with them now rather than die from them)
a person with a congenital heart defect is not less valuable than you, nor is somebody with diabetes, or someone on blood pressure meds, or with asthma, or ANY CONDITION AT ALL. they deserve to live just as much as you do. i mean, how valuable are you to society? what do you do or give that makes you deserve more to live?
probably not much.
if you’re healthy, it’s not a virtue. it’s not your smoothie habit or exercise regimen, it’s not your idiot herb supplements, it’s your genes and your environmental experiences. it’s a combo of luck and privilege. and if you live long enough, you WILL EVENTUALLY develop a so-called pre-existing condition, dumbass.
and you may be against “big pharma” now, but one day, if you don’t die suddenly or in an accident first, you’ll see the results of your blood draw and they’ll tell you that you need meds to LIVE, and you’ll fucking take them. it could be anything from high blood pressure to cancer, but you’ll take the meds. everybody does BECAUSE the morality of capitalism in medicine, while a big goddamned problem politically, becomes irrelevant when you’ve got something that can be managed with meds but will otherwise kill you.
anyway, get your vaccinations and boosters. wear your mask. avoid crowds. wash your hands. just don’t give me covid, because there’s a small but non-zero chance that it might fucking ravage my organs and/or kill me because sometimes that’s what happens because vaccines are not perfect: that’s why EVERYBODY NEEDS THEM to STOP THE DISEASE
you ignorant, insular, selfish fucking cunts.
in which this was gonna to be a twitter thread but it got too long
remembering how broke i was my whole adult life (basically until entering middle age), and how i accumulated debt just being alive because it cost more to live than i ever earned, and how jobs have steadily degraded since i started working, i cannot even fathom how fucked it must be to be 20-something now
jobs REALLY suck now, and there’s no memory of prosperity or meaningful growth, just the mindless, cancerous greed of mega-corps
there are two reasons and two reasons ONLY that i’m doing okay now, and they’re entirely good luck:
– i spent my 40’s living with a relative for free, so i paid off my debt instead of paying rent and utilities
– i lucked into a partner who has more earning power than i ever did
i can now buy groceries without first checking my balance, i can buy clothes i don’t strictly need, and i can even take modest vacations
i have no wealth and no equity (i’ll die if i get truly sick), but i have more than $400 in savings
i consider myself rich because i can donate
i was born into the upper middle class on one side, and lower middle class on the other, but my parents slipped some, briefly, when them not being poor too would have helped me A LOT (college years, mostly) probably due primarily to divorce, and i slipped even further into, at one point, homelessness
because i never had any savings until about five years ago, and i’m 53 now
they keep talking about nobody wanting to work, but places like mcdonald’s and walmart literally have departments that teach their underpaid, no-benefits-having employees to apply for services like ebt and state health insurance
once you discover the hard way that getting a pittance of a raise kicks you off state insurance, why work at all? if you’re really poor, you can get things you can’t get working full-time in a lot of jobs: food stamps and basic health care
if you’ve worked any modern corporate job (walmart, home depot, mcdonald’s) with low pay, a toxic environment full of constant reminders that you’re replaceable, meaningless weaponized metrics, no bennies, random scheduling so you can’t do anything else (like go to school, raise your kids, or attend a funeral), time off requests routinely denied, you know it’s better to just not fucking work
you’re already poor even while working full-time or more (far too many americans have multiple jobs in an attempt to stay above water), might as well get rid of the stress of a shitty, abusive job, right? at least you can continue your ramen diet while reading, painting, or doing something that makes you mildly happy
i don’t blame anybody, especially in food or customer service, who have worked throughout the pandemic and now know that society considers them BOTH “essential” and disposable, who isn’t fucking working, fuck those jobs, fuck corporate america, fuck billionaires
In which we went somewhere!
Worked Saturday and did, like, an insanely busy twelve-hundred dollar day at the cheese shop.
Sunday we slept in and cuddled, which was fucking lovely, and then cleaned the house, packed out, and drove to Portland.
Arrived around eight o’clock, and crashed at my friend Leila’s house. My other high school friend, Deb, was also visiting, so we played pinochle! I can’t even tell you how long its been since I got to play pinochle. My better half took to it like a duck to water, and yours truly played a perfect hand!
The next day Leila fed us Syrian breakfast, which, I now know, causes Deb to yell “MAC DOOCE!” over and over, because she loves makdous (stuffed pickled eggplant). Both women are currently divorcing their husbands and are in various states of hurt and anger, so that sucks, but it was fantastic to see them after so long.
After eating we drove to Rockaway Beach via the scenic highway, which was absolutely scenic as fuck; love that Tillamook National Forest. Checked in at our hotel, which is right on the beach, with a private ocean-facing balcony and a fireplace, walked along the sand awhile, and then went out to dinner. Halibut fish and chips!
We literally left the sliding glass door cracked all night for the glorious sound of surf. Plus it’s well over 40F so it made for perfect sleeping conditions.
Tuesday we drove up and down the coast, just being tourists. Taco truck, the dollar store for slippers (because my leather shoes were still wet from the beach the day before), Goodwill (because why not; I got a set of Christmas candle holders that were cute), the Blue Heron cheese company, and a stereotypical coast gift shop with salt water taffy and junk jewelry and shells and weird crap. So fun and nostalgic.
Spent the evening just hanging out in the room. Got takeout, watched movies, drank adult beverages, stood on the balcony enjoying the sea. It smells SO GOOD!
Today we visited the Tillamook cheese visitor’s center, which is fucking MASSIVE, ate at a diner, drove around, got rained on, but mostly just lounged in the hotel. Ate leftovers for dinner.
Tomorrow we’ll be driving home, but we still have a few days of vacation left to lounge around in the house doing absolutely nothing, which is glorious, not gonna lie.
Other than Leila and Deb, who are vaccinated, we’ve been masked and distanced, so hopefully we’re not a goddamned disease vector. We haven’t been anywhere since we drove out from Minneapolis over two years ago, so this has been fantastic.
In which my NEW PLATES have ARRIVED!
I now have service for six instead of merely service for four.
This is truly the radiant glory of middle age: having six each of three sizes of plates and one size of bowl, that mostly-but-don’t-entirely-match my existing dishes (because they no longer make my pattern)!
It’ll be handy for my upcoming luncheon, but will otherwise do nothing but enable us to not do dishes for even longer.
