Happy Birthday, Jesus! Have a great day, everyone!
Archives for December 2010
Terrible Memories – Fluoride
No photo – I’m having some technical troubles.
So, we had to have flouride treatments at the dentist’s office when I was a kid. I don’t know why – I guess because that toothpaste I was slathering on daily wasn’t cutting it? Whatever.
The fluoride treatment the absolute worst part of the dental visit for many reasons. One reason was because of The Machine. The Machine was (and remember, this is from the faded memory of a kid) a hulking steampunk monstrosity that had hoses and tubes and grinding gears and such. It was kept in a back room of this old victorian house, where it was dark and full of fluoride-loving spiders. (I’m positive about that.) They strapped you into a restraining chair and asked the dreaded question, “What flavor?” Here’s where you had to decide what delicious flavor you didn’t want to love anymore. The choices were cherry, orange or grape, but they all tasted like slightly-sweet vomit. The doomed flavor was poured into a tray, hooked up to a bubbler hose, then put into your mouth. You had to bite down on the tray while The Machine bubbled grape vomit around your teeth for an interminable length of time. Then the Assistant pulled it out, making ropes of grape-spit string all over your face. Rinse, spit. Rinse, spit. Gag.
Then – HORRORS – you had to do the whole process for your BOTTOM teeth, so now the tray was upside down and leaked grape vomit into the bottom of your mouth.
I’m getting woozy recounting this story. I have to stop.
Terrible Memories – Waiting room
I should warn you that I have a lot of ‘terrible memory’ back-up posts in the wings, so – sorry ’bout that. Lloyd is wondering if it should be its own category.
Would you like to know how I learned that you’re supposed to let a receptionist know that you’ve arrived for your appointment? Let me share:
When I was – I don’t know, 4th grade? – I had a dentist appointment and got to go to Dr. Coe’s all by my big-girl self! Dr. Coe’s office was in a remodeled Victorian house, and as you walked in the front door, the waiting room was to your right, and the reception window was just to your left, with a chair directly beside it. I walked my little self in after school and sat down, right beside the window.
I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I got a little nervous, because it seemed like I had been there forever, but I was just ten, so what did I know?
I waited some more.
And yet some more. I could hear the receptionist talking, so I knew that my turn would be coming.
Or would it?
After an eternity I could hear the receptionist on the the phone, saying something like, “She never showed up and we’re about to close. Really? No, she’s not here.” Then she leaned out the window and saw me – “Oh!! She is here!”
I’m pretty sure I burst into tears, but the memory has faded, leaving only the aftertaste of that terrible, terrible fluoride treatment. (Did you have those?) That’s tomorrow’s memory.
Christmas Thoughts
Let’s take a survey! You can answer with ‘when I was a kid’ or ‘now as an adult’ answers – I don’t judge. (You can copy-and-paste if you like.)
1. Do you open presents Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or other?
2. Do you do stockings?
3. White lights or colored lights?
4. Real or fake tree?
5. Tree topper?
1. Do you open presents Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or other? As a kid, it was always Christmas Eve. Now – whenever I want! You can’t tell me what to do!
2. Do you do stockings? We have some, but I don’t always hang them up. We had them when I was a kid, and one year my Mom wanted us to open one stocking gift a day for each of the 12 days of Christmas. That lasted for 12 minutes. Sorry, Mom.
3. White lights or colored lights? White lights, non-twinkling.
4. Real or fake tree? Fake tree. It’s just so much easier.
5. Tree topper? It’s a little star this year.
Still good
If the weather’s not too chilly, I’m a big fan of those ‘magic’ gloves – the ones that are cheap and stretch to fit your hand – but when it gets chilly, I use my wool gloves.
They are nothing special or expensive. I bought them at Wal*Mart a couple of years ago, but they are so dang warm! Last week I realized that I was wearing through one of the fingers, and that I’d need to repair it. “Great!” I told myself, “This is the first time you’re fixing a pair of gloves and that will be good enough for a post.”
Except….. as I took the ‘before’ picture, I realized this wasn’t the first time I’ve fixed a glove….
Goodbye, Long-Term Memory. I’ll miss you most of all.
Orange you glad I didn’t say orange?
I really like peeling oranges. It ranks right up there with chopping stuff up. I’d like to think that if Orange Peeling was an Olympic event I’d be a gold medalist, but that honor would have to go to my dad. He is an excellent orange peeler. As a child I remember watching him meticulously – yet effortlessly – peel off every bit of pith.
That’s ok, I’d be a solid silver.
I remember several years ago when I was delirious with the flu, I thought that if I could just eat four or five oranges, I’d be alright.
So I did. All in a row. Sweating and hurriedly eating orange after orange after orange after orange.
I didn’t get better, but I warded off any scurvy that might have been lurking around.
And the oranges were well-peeled, of course.