Nitrous, Augers and Wool...Oh my!

I began this morning with an appointment with my dentist. Of all the things that an adult must do to maintain or remedy their health, visiting the dentist is the most unpleasant for me (read: I'm terrorized by it). Shortly before Thanksgiving I began to have a lot of pain in a lower molar; the dentist thought he'd be able to get by with just a filling... but no. Today I expected the dreaded root canal we had been hoping to escape. This being the end of the "benefit year", my coverage would only cover $400 of the close to $2000 costs so my dentist kindly offered to perform a "pulpar debridement" which is kinda like a really quick and not very thorough root canal, just to smooth things out till the calendar says its OK to do more. OUCH.

Recently I discovered that in addition to the teeny tiny dose of Xanax I take prior to dental appointments, nitrous oxide provides, in fact, a fantastic lifting of worry. LOVE. IT. But you know, there's so much of the experience I find objectionable: the sounds (which I attempt to minimize with music in my ears) and the SMELL. I hate the smell of those drills grinding away the teeth..ugh. I don't know that dental science will ever be able to improve those issues but for now, I'm content with the euphoric-like floating of laughing gas.

Its interesting how technology development has impacted dentistry. Here's an assortment of the tools my doctor used today:

I tend to keep my eyes closed to minimize stress but I think perhaps my imagination gets the better of me... all kidding aside, he did have a motorized version of this tool that really made a racket, but I suppose if you're wanting to make huge holes in fairly hard innervated tissues, its just the right thing...



Gadget Girl Excitement
My grocery store is going all Buck Rogers! Yeah! They have these cool hand held scanner devices, kind of like the thingies you see people using to inventory goods on shelves. As you shop, you scan your items, bag 'em, and at checkout you just zap your little device, it summarizes your order, pay and you're gone. It is very slick and totally reduces time in line not to mention the reduction in lifting in and out of the cart. Very nice. As a nice incentive to use the devices, they target additional promotional offers associated with purchase history (those whaddaya call 'em customer cards?). I find that kind of funny: as if I need encouragement to pick up the blinking beeping gadget... to spare my back the lifting in-lifting out-lifting in routine of grocery shopping....

Did anyone get the tag number of that bus...?
You know, the one full of 3rd and 4th grade knitters that ran over me yesterday? Man! After three weeks with just the Tuesday knitters (n=4), the whole group PLUS a few newbies were back yesterday. I had *15* knitters. All at very different skill levels. Wowzers. I could have used some of that nitrous oxide....
That being the case, I was in sore need of help in guiding those requiring attention. The four loyal students who have learned so much were enlisted and I was thrilled to look up and find Knitter N standing behind Knitter A, holding the needles with her and demonstrating each step so the student could have the very best perspective on the technique... I was so proud---that's exactly how I showed each of them... did I mention that last week, I was playing (at their request) some songs from High School Musical on my iPod and at one point, everyone was singing as they knit along... Nirvana. Music, Friends, Knitting... snacks. You just don't need much else.