Top 5

My top 5 most interesting dental patients so far:

5. I know it's redundant to mention him again but Whitney wisdom teeth extraction guy has to make the list.
4. Woman who tried to convince me (unsuccessfully) that we had the same aura because we were both wearing purple.
3. Girl who hyperventilated for 20 minutes while under anesthesia. Dr. Richard held a paper lunch bag up to her mouth the whole time.
2. 90 year old man, 5'4" tall, who told me he would throw me over his shoulder if I ever called him "shorty."
1. Woman with a perfectly healthy set of teeth who has requested to have them all extracted because all the people at the nursing home she works at have dentures and she wants them too.

32 Days

Awww, so cute. Look how peacefully he slumbers.  So innocent, so vulnerable, just makes you want to give him a good old  Eskimo kiss, nose to nose like.

Nope. Incorrect.

Lou is actually out of his mind with frenzied instincts to bite your feet. And hands. And legs. And arms. And just about anything else he can reach.  He will hide behind a wall, door, shoe, and jump out at the most obvious times and will not-even-at-all-stealthily attack whatever is moving.

I for one think he is so funny I can't even handle it.  Pretty much I just sit around and laugh whenever he comes anywhere near me and I don't even know why.  My roommate on the other hand can't stand him.  She keeps saying she wants to donate him to the Salvation Army.  At first I thought she was just being dramatic, but when I saw her trying to sneak him into a bag of old clothes she was bringing to a drop-off bin, I realized the seriousness of her threats (that actually never happened.)

All of this is to say, in one month from tomorrow, Lou will be 6 months old which makes him eligible for a process known as "de-psychofacation."  AKA he can get neutered.  We have all been counting down the days for about 3 months now.

So here's to you, veterinarians, for making overly testosteronated kittens tolerable.

Jumping January

Dr. Richard, the oral surgeon I work for, is on vacation for the next two weeks which leaves me with nothing to do (and eventually no money.) I've been calling around to the other offices trying to find a place that might need some help and have something lined up for next week but nothing for this one.  So here I sit, trying to think of ways that I can earn money this week.  So far I have thought of the following:

- Find someone who is moving and needs help for the day.
- Paint some masterpieces and sell them.

This is all I can think of.  So it's looking like I might be eating snow for a while.

A tribute to windshield washer fluid.

windshield washer fluid

helpful liquid

spraying cleaning saving lives

you help me to see the road

wiper fluid

My top 5 holiday rules

1. White chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies are good, but if there are other options, they will be left for last.
2. Do not use lilac air freshener in the bathroom. Lilac is a spring/summer smell. Get some sort of cinnamon spice or vanilla scent or something.
3. If you live next to the highway, don't put up a ridiculous amount of Christmas lights and light-up yard sculptures. It will cause an unnecessary traffic-jam and is therefore selfish.
4. Totally avoid eye contact with overly-aggressive lotion selling salesmen in the middle booths at the mall. If at all possible, keep at least two unsuspecting consumers between you and them at all times. However, if one happens to nab you and you have some free time, feel free to sample all of the products numerous times but NEVER purchase anything. This only gives them more confidence which is the last thing they need. (This also goes for every other time of the year.)
5. Do not steal anyone's roasted chestnuts.

 

Dark room tribute

Life as an oral surgeon's assistant can be stressful. We see on average two patients ever half hour and sometimes more. Lots of running around, extracting, sterilizing, etc. etc. You get the picture. There is, however, an oasis in the midst of my seemingly endless list of to-do's -- the dark room. Yes, the dark room is my sanctuary. When I am stressed, bombarded with questions about decaying dentition, all I need is a patient who needs a panoramic x-ray (while I'm in an office that still uses film instead of digital x-rays.) This happens about once a week. What I do when this happens is take the exposed film which is holding the latent image (still in the cassette of course) and go into the dark room to develop it. The dark room is completely pitch black and about the size of a broom closet. There's supposedly a safe light in there that you can use and it won't damage the film, but no one ever uses it. Anyway, I just really like it in this little pitch-black room because for 3-5 minutes I don't have to talk to anyone or even have my eyes open. Sometimes I sing in there, sometimes I dance, sometimes I just stand there and go, "mmmmmeeeeehhhhhhhh." The only bad experience I've ever had in the dark room was when I forgot to turn on the vent and was too nervous I would accidentally switch the light on so, not wanting to damage the film, I left it off. Thus I had to breathe the developer and fixer fumes for 5 minutes, but it was still awesome. And that's all I have to say about that.

Make it then break it.

We all have bad habits I'm sure. I will now tell you about one of mine. Here, let me set the stage for you.

I'm in church, or at a friend's house, or on the phone, when some sort of invitation comes my way. I think to myself, "Oh that sounds like fun." And I tell the invitee, "Oh that sounds like fun. Sure I would love to join you at said event." Then a few days go by and the time of the even rolls around and suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, that event is the absolute last thing in the world that I feel like doing. I would tally up for you how many times this has happened in the last week but it's way to embarrassing to write down on this widely-publicized blog.

If I had any sort of insight into why this happens, you all would be the first to know, but I am also just as perplexed by the happenings as I'm sure all of you are.

Mostly I would like to take this opportunity to make a public apology for the time(s) that I backed out on a plan with you because, "I just didn't feel like doing anything." That is all.