Others like me

I wouldn’t have elected to read “Prince of Tides,” were it not this month’s selection for a book club at the library. Since I have no friends of my own in my area (seriously. I socialize exclusively with Rob, and friends and family of Rob), I thought a book group would be a neat way to meet some people (like me).

I sure am glad I liked the book, because the folks at the meeting last night sure were weird. The only ones close to my age were a girl in a wheelchair, who kept chiming in about her abusive ex-husband (Guess what? We’re here to talk about the abusive family in the book, not yours), and the library staffer. Nice to meet her anyway.

Going around the room, the first woman to introduce herself said she stopped reading after 30 pages because she was offended by the profane language.

Next.

Three other women either said they didn’t have time to finish the book, or didn’t want to. Even the library staffer had to turn to the audio version* because she simply couldn’t get through it.

The only other person who actually read the book was a middle-aged man with a greasy combover and missing front teeth. I scolded myself for having a negative reaction upon sight, because he enjoyed the book, and even appreciated the challenge of Conroy’s excessively florid language. He contributed mostly valid commentary during the discussion, except when he described his living situation (which he hopes will change soon) in which he shares a room with some dude who turns on the TV first thing and watches it all day.

He’s the only one who, like me, looked forward to the time of day when he could sit down with the book, and was sorry when it ended.

So, even if my new best friend isn’t in the book club, I might go back. Depending on what the selection is next time.

*I’m actually rather enjoying my foray into audio books, and don’t consider them necessarily lesser to the visual reading experience in any way. Right now I’m listening to “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” and the reader does terrific accents. I think I’m more entertained than I would be hearing those voices in my head.

That’s it?

So I had a root canal. And I’m back at work.

I’m a little mystified as to why the root canal procedure was less arduous than the filling removal/temporary crown placement. Isn’t a root canal the thing that people use metaphorically to mean “the worst thing ever”? As in, I’d rather have a root canal than sit at a desk job from 9-5 all day. For example.

My dentist is very cool. She has spiky blond hair and Rottweilers. The waiting room has this huge portrait of her and her husband and her dogs. My first appointment (back when I was proud of my teeth) was a couple of weeks after we got Isis, so she knows me as the one with a German shepherd puppy. It’s in my chart.

She is conveniently located on the street where I live, but she doesn’t do root canals. She referred me to an endodontist conveniently in the city where I work. (Which makes it less convincing for me to take the whole day off for one lousy dental procedure, since I’m in the neighborhood anyway.)

This city is way less cool than the one where I live. I expected there to be a field of cows behind the endodontist’s office. But no. It was beautiful. The waiting room reeked of a spiced scented candle and they had a huge vase with 6-foot-tall bamboo stalks in it. Even the personalized pen that I used to fill out my form was swanky.

Soft rock played in the background. Although I would have preferred something a little more Zen, I rather enjoyed hearing Whitney Houston’s “Run to You.”

If I can’t have the healthiest teeth in the whole wide world, I decided, I’m going to be the best dental patient in the whole wide world. I lie still, with my eyes closed, breathing through my nose, not making a sound through the whole procedure. Except every 10 seconds when they ask if I’m OK, I murmur, “Unngh hleg.” They’re very impressed.

Honestly? I don’t understand what the big deal is. Yes it’s uncomfortable when they put the needle in your gums six or 27 times. That’s probably when most people start screaming. So, maybe I take that especially well. But once the Novacaine kicks in, you don’t feel a thing.

Do difficult, scared patients scream and cry because of the sounds of the drilling? There were a couple of times when the drill made a little pop, like a bicycle riding over a small rock. Startling, yes. Terrifying? Not really.

Or maybe some people freak out at having to hold their mouths open, or they choke on the debris that falls in the back of their throats. Sheesh, if I can hold my TMJ-strained jaw open, anyone can. I endure the accumulation at the back of my throat because I don’t want to slow down the process with a suction break.

In and out, one hour. They even gave me a goodie bag with Advil, bottle water, a chewy granola bar (???), Breath Savers and York Peppermint Patties. My dentist has a candy jar of Yorks on her front counter too. I’ve been too shy to take one, lest they think my candy addiction caused the complete breakdown in my oral health. But you heard it here, folks. York Peppermint Patties are endorsed by 2 out of 2 dentists…

Dilemma

Should I netflix “Prince of Tides” and risk ruining the experience I had with the book?

I didn’t get as emotionally wrapped-up as I do with John Irving’s or Wally Lamb’s books, but it is a powerful story, beautifully written.

Please excuse me while I look up some of the words that were pre-underlined in pencil in my library copy of the book…

Inside a dog it’s too dark to read

I’m taking Isis to remedial obedience classes. She “failed” her pre-test, and rather than risk failing the real test, we’re going to weekly “tune-up” classes, where we actually get to practice around other dogs.

Our obedience school doesn’t encourage dog-on-dog interaction at the basic level, which makes sense to me. It would take too long to learn anything with the distraction of six untrained dogs in the room. We leave the dogs in the car, and bring them in one at a time to practice each new command.

Unfortunately, even though I’ve worked with her fairly regularly outside of class, this method hasn’t effectively gotten her trained past sit, down and stay (as long as I’m looking right at her). I’m a fan of this tune-up structure, in which we walk our dogs around one another for 45 minutes and practice heeling.

We worked with two German shepherd males, who might have been about Isis’ age (six months), although they were a little bigger. One was white, the other dark, and Isis was by far the most beautiful. I was delighted to see that the other shepherds wore prong collars too. (I’m a believer. It doesn’t hurt. I swear.)

The discouraging part was all the criticism I got for handling the lead wrong and correcting her incorrectly. Why can’t I correct with my left hand? (The fact that it hasn’t worked thus far should be a clue.) Apparently, I should be correcting harder.

This is the slap in the face that all parents must feel. My dog has obedience problems, and it’s my fault.

Yesterday at the library, I impulse checked-out two books about dogs, one about an assistance German shepherd and one called “Police Dogs in Action.” That the latter was written in 1974 has no bearing on its continued validity, I’m sure.

And rain will make the flowers grow

Spectacular. We’re looking at another stormy weekend. I do have to get outside at one point, though, to plant the shrubs I found it necessary to mail-order from Ohio.

My compulsive online shopping is a story for another time.

Rob likes to fall asleep listening to audio books. Which, of course, means he rarely is conscious for their entirety. After I raved about “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” he found a used copy of the audio book and we listened to part of it on a road trip. Recently, he mentioned that we should drive somewhere again, so we can pick up where we left off (like, a year ago).

I decided that my 25-minute commute would be a good time to do some “reading” that I couldn’t otherwise fit into my schedule, so I bought “The Wedding” on tape a coupla weeks ago at Barnes & Noble. Because I actually have a tape deck in my car.

“The Wedding,” if you don’t know, is written by acclaimed author Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote “The Notebook.” “The Wedding” is narrated by the son-in-law of Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams from that movie. I mean, their characters in the book.

The box of tapes declared that best-selling author Sparks has had his books published in a gazillion languages and that he’s the greatest writer ever. Or something.

I really enjoyed the book for a few days, until I noticed that it was extremely boring. Sure he describes things in vivid detail, but I don’t need to know that much vivid detail about setting the kitchen table. The plot concerns a 30-year marriage that has lost its luster. We flash back a bit to the courtship, which is entirely run of the mill.

The narrator says that his wife always tells the story of how he proposed because it was so hilariously funny everyone always erupted in gales of laughter. But guess what? It wasn’t funny at all, or particularly surprising, clever or unusual.

I listened to the whole book, sticking my finger down my throat at various gag-worthy moments. I suppose I enjoyed the ending, so it was worth hanging in there.

Mostly, the book made me appreciate “The Time Traveler’s Wife” more. Because that’s a really unusual and surprising story. Also about a long relationship and also alternating between past and present.

I started reading “Prince of Tides” at about the same time I started listening to “The Wedding,” and was amused that it also concerned a man in the south (South Carolina this time, rather than North Carolina), with a strained marriage. But “Prince of Tides” is very surprising, clever and unusual. Don’t let the Barbra Streisand/Nick Nolte movie deter you. I cannot even picture those two in these roles.

The primary concern is the bulb

I’d lived in Washington and worked for a small newspaper about three weeks when my editor asked me if I would cover the first daffodil picking.

“You have boots, right?”

Thinking she meant steel-toe construction boots, and not rubber barn/field boots, I said yes.

With such a high turnover among reporters, it’s smart to send the new kid to this kind of annual event, especially when the wide-eyed newcomer literally had never seen a daffodil bud still in its “protective sheath,” because the result is an excessively descriptive story.

Did you know you could see the yellow petals underneath the skin???

The pickers gave me a bud or two, so I could watch them bloom. I put one in a water glass in my bedroom and enjoyed its sunny, scented splendor.

Cut to four years later, and I was delighted to discover that the bulbs I planted in the fall had sprouted and were on the verge of bursting free of said protective sheath. I’ve been eagerly watching them for about a week, waiting for the blossoms.

As of this morning, two in front of the house had made an appearance, and the ones along the side, facing south, must have bloomed over the weekend, during a miserably windy storm that kept me inside reading for the better part of two days.**

Those lovely southern facing blossoms were lying on the ground, having been blown over by the storm. I liberated them and brought them to the office to enjoy. They smell nice.

**Not that it was such a hardship. We have a room designated for this very purpose, with soothing rocky water fountains, scented candles, Zen statuettes and an oil painting of Buddha from Target (I am so not even kidding). Also, I got my first library card in I don’t know how long. It goes on my keys like those grocery store rewards cards, and the library even has a self-checkout system.

To the left, to the left

…everything I chew with my teeth on the left.

What I forgot to mention in the earlier post about my cracked tooth is how ironic it is that I have two cracked teeth on the side of my face that I have been babying for more than two years. Remember my TMJ?

While I have started eating cold cereal, potato chips and crackers again, I tend to chew on the left side of my mouth. I ate one of those really hard Nature Valley granola bars about a minute after I made the first appointment with the dentist, and for some reason bit down on the right side, which is when I realized there might be something wrong with a second tooth. Could a really hard granola bar have cracked my tooth?

I’m supposed to have good teeth! What happened? If these two teeth are cracked, for no apparent reason except the 15-year-old (plus) fillings “failed,” what’s in store for my other six filled molars?

Wait, there’s more. Yesterday I was eating a salad, which yes, had walnuts in it, but they were really small. I felt a twinge in the recently crowned tooth. I can’t even say what it was that caused it. Could have been a piece of lettuce.

I went back to the dentist today, and I might need a root canal! I’m supposed to see if the twinge magically gets any better by Friday, and we’ll consider the possibilities then.

Wondering if this is karmic revenge because I enjoy pulling out my dog’s loose teeth…