Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink, Say No More

Have just returned from a marathon dental appointment, which I made yesterday after my one remaining fully functional chewing lower back molar broke off in my mouth while eating a lovely soft juicy piece of pear. And not just a bit of tooth, but the entire thing. I hadn’t even bitten into the pear, I’d cut it up into nice bite size pieces so I could nibble away while clacking away on the computer at work.

The tooth’s days were obviously numbered to have succumbed during such a harmless eating event, and I knew the resulting treatment wasn’t going to be pleasant. I doubted the tooth would be able to be saved, but to extract a tooth that has broken off at the gum line with nothing to grab on to to pull it out, this is one trip to the dentist I wasn’t looking forward to.

Add to this I was led away from the waiting room like a lamb to the slaughter by a final year student, albeit with supervisors hovering in the room watching over several students go through their paces with us willing victims who had signed away our lives and our consent to not being treated by experts. I didn’t want to discourage him by saying I wasn’t going to let him anywhere near what I thought might be beyond his expertise, so it was encouraging to hear he had already managed a difficult extraction this morning.

Consulting with his supervisor the verdict I was expecting was confirmed. It had to come out. And how were they going to do that I asked. Shouldn’t be a problem they said, all they had to do was cut the tooth in half and take each half out separately, taking care not to break it into pieces in the process seeing as root canal treatment had been done years ago making it more brittle and sometimes more difficult to remove. Yeah…simple…no worries.

And so the fun began. Drill drill, grind grind, I had this picture in my head of those guys who cut nice straight lines on paths with those noisy concrete cutting machines. Deeper and deeper he went, and after much pushing and pulling and deciding he still hadn’t actually cut the thing in half, back we went to the cutting drill. While I’m practicing my relaxation techniques and coping quite ok, the pushing and pulling and jiggling was attempted again, but was this tooth gonna move? Definitely not.

Supervising dentist brought in to consult, nice guy, lovely Irish accent, happy for him to have a go while student watches the maestro at work. Admittedly it wasn’t completely straightforward for him either, though he did get the first half out after putting enough pressure on my lower jaw to almost break my neck if he hadn’t been holding everything together in his capable hands. What a wonderful thing mentoring is.

So here we were, one half out, one to go. Should be simple right? Wrong. Head honcho gets to work again, push and pull and drill, take a breather, push and pull and manoeuvre it around, open my mouth up so wide I think I’m going to turn my head inside out with all these fingers and pliers and wrenches and suckers in there, more pushing and pulling and finally, finally out it comes. One hour later and one gaping hole remaining for the student to stitch up, and the marathon was over.

Well, almost. One interesting side effect, and its something that’s happened on two previous occasions when having teeth extracted, was that I couldn’t close my left eye. Student tells another supervisor who mentions something about an aberrant nerve. What a nerve! At least he didn’t say it was abhorrent. Anyway, after closing my eye manually every couple of minutes, and trying not to wink at the checkout lady in the supermarket on my way home, it finally came good as the numbness wore off, and I can now talk without drooling.

And to top it all off, I just answered the phone and who should it be but the dental student, checking in with a courtesy call to make sure I’d got home ok and that my eye was working again. Now that’s service, first time I’ve ever had a follow up call from a dentist. He graduates in a few months, almost makes me want to go along to cheer him on.

Mushy food tonight, what fun.

The Male of the Species

Superb Blue Wrens would have to be my favourite small bird, along with Scarlet Robins, which have just started making an appearance of late. Such beauty and energy all wrapped up in this tiny little ball. The males show off their vibrant colours while their much plainer female partners and progeny hover around and follow them faithfully, giving them pride of place.

Generally, unlike we humans who place such emphasis on the female body beautiful, in the animal world by and large it is the males who grab all the attention. Now I guess there’s a perfectly good reason for that, for if they weren’t adorned in such an irresistible manner, I guess the females might simply go about their own business without giving them the time of day, therein putting the reproduction of the species somewhat in jeopardy.

So, they primp and preen and squawk and scream and roar to draw attention to themselves, but as we in humanland can attest, things don’t always go as planned in the pursuit of a partner.

Picture if you will one of the most demonstrative of birds, the peacock, in abundance at Cataract Gorge in Launceston. I imagined the interaction going something like this……..

Ok folks, while I have your undivided attention, let me show you how it’s done.

Approach her directly, no messin’ about, declare your intentions up front. No mixed messages, no ambiguity, leave no room for doubt.

Hi there sweetie, watcha doin? Wanna come back to my place and check out my scratchings?

What? Did someone say something?

Come on now, don’t look away, don’t be coy. Here….watch….I’ll do the shimmy shimmy shake for you….not bad eh?

Oh, typical. So obvious. Whatever happened to subtlety? Might impress this lot but you’re gonna have to try another tack fella.

Come on love, they’re all watchin’, can’t hold these things up forever you know. Don’t leave me hangin’ out here to dry…turn around…please?

You don’t really think I’m going to respond in front of this lot do you? Would’ve got a lot further with a simple ‘Hi’ when no one was looking, but no, you just have to go the whole hog don’t ya.

Blimey, what’s a bloke supposed to do.

 

Ok, I give up, plenty more birds of a feather in the old stamping ground to choose from eh?

 

Hmm, cute backside, shame about the ego. Don’t let on I checked him out.

Getting Way Ahead of Myself

Put the clock forward an hour at the start of daylight saving, put it back an hour at the end. How difficult can it be? Obviously too difficult for my little pea brain, for over the years I’ve somehow managed to get it wrong on more than one occasion and turned up for church on Easter Sunday morning an hour early or an hour late, or sometimes not at all.

So how did I manage to muck it up this year? Spent a relaxing Thursday night and Good Friday with Glen & Mel & the grandkids, but because I had a full day working in the General Store the next day, got myself organised with things to do to occupy myself all day before I went to bed. Now, I knew I was working a full day shift on Easter Saturday, I repeat Saturday, but somewhere in my head, and most of the time it’s quite an organised head, I thought I’d make sure I got up at the right time and put the bedroom clock back an hour and set the alarm so I wouldn’t turn up late to open the shop.

I have this thing I do if I wake up before the alarm of trying to guess the time judging by the amount of light already in the room, and am surprised at how close I usually get. Thought it must be about 7.30, rolled over and looked at the clock and it said 6.32, which I quickly realised would be right seeing as the sun would now be rising an hour earlier. Tried to nod off again, no luck, so turned the radio on. Everything was fine until the announcer did a time check at 7.45. 7.45? My clock said 6.45. How can it be 7.45, why isn't it 6.45? Brain cogs move slowly to understand this anomaly until the penny drops. Ah…it’s Saturday…duh!

Opened the Store at the right time, but another lapse occurred, as I recorded the day’s newspapers in the Sunday spot in the folder, wondering about the blank line and who hadn’t recorded the arrivals and sales for Saturday’s papers. As I put the papers on the rack and perused the headlines it dawned on me, I was holding the Saturday papers. Got out the white out, changed entries in folder.

Managed to get through the day believing it was Saturday until the evening when I was having trouble working out why the programs on TV weren’t matching what was in the TV guide. I turned on the ABC news at 7pm, that was ok, flipped over at the end of the news to Escape to the Country which wasn’t on, kept pressing the remote to find something worth watching, thought I’d go and do something else until Castle at 8.30 when I came across the start of Coast on SBS which I quite enjoy. But how could that be. Coast isn’t usually on Sunday night. Checked the TV guide again, yep there it was, on Saturday.

Oh…that’s right…it’s Saturday. Still.

Now I blame, well I’m not sure who or what I blame, but the end of daylight saving is confusing enough without having it finish on the Easter long weekend.  Having Friday off obviously made my body, or at least what was left of my brain, believe it was already the weekend, hence I was a day ahead of myself right from the start, or behind, whichever. Here’s hoping I get up at the right time Sunday to open the Giftshop.

Shades of Early Autumn

Autumn….my favourite season, though this year it seems to have decided to make its entrance a little early and take us by surprise. From working in the garden in a tee shirt a couple of weekends ago, to donning a winter woolly jumper during the week, Tassie is doing its thing, messing us about. And it’s not only the human occupants who are wondering about the seasonal cycle, even some plants are confused with bright warm sunshine one day, chilling winds the next. A friend has a plant that is simultaneously displaying its autumn colours while sending out new shoots as if it’s spring. I poke my head out from behind the blind each morning like the poor plant, wondering what is the appropriate apparel for the day.

 

I do like the fact though that the grass has finally recognised it’s time to slow down and not demand to be mowed so often. Preparations for the approaching months are underway with firewood stacked, though I have refused to succumb to the temptation over the last few cold evenings to light the fire. It’s only March I keep saying, I shouldn’t have to light the fire for almost another month yet, so I hope it’s not a foretaste of a long cold winter, but even that I have to admit I really wouldn’t mind.

The sun is actually shining today, hardly a cloud in the sky after these few grey days, so I might as well make the most of it and get out in the garden to mulch and prune and help it prepare for hunkering down and braving the frosts and bitter winds that are to come.

The poplars are always the first to let us know the cycle of the seasons is moving on, lining the edges of the surrounding country roads as they shed their leaves, and as others show the first signs of yellow and orange, russet and red, I thought I’d pull out a poem penned last year.

AUTUMN

Jars with orange screwtop lids

stand in a row

side by side

neatly under the kitchen window.

Ginger biscuits, salted nuts

crackers and soft dried apricots.

Ripe red apples,

pears and autumn mandarins,

Imperials mind you, only ever Imperials

fill the bowl on the bench.

What delight to peel their thin loose skin

and fill the air

with such delicious sweetness.

Sparks fly

as a log shifts in the fire

and a shaft of sunlight

heralds the passing

of the morning shower,

beckoning me outside.

No warmth there

but its brightness touches the leaves

of the liquidamber

tinges them with gold

shines seductively scarlet

on the stately maple,

suffuses the air

with a blood orange glow.

One by one

in twos and threes

the embers of my burning bush

fall soundlessly

sacrificially

soft under my feet,

a sacred orange carpet

for my cold bare feet.

© Di Adams   2014