Small World

I chipped my left front tooth somehow on Monday (@$#%&) right on the narrow edge and it started to ache so I called Dr. Mike and he's on vacation this week (the nerve) so I had to call the guy taking his emergencies.  I got an appointment in the late afternoon and drove out along Lineville Road through 4 roundabouts to his office.  The chip was so small it didn't show on the x-ray but since I'm convinced that Mom put me together with spare parts (no, really, Dr. Rick said that the nerves to my teeth and mouth aren't in the right places which made freezing things before extraction or drilling an adventure) I asked him to fix it.  He has a laser drill, very cool, and it turns out that his office used to be... in the building in our backyard, in the basement with the entrance facing our backyard.  That would have been a tad more convenient although then I wouldn't have gotten to try out the new on-ramp/off-ramp/3 roundabouts Mason St.-Hwy. 41 interchange that just opened on Saturday.  I liked it, it worked well for me.  (Don't ask Durwood how he feels about it unless you want your hair blowed back, he's not a fan.)  After supper I sat at the kitchen table (better light and a solid surface) picking the zipper out of one of the fleece pullovers I want to turn into a jacket for Durwood to take out West.  Izod or the Eastern European sweatshop that makes them sure used a lot of thread.  A lot of thread.  I am pleased that I was able to retain the short facings and will be using them again when I install the full-length zipper, probably Friday.  That's really all I did yesterday once I finished my small errands.  I felt kind of off so I just listened to my iPod Touch (I'm falling behind in my library book listening, darn that Mrs. Boss being at the dive shop) until time to go to the dentist.  Durwood mentioned that he's never read To Kill A Mockingbird (gasp! then I remembered that I hadn't read it either until DD started her summer reading plan a few years [well, maybe more than a few years] back) so I checked and the library (I love the library!  Free books!  Free! Your tax $$ at work for something that isn't graft or pork) and reserved a copy on CD so I can download it to the iPod to take on our trip.  And since it's August 1 (already?) the quilt BOM patterns are online, so I printed them off and will get to make them this weekend too.  Oh, can't forget to make Mother Malcolm's Coffeecakes this weekend so we can take them for dessert at Family Supper in Shawano on Sunday.  Sunday is Durwood's birthday (73!) so we're having a par-tay.  In Shawano since soon JZ & HZ's kitchen will be torn down and redone so they won't be able to host again until Thanksgiving.  Actually it won't be all that long, it'll just seem eternal to them but if we host in September (Weiner-Off!) and DS & DIL1 host in October, ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, it'll be their turn in November.  Works like a charm.  The Photo a Day theme (I seem not to be able to stop playing) is "outside."  This is what I see when I look outside from where I'm sitting right now.  It's one of my faves.  See my maple tree?  You're jealous, I know you are.

August 1--South Netherlands, The Pentecost.  How many people had knelt and contemplated the enamel hung there, Nora wondered.  She had spent hours in that spot when she had been a student here at St. Maarten School but Sister Maria Rilke had not had such a beautiful thing hung on her wall then.  It was hard to remember what she'd done to earn such frequent trips to Sister's office.  Probably talked too much.  It was a problem she'd had her whole life.  She liked to talk and didn't see why she needed not to at times.  Now she was back at St. Maarten having been hired by the diocese to catalog all the art for insurance, and she suspected that they planned to sell off a few pieces to keep the place going.  She was sure the old nun would be surprised that she had turned out to be a success.

I learned my lesson on Monday, I'm not (not, do you hear, NOT) wearing long jeans.  I have a lovely cotton patchwork skirt and pale yellow tee that I'm wearing to work today.  I still need to wear my round-bottomed fitness shoes so my feet don't ache at the end of the day but I'll be cool and cute not hot and skinnier-looking.  It's a trade-off that I'm willing to make in the interest of not sweating like a hog when I carry tanks or do anything other than sit on my duff.  *nods decisively*  I haz spoken.  (remember Mammy Yokum from L'il Abner?  *sound of crickets*   anybody? Google it, you young whippersnappers)
--Barbara