it started with a seed

over 4 years ago (and i remember this because it was just before the last world cup), i went to london with my bf at the time and my parents, who were visiting from canada.  we rented a sedan, took ourselves for a holiday of live theatre and sightseeing, and visited portobello market.  and in that lovely market, we bought some seedy bread.  and one of those seeds got stuck between my teeth.

like, really stuck.  stuck so badly that for a few days i had a constant dull ache on that side of my mouth.

eventually, with my mad skills in the flossing department, i got that seed out and there would always be a larger space between those two teeth than any of my others.

i adapted to this by carrying around my favourite kind of floss to make sure i thoroughly floss after eating anything that had a tendency to get stuck in there.  apples, beef, anything stringy.  gross, but i never got the 'floss more' lecture from the dentist because i became mildly obsessed.

and when my sis and bro-in-law and i were sitting down to a cold beer and a bite to eat in victoria last weekend before boarding our plane back to calgary, i noticed that i had a hole in my tooth.  a hole in my tooth!  i had my sister investigate it (yes, in the restaurant) and we agreed that it was most likely a cavity, which seemed inevitable.  i made sure to get in to the dentist the very next day and when they told me that my tooth was actually broken and that they suggested repairing it with a crown, i braced myself for the freezing, the drills, and the awfulness of the dentist in general and went for it.

but being frozen that evening really threw me for a loop and put me in a bit of a funk that lasted through the week.  the miserable weather and confusing text message dating certainly didn't help, but the invasion of having someone's hands in my mouth and not being able to feel half of my face for a number hours seems to have had quite a psychological impact.  and it wasn't nice.

i dug myself out of the funk that week and had a lovely weekend full of beers on patios, hikes in kananaskis, and a patio-hopping fundraising event full of food, wine, and good friends.

but that was not what was on my mind later in the evening after i was at the dentist, as i was on the phone with a call centre in india, half my face frozen, having an ugly cry because i didn't know the difference between a modem and a router.  but the nice, young fellow on the phone wasn't bothered and sorted my internets while i felt sorry for myself.  but i bet that if he were located in canada, working at midnight, and having to put up with a whiney mess like me, he would not have been nearly as patient!

a picture of productivity

(february 9, 2008)

my To Do List has taken a beating lately as i have busted my way through it the past 2 days. i started my productivity streak with an appointment at the dentist. he was a jolly south african fellow who could play santa at any children’s christmas party. he looked at me as though i am paranoid about oral health when i told him what the problem was, but he managed to remedy it in just 45 short minutes and there was not a needle in sight. i realised my least favourite part of the entire dental experience is the polishing. is it possible that there a worse feeling?

i think the friendly atmosphere of the dentist’s office actually being a house helped a lot. dentists’ offices all smell the same at home and that smell alone is enough to emit feelings of nausea and hatred in me. and also unlike dentist’s offices at home, the property of the dentist house was lined with a very obvious and very foreboding electric fence. which i learned was electrified when i could smell something burning and realised a leaf has fell off a tree right on to the fence and was incinerated. then i thought that if you had children in a city like nairobi you would need to teach them not to touch fences.

the To Do List continued to shrink as i used my extra time meant to be spent agonising at the dentist for other more fruitful activities. like pedicures. that, with the current most favourable exchange rate, cost $8.50. it was delightful as always and i got some serious book reading time in. i am not one for small talk with the hair people or the pedicure people. i will talk to the manicure people but only because my hands are not free to hold a book or magazine and it would be a bit awkward to avoid eye contact that entire time.

next up was an eye appointment and picking out new glasses. because i love health insurance that cares about my eyes (and my teeth) as much as i do. i also love my new specs.
then lunch with a colleague, then work (well, more like email reading), then movie watching and relaxing, nothing really of To Do List significance there.

but today! today i ticked off a few more items. and everyone knows that there is no point in a To Do List if not for the satisfaction involved in crossing something off the list. or checking it off if it is my daytimer because i don’t like it to get too messy in there.

first came some job applications (about to become a constant in my life again) then picking up my new spectacles and getting my others tightened with those mini screwdrivers that always seem to get in christmas crackers but never keep for when you actually need them. like now.

then a massage. a most delicious massage that kind of hurt. but in the good way. but i had some knots that were pretty enormous so the massage lady said i should come back, which i probably will because it was so delicious. but only in africa would the massage therapist use her boobs to hold your head up so she can get to your neck. i actually thought it was quite ingenious.

then came roadside flower shopping (ok, not on the To Do List, but fun anyhow). i am not the biggest fan of the rose, but i got 36 of them for the equivalent of $2. it seems that a lot of the kenyan flower exporters will not be able to harvest and transport their flowers to europe for the valentine’s day, the single biggest day of flower sales of the year, as the main flower growing area of the country is one of the worst in terms of violence and displacement at the moment. if you live in europe and don’t have a problem with using fertile ground to grow something inedible and a total luxury nor do you care about ‘food’ miles or the effluent that is leaked into the nearby lakes that is ruining the natural ecosystem, go out and track down some kenyan grown valentine’s flowers and buy them to support the economic recovery of an african country. or buy something locally and naturally grown like a thistle and give it to your valentine, that would be ok too.

more road side shopping and more To Do List crossing with fruit and veg stands on the way home and then home to cross things of the list. who am i kidding, i crossed everything off the list as soon as it was done.

just one unit for me today, thanks

i am afraid that i have a cavity. this could become a very troublesome issue when you consider my incredible fear of the dentist. i have an irrational, sometimes incomprehensible, fear of the dentist. which doesn't make much sense because my dentist is one of the nicest people i have ever met. he leaves his own practice every year to treat children in africa and he only keeps his patients in canada so that he can follow his passion and bring his services to other parts of the world. and for that, i don't mind paying for two units of scaling, though i have no idea what a unit even consists of.

none of this, however, makes me any less afraid of the noises, the tools, mean dental hygienists, and the smells involved with stepping foot in a dentist's office. i simply cannot imagine looking into other people's mouths and poking around for a living. i always try and give my teeth a good brush before i go in for my cleanings out of courtesy for the poor souls who have to don the surgical mask and rubber gloves and scrape junk off my enamel.

right now it is a dull ache and could possibly be caused by sinus pressure or an inflamed jaw due to stress. both of these things have happened before and both have made have similar panic attacks about the possibility of a cavity. so here's to hoping that is what is going on this time.

one of the things i have learned in my years is the importance of flossing. i do love the feeling of clean teeth!