|
|
|
two bookstore dogs
Wednesday, January 3 2024
I've had two dental issues for weeks now, and today I finally went to the dentist to deal with them. One was missing crown on my top right wisdom tooth and the other was large filling that had fallen out of my top left wisdom tooth, leaving a jagged mess. Gretchen had suggested that, since our dentist is on the outskirts of Woodstock, I should bring the dogs to the bookstore where she would be working and leave them there during my dental appointment. She knew Neville to be a good bookstore dog, and he hadn't pulled a shift there in months. But she also thought Charlotte would be reasonably well-behaved there. I'm still having trouble getting Charlotte to get into a vehicle that I intend to drive, but it went better today than ever before. My technique is to let Neville get in first and then I hide around the north west corner of the house until Charlotte gets in on her own, something she did fairly quickly today.
After dropping off the dogs, I went to the dental office, which is now in a new location closer to Woodstock (you can actually see people getting work done while driving past on Route 375). The cellular signal at the old location near the Hurley Ridge Hannaford was always terrible, making the waiting experience there a bit duller than it might've otherwise been. But at the new location, the cell signal is strong. (I hadn't realized that they actually have a WiFi hotspot that is available if you just ask for the password.)
When the dentist (who I noticed was missing a swath of teeth on the right upper side) finally looked in my mouth, he wasn't sure my top right wisdom tooth was sound enough to be viable. It contains a massive hole in its center from a root canal and there isn't much tooth remaining above the gum line. The dentist used a drill to clean the rot out of the hole (this wasn't pleasant, but it was less uncomfortable than you'd think given the lack of local anæsthetic) and then shrugged and put a temporary crown on it, a procedure that only took a few minutes. Things went even faster for the other wisdom tooth, though this one is fully alive, and when he started drilling on it without anæsthesia, I had to tell him to stop. So he cleaned it up a little and pasted in a dollop of temporary crown. That was really all I wanted; the last temporary crown on my top right wisdom tooth lasted something like 18 months. But the dentist said that I should get proper crowns on both (he seemed to think even the one on the top right was still sound enough to hold one). We then proceeded to set up two appointments in the near future to get that work done. Today's work only came to $100.
Back in Woodstock, I went to the Golden Notebook to pick up the dogs. Gretchen said Charlotte had been well-behaved, though she'd insisted on greeting everyone coming through the door, which won't work for every customer. (Neville, on the other hand, mostly keeps to himself and lets people approach him if they so desire.) As I was loading the dogs in the illegally-parked Forester out front, I heard the male half of a couple that had just been in the bookstore say to the female half, "I don't fully trust a pit bull."
On the drive home, I stopped at the Hurley Ridge Hannaford mostly to get coffee and cereal. When there, I often indulge myself in a tray of vegan sushi. I hadn't done that in a long time, but I did today.
|
