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most minimally-invasive procedure possible
Thursday, November 20 2025
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
Unexpectedly, this morning I had a call from the dental office saying I had an appointment for this afternoon. For some reason I'd thought it wan't until December. But okay, it might as well be today. So after puttering around for awhile and making real progress figuring out the new SolArk serial format, I eventually took a shower, waterpik'd and brushed my teeth, and then drove to the dental office near the boundaty of West Hurley and Woodstock.
When the dentist showed up to inject a local anæsthetic near the tooth to be worked on (the upper left wisdom tooth). I asked if he could just put filling in the big void in it. At my last visit, he'd presented only two options: having it pulled or getting a root canal and a crown. I didn't like either of those options and wanted the most minimally-invasive procedure possible. The dentist looked at my tooth and said sure, it looked like it could simply be refilled. So after the anæsthetic kicked in, he got to work reaming out the decay. That tooth is a living tooth, and I was perhaps a little too nervous about what I was felling, particularly when the reaming tool "bumped" (as the dentist described it). I quickly waved my hand saying I could feel the bit, so the dentist injected more anæsthetic, this time in a place that caused me more discomfort but resulted in immediate relief. But still I was nervous, and when he "bumped" again inside that huge void in my tooth, I again waved him off. This time the dentist seemed geuinely irritated with me, saying there was no way I could feel anything. So, embarrassed with my jumpiness, I psyched myself up to just put up with whatever else needed to happen. Before long, the tooth was all reamed out, a permanent filling was in place and ground down to fit my bite. In the end, all I had to pay was a $50 copay, as this tooth was still covered by my ertwhile dental insurance.
On the way home, I stopped at the Hurley Ridge Hannaford for vegan sushi and a few things for making vegetable soup: potatoes, cauliflower, and canned tomatoes (none of which I actually needed to buy more of). After walking Charlotte on the usual loop up the Farm Road and back on the scrubby highlands to its west, I eventually got started on the soup, which typically takes me about an hour of near-constant work. For this soup, I experimented with adding a big chopped-up raddish to the mix, and I again used the trick of adding sauerkraut juice in place of lemon juice to give it a little tang. For protein, I included leftover tofu from yesterday's spaghetti chonks and a can of chickpeas. The result was highly satisfactory for both me and Gretchen (after she got home from pilates and several social calls).
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