The Red Barn

Dental misadventures took me back to the dentist's office again on this day. For there is some bit of bad news that I have not mentioned. Within the past week, I have broken two teeth! The first one, on a cereal snack bar. The second one, on a slice of pizza. Neither one included biting down on anything hard; the enamel just sort of . . . slid right off!

Twenty years ago, with considerable expense and misery, I had major dental work that included getting porcelain veneers (or crowns) on 15 of my teeth. Apparently, they have a life span, like all other things in this world. Apparently, for me, that life cycle is about . . . *heavy sigh* twenty years.

So, fortunately for me, I already had a dentist appointment scheduled for Tuesday morning. I joked with my dentist that I had brought along the two broken pieces of teeth with me that came off (I actually had them in tiny baggies); maybe we could just GLUE them back on and nobody would be the wiser?

But he fixed me with a serious gaze: that is not the way it works, he said. We'd have to do the whole shebang: preparing the teeth by removing the enamel, installing provisional crowns, ordering the real crowns, and and then installing the real ones. How soon did I want to do it? It's November; the snow will be flying soon, I thought to myself. How about As Soon As Possible, I replied.

So they had a cancellation on Wednesday morning, and this is how I ended up back at my dentist's office for the second day in a row! The appointment was for 10:30, and they told me to expect to spend two hours in The Chair. (TWO HOURS IN THE CHAIR!!!)

This is not my first dental rodeo, and so I showed up dressed comfy, wearing my sweats, and girded my loins to experience the dental extravaganza that was to come. My husband offered to drive me; he said he'd spend those two hours sitting in the sun at Colyer Lake, which isn't far away.

I don't usually take my camera along inside the dentist's office, but on this day, I did. For there are numerous gorgeous old barns on South Atherton street, and I wanted to get a few shots of them. The Chair in the dentist's office overlooks a stunning view of several of them. (I know; I'm hard-core; I will do most anything to get my shot!)

You should have seen the surprised look on my dentist's face when he walked into his office and discovered me conducting a full-on barn photo shoot from his windows! But I think he was kind of amused. We talked about the cows and the cats we have sometimes seen at those barns; but alas, I did not see cows OR cats on this day; only barns.

And then we got down to business, and everything went swimmingly, and they actually finished up 45 minutes EARLY!!!! They removed my enamel (grind, grind, grind, insert horrifying noises and smells here), put the provisionals in place, and set my next (and final!) appointment for November 30. The most painful part was writing out the check to cover it! *gulp*

My husband wasn't expecting to pick me up for a while, so I had plenty of "extra" time to walk around taking even more pictures of things in that complex: the leading lines on the buildings, the shadow patterns on the ground, the roses, still blooming in November. (Lines and roses, I giggled to myself; Welcome to the jungle!) But favorite of all was this interesting barn, so here is a rustic barn for your enjoyment!

Now, I will try NOT to focus on the big picture, which is to say that that is two crowns down and *gulp* 13 more to go. But hey, a personal philosophy is this: that you should Never Borrow Sorrow From Tomorrow. So I'm gonna take this, and feel fortunate that we got things moving as quickly as possible, and call it good!

Now, I do my own mental health management, day by day, and a big tool that I use for managing my own self, and my happiness, and my anxieties, is MUSIC. And you should have seen my face when this song came on the radio on our drive to the dentist: my latest big-time pep talk song by Sia, Unstoppable! YEAH, BABY! I took it as a Good Omen! So that is my soundtrack song for this day. (If you need a song to make you strong, you are welcome to borrow it. Works every time for me!)

I put my armor on, show you how strong I am
I put my armor on, I'll show you that I am
I'm unstoppable
I'm a Porsche with no brakes
I'm invincible
Yeah, I win every single game
I'm so powerful
I don't need batteries to play
I'm so confident
Yeah, I'm unstoppable today