Low Profile

I'm going to be taking a break, as you can clearly see, from the list of sixteen memories about my dad's last days.  Simply writing the first five took more out of me than I expected, and I spent the following week sleeping poorly, having a recurring nightmare about trying to walk from Milwaukee's Grand Avenue Mall to my parents' house, and, ultimately, having an argument with someone on Facebook over what I considered to be an inappropriate cartoon about "old, confused, and naked" men in the hospital.  I will assert that I was in the right until my last breath, but I wound up Unfriended over something I should have ignored as, "joke not intended for Jen's amusement."  I have now resolved to keep my head down, and work on finishing the enormous Noro afghan.  Look how it's grown!

I am also close to finishing Atlas Shrugged.  Only 200 and some pages to go.  It may be pulpy, pedantic, and full of propaganda, but it's keeping me out of trouble.

In other news, Keshet's annual banquet is on Sunday, and I was very pleased that the spot where I had a shattered tooth pulled in December had finally healed enough for the dental implant to be put in. The missing tooth was a molar and not visible unless I pointed it out, but its absence has only added to my overall sense of relentless vulnerability.  

This year Henry Winkler is going to speak at the banquet!  Yes, I know he's not really from Milwaukee and he's going to be discussing overcoming dyslexia rather than his years as The Fonze, but I am a child of the 70's.   I expect to be profoundly star-struck, even if he's not wearing a leather jacket.

I saw Dr. Teenie-Tiny yesterday and felt anticipatory glee about soon being able smile with impunity.  But as I've mentioned before, my beloved dentist and I have a bit of a language barrier.  While she did put in the giant screw to which a new tooth will eventually be affixed, the tooth itself cannot be put in place until the bone graft heals around the screw.  It'll be at least three more months.   And now, I have what looks like a very gangster titanium stud in my gum instead of a tooth.... which is much more noticeable than the previous absence of a tooth.

Luckily, I have new shoes for the occasion, which I trust will lure all attention away from my mouth.  I almost never wear heels despite being sixty-one inches tall to LB's seventy-one, but look!  Glitter!

I will wear these with a little black dress and black hose with seams -- in honor of the fact that we are less than a month away from the return of Mad Men.

But back to the dentist.  I am a giant, mewling baby of a patient, so Dr. T-T gave me enough Novocaine to numb my brain in addition to my left mandible.  Before the drilling began, the dental assistant and I got in a conversation about who the next pope might be.  I wondered aloud if the new pope might be an American, and she said, with some emphasis, that she was sure the new pope would be Lebanese.  I was nanoseconds away from proudly announcing, "I know where Lebanon is!" when I realized that this woman does not read Knitters-Knitters, would have no idea that I was referencing something I'd written earlier, and would find probably find it shameful that I've managed to live for forty-seven years without knowing the location of Lebanon.

And you can be sure that when I see her next week for my follow-up, I will not remind her that she was wrong in her prediction.

Like I said, I'm staying out of trouble.

Comments

[Gail]

Glad you aRe staying out of trouble...but those shoes are GORGEOUS!!! Ah to be able to wear heels again. Sigh!

[kmkat]

1. Great, sparkly shoes!
B. I say, Rock the giant titanium stud! Show it off with impunity as you talk with a Joisey accent and reference your cousin Vinny and cement overshoes.
iii. If you haven't seen Henry Winkler lately, please do an Google image search for him BEFORE you go to the banquet. He sure ain't Fonzie anymore.

[Kathy S.]

Wait, did you tell us you were getting a dental implant? Did I miss that? Because I have one, too. Physically it was no big deal (pain-wise, anyway), but emotionally it was sort of an ordeal. A year-long, semi-traumatic ordeal. A year in which I took to my bed frequently and complained a lot. Oy. I went nearly a year without eating tortilla chips! Humans are not meant to live that way. So glad you are almost to the endpoint!

[Lo]

Are those shoes perchance size 7.5? Just wondering.

[Mary K. in Rockport]

I'm surprised that the stripes are coming out so defined (one color per one or two rows.) Is Noro striped that regularly - or are you doing something special to make it come out that way?

[Elizabeth]

Good luck with the implant - my husband had one a year ago and it takes a while to get used to.

:)