Blue-Footed Musings

I have forgotten so much about the years when my kids were small, and that makes me sad, but some things have stayed with me. I still can’t read the word “triangle” without hearing it in my head as “trigingle,” which is how Marshall used to say it when he was very young. This and other random memories from that era are blessings to me, and I am grateful for them.

After 25+ years of living with a guy, you think you know him. Then one day, out of the blue, he does an amazing Cookie Monster impersonation. I mean spot-on and absolutely hysterical. And to think I never knew he could do that. Wow.

I had said I would create a pseudonym for work, and I chose a beautiful one. But then I didn’t use it. I decided that I deserved credit for the new material, which I’d edited to meet my standards. As for the recycled material, it was selected by another editor whose name will also be on the masthead, and I figure that he can take the blame for any errors found in that material. I’d also meant the pseudonym to be a form of protest, but upon further thought I don’t see any value there. If vocal protesting has no effect, then such a quiet, subtle protest doesn’t stand a chance. So I continue to be me.

I mentioned an article about ticks recently. The article had an interesting (to me) line about how deer stay close to people’s houses during the day, then move in at night to munch on the hydrangeas. Ain’t that the truth. The deer here have chewed one of our hydrangeas down to a nub. I hadn’t realized how much the deer love hydrangeas. It would have been a good thing to know before we planted hydrangeas in front of the house, don’t you think?

But the deer only seem to love that one particular hydrangea plant. They’ve left the others, which are a different variety, mostly alone and it’s too bad, because now we have one overeaten and the rest overgrown. The deer also razed most of our hostas and all the pretty red plants we bought last year, among other things. I guess they’ve been extra hungry. But judging by the giant thistle and the shrub-sized mint growing in the same vicinity, they don’t care for those types of plants. So from now on we will do all our landscaping with thistle and mint!

Just kidding. Thistle is mean plant. There’s not a part of it that won’t give you a vicious needling. I’d hoped to see our giant thistle bloom, because I think the flowers are pretty, but it had gotten downright dangerous, and we removed it when we weeded the flowerbed last Sunday.

As for the mint, it’s blooming now, and I love the minty smell of the flowers. But I should probably remove them before they go to seed. Otherwise the plant will take over the landscape, and then the joke will be on me!

My hair had become so dry, brittle, and unruly that I bought a satin-lined cap to wear at night while sleeping. I’ve worn it every night for a couple of weeks now. It makes me feel silly, but it’s definitely helping my hair. I used to wake up looking like one of those wild-haired troll dolls from the ’60s, which is sort of ironic, because I used to have a troll-themed nightshirt with the words “Crazy hair? I don’t care!” and now I do care about crazy hair. Since I started wearing the cap, I wake up with my hair so smooth and neat that I hardly need brush it. Fantastic.

I was flossing one night last week when I felt the crown (on one of my lower left molars) shift.

Dammit!

I have always tried to be extra careful when flossing around the crown, because my dentist warned me against putting any upward pressure on it. The old version of Glide floss was so forgiving–hardly ever catching on my teeth–that my occasional carelessness never caused any trouble. But the new Glide sucks, and every other floss I’ve tried as a replacement has equally sucked. And on this particular evening, using a sucky floss, the string caught on the crown and loosened it.

When I went to the dentist a few days later, he said that the post had snapped off and I’d need a whole new crown. As a temporary fix, he glued the old one down, but warned that it might not stay in place. Sadly, he was right. Just a couple of nights later, as I was having a little snack, suddenly I felt as if I had a marble in my mouth. Bye-bye crown.

The dentist won’t be able to fix it until mid-August, meaning I’ll have to live with this big, ugly, rough gap in my teeth for over a month. Two visits to the dentist will be required for fixing it, and it’s certain to cost a pretty penny.

I didn’t need this extra nuisance (or expense) in my life. I am not happy. But there are a few positives. For one thing, I got 25 years, give or take, out of the old crown. Not bad. When it came loose, I didn’t swallow it (I’d been a little worried about that possibility). The gap may be hideous, but at least it’s in the back, where other people aren’t very likely to notice it. My daughter insisted that I show it to her, and when I did, she said, “That makes me want to brush and floss more.” Yes!

While cleaning in my office last week, I found my long-lost Kindle buried in a stack of art supplies. That was an odd place for it, but hooray! Then I discovered, to my dismay, that Amazon had “bricked it,” as they say in tech parlance. That is, Amazon has stopped supporting older Kindles such as mine, and now I can’t download anything new onto it, even though it still works perfectly well. Had I known in advance, I could have filled it to the gills with free classics. But I didn’t, and now it’s pretty much worthless.

Fortunately, I have my mother’s old Kindle, which is technically better than mine (it has a touchscreen and backlighting). It claims to have 27 GB of storage available, and if I don’t jam it full of free books before Amazon bricks it, too, then I’m an idiot who doesn’t learn from the past.

I will miss my old Kindle, though. Its beauty was in its simplicity. It was lightweight and easy to use, and it had many more years left in it, I’m sure. Such a shame.

My parents made it to VT just in time to catch the fireworks there. They say that this is their last summer in that house and that they will sell it before the season is over. I think that’s a wise decision, but I won’t believe it until I see it. (Mom and Dad, if you’re reading this, don’t let my skepticism merely annoy you. Let it goad you to action.)

I had been thinking of taking the kids to the Cape for July 4th. Wouldn’t it be so nice to watch the fireworks over a harbor, say? But I dawdled, and while I was dawdling an article about ticks came my way. I read the article, and it was terrifying.

The article wasn’t specifically about the Cape, but I know that the Cape has a tick problem. Even so, I said to myself, “Well, we could just stay away from grass while we’re there.” But the article talked about ticks that hunt their victims down and about the prevalence of alpha-gal syndrome. Eek! And then I read a hotel review claiming that a room had been full of ticks. That was too much for me. I decided we should simply go to the local fireworks and enjoy our Del’s lemonade, same as usual. So that’s our plan for tonight.

Happy July 4th to all, and may the ticks stay far, far away.