Tuesday morning: me, crammed into a dental chair -- at full recline, pointy boots waving around in the air down at the other end of the chair -- two female dental professionals looming over me, my mouth bristling with implements of dental wackiness. The occasion: my first filling in quite a few years. This filling replaced one received years ago (which in turn had replaced yet another filling in the very same location).
Filling #1: planted by an excessively jovial acquaintance, a flatmate whose joviality covered a darker, nastier disposition that poked out in unpleasant ways often enough that it began to ring alarm bells for me. So it actually came as no mammoth surprise when the filling fell out less than two weeks into its brief lifetime. Rather than return to Jovial Darkman, I just let it go for a while. Until I'd moved into a place of my own, in a location complete with a dental clinic directly across the street. Filling #2's dentist: a warm, likable woman who clearly cared whether her work caused discomfort. (And who held my head against her boob as she worked.) (I am not making that last bit up.) That filling lasted longer -- months -- before slipping out of its berth. I didn't have the heart or the will at that time to put myself through a third go-round. And with the tooth behaving well -- inflicting no pain, not acting up in any way -- I just let it slide. Until now, the subject arising at a check-up/tooth-cleaning a few weeks back at the health center I use when back in this part of the world.
The personnel: two women who'd never worked on me before. One a slightly geekish 30-something Indian woman, Dr. Gupta. The other a loud caucasian conversation monopolizer -- assisted Dr. G., clearly knew her stuff, talked a blue streak. Leaving Dr. G. the role of verbal sidekick, contributing the occasional, "I see" and "Mm" and "True", like that.
The most striking aspect of the entire experience: the absence of pain (without the assistance of laughing gas). An attention-getting result of (a) the dentist's competence and (b) ongoing advances in the technology. I don't say it was especially comfortable, if I thought too much about what that drill was doing inside my mouth, it generated stressed imaginings that had the power to create their own mental overlay of pain. So I turned my attention elsewhere, to the faces looming beyond the assorted items that poked out of my cakehole. And once I'd realized that Dr. Gupta had a lovely neck -- and there it was, scant inches from my eyes -- I turned my attention there, enjoying the look of her soft skin, appreciating its color (the lightest shade of coffee), liking how her hair (also nice, cut in a long bob) framed it.
Thirty-five or so minutes after it started, I was up and out, rear upper quadrant of my mouth numb from novocaine (also done artfully: not too light, not heavy-handed; when the time came for it to fade away, it did so gently, leaving my mouth feeling no unpleasant sensitivity).
No pain.
No. Pain.
The time may arrive when the occupation of toothpuller loses its traditional aura of inevitable suffering.
Tuesday was the fourth day in row of 90+ weather here, bizarrely hot for this part of the world. Not that I'm complaining -- after the overabundance of gray, cool and wet in the preceding weeks, sunshine and heat felt just fine to my bod. The high temperatures, however, produced some fine storms, the climax arriving Tuesday p.m. as I pushed the law mower out on the hillside. Dark clouds, sudden high winds. Then darker clouds, with winds even more spirited. Followed by clouds so dark they produced an artificial twilight, trees whipping around in turbulent air, leaves flying. Lightning and thunder convinced me the time had arrived to stash the mower in the garage and go inside, intense flashing light and sharp peals of deep noise growing in intensity as I did.
In the house, I saw that the power had gone off while I'd been outside being rustic. Rain came down with biblical ferocity as I closed windows, then I grabbed the phone, calling the power company to let them know about the outage. And I waited.
Time passed, rain let up as the storm headed by. Wind died down, skies turned from gray to blue, sunshine poured down. Still no power. Hours later, darkness falling, I rounded up candles, tried to quiet myself down and read. Couldn't manage it for long though -- too restless. Not happy about being without power once again for hours on end, something that happens a number of times a year here. Adding insult to injury, I could see lights on in the home of my downhill neighbor, Mo -- two-tenths of a mile away. His house is wired to the lines that run along the two-lane down at the bottom of the hill (meaning he also gets cable, with high-speed internet as a resulting option, an option this house might have if phone or cable companies were willing to run the lines up the hill without charging in the neighborhood of $2500-$3000 for the work -- yo, Comcast and Verizon: bite my adorable bum!)
I needed light, noise, people. Which finally got me out of the house, driving into Montpelier to find a homey, welcoming dinner joint. A move that brought me face to face with a depressing part of life here: slim pickings for nightlife.
Tried an Indian restaurant that had been up over the hill from downtown. Dark, looking like it had gone out of business. Tried a new place where a barbecue joint used to be: locked up -- closing hour: 9 p.m. Tried a pub that has pretty decent chow: locked up, closing hour apparently 9 p.m. Finally pulled up in front of the town's pseudo-Mexican joint, a place with a reputation for mediocre fare but friendly wait staff. (My one visit, years back, confirmed both those.) Nothing stands still, though -- my meal was a drastic improvement over the plate of mush I'd been served the last visit. Was actually pretty good, a meal I enjoyed, appreciated, hoovered up with pleasure.
Made the return drive, passing homes alight with cheery electric illumination. Drove up the hill, past Mo's place, windows shining softly. Pulled in the driveway here, the house dark and sad, power still off.
Brushed teeth, crawled into bed, gradually drifted off to sleep. Around 11:30, lamps left on suddenly shone, the refrigerator began humming. Crews out clearing downed trees and power lines had finally reached this hill.
Such a simple blessing, electricity. Bringing life to lights, stereos, computers, refrigerators, washing machines.
As I write this, the music of crickets drifts in the open window. Clothes hang on the line outside, patiently waiting to be collected. Long shadows extend across the grass, my bod politely reminds me that some food might feel just fine.
On to the evening.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June sky, Montpelier:
España, te echo de menos
rws 6:51 PM [+]
Comments:
Post a Comment
