Don't read this...

What on earth could it be?? Well, you asked. And don't say I didn't warn you.

I was flossing the other day when I felt something fall onto my tongue. What I fished out what is you see in the picture. Just a filling with a cool handle. This would be what resided in place of my right-hand second maxillary premolar; that fourth-last tooth on the top right; or "one-five" as one's dentist may call it out to the assistant filling out the way-too-full cavity chart. Okay, so I'm far too familiar with what goes on in the dentist's office.

This was not a big surprise, since it had been loose for a couple of months now. I was pretty sure it was just held in with a post (as seen in the pic) so I didn't know what was keeping it in place. Guess I didn't pull hard enough. Those barbs seem to do their job.

The molar that once existed had a big cavity right in the middle, so the dentist had put the filling (the one attached to the rebar above) in and secured that with a post. So basically there was the inner third of a tooth, then a big blob of filling, and then an outer third of tooth. The problem was that there was so little original tooth left that there wasn't much strength left. I was munching on a chicken drumstick one day when I bit onto something hard -- that was one piece of the original tooth gone. I'm not sure when the other piece broke off, but after that I simply couldn't chew with that side of my mouth.

Given my wonderful dental history, I'm used to favouring one side of my mouth or the other when chewing, knowing that a temporary resolution is only an unpleasant dentist visit away. Now I can finally chew normally (and eat faster!) again while I await some good dental coverage. I'm not in a big hurry -- there's no pain, and although there's now a big gap the root (or some semblance thereof) is still there and I don't expect my face to cave in overnight due to the structural loss.

Oh dental implants, how I yearn for about 28 of thee! (I don't expect I'll need fake wisdom teeth.)

иuмbЄrs

No, this post is not exciting. When exciting doesn't happen, exciting doesn't get blogged about. (Note to my sister (not one of the younger three): I decided upon a solution to your always appreciated, uh, constructive grammatical criticism. Anything you perceive as incorrect I get to defend as "writing style". Kind of like a few sentences ago where I ended the sentence with a preposition. And like these sentence fragments.)

So anyway. I e-mailed a few people regarding my cell phone number change, but here it is just in case. 613-299-2947

Finally a local number! We were getting tired of paying up to 55 cents a minute just to talk on the phone. Apparently (if you're a reader of fine print you might know this--and you might also be part of an embarassingly small minority) the rules say that if you're not in your local calling area (Toronto for us), you pay long distance for incoming calls. Plus the usual airtime. As reasonable as that may seem (???) we got sick of funnelling our retirement fund straight into the Bell Modility coffers, so today I went to town and got my number changed. This is supposed to cost me $15 at the store plus another $10 on my next bill. I didn't pay anything at the store, but I shall withhold my ebullience until I see what they decide to charge on my bill.

We're locked in until June so until then we're not getting a landline. I wonder how many people have tried to live without a phone (in the last few decades I mean). How bad can it be? Who needs phone service anyway? I have e-mail. This isn't the 90s; in fact, it's hardly even the 00s anymore! It used to be the case that most people have e-mail; for those who don't, just phone. Soon enough people should be expected to have e-mail; phone service could be optional and for those without, just e-mail.

Grumble grumble. Utilities just cost too much, that's all.

---

I went snowboarding with a friend last week Tuesday evening. It had just snowed all day and conditions were absolutely beautiful. And the silence was golden: I couldn't remember when I'd last gone down a slope and not heard the grinding against a hard pack of ice or groomed snow. It was glorious.

When conditions are that good, one dares to be more acrobatic since falling doesn't hurt so much. This was fine in theory but I proved it wrong only once, but then the top of the lift where the chairlift disposes of you is generally an icy spot. I have no idea what really happened, but suffice it to say that my disembarkment was less than graceful; I caught an edge, twisted and landed on my hip. I have never felt that exact form of pain to such a degree (um, if this past Saturday doesn't count), and I was pretty sure I'd broken something. Well, I don't think I've ever broken a bone and that wasn't about to change. I managed to enjoy myself for a couple more hours, but the next day I could hardly walk, let alone traverse stairs. That took a few days to get over.

On Saturday, the friend and I conned our wives into coming with us to a ski hill further from Ottawa (still only about 90km). This mountain was higher and further in the boonies so I expected more snow. Was I wrong! That big melt we had a bunch of weeks ago affected this place worse than it had affected Ottawa. And then they didn't get as much snow since. They have snowmakers on the hill but either they didn't read the instructions or the weather just wasn't ever right. This mountain had very little snow cover and reasonably thorough ice cover. Which is not good for boarders. The girls lasted until lunch time, after which they rented skis to salvage what they could of their day. Both had plenty of nasty falls in the morning (in those conditions there are no good falls), and their knees were literally purple. I fell only once but that was once too often that day; it was the second time I had felt that form of pain to that degree (and it didn't help that the fall involved my then-nearly-recovered hip). This mountain may be okay if conditions are right, but it will have to snow 10 feet before we feel any kind of eagerness to return there.

One more nephew

Congratulations Karin & Hank! My sister in Smithers just had a baby boy. Little Aaron took his time... wasn't he supposed to be a Christmas baby? He hasn't even met me yet, and already he procrastinates as well as I do.

I have many more nephews than nieces... almost 2 to 1. I guess that's to make up for having too high a ratio of sisters to brothers in my own sibling pool.

Nothing else new, except that spring sprang early this year. It's been raining for a few days and a little too warm... topping out at something like 12 degrees. A week ago I was considering shovelling the deck again, but yesterday the last bit of snow succumbed to the torrents of rain and warm air and the deck is clear. What used to be beautiful 3- or 4-foot snowbanks along the road are now 1-foot poor excuses of snow "piles". Very sad indeed. Let's hope there's a little bit more winter afoot. Else Ottawa's Winterlude will sport a 7km swimming pool instead of a rink.

update

Well, happy '08 everyone.

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post, but just when I think I'm scot-free and no one's visiting the blog anymore, someone leaves a comment just to keep me on my toes (thanks e.h.).

I've managed to get out and go snowboarding a couple of times already. Since I've only gone night-boarding so far, the trip to the hill is super long because of Ottawa rush hour traffic (read: five minutes longer); I timed my trip home once and it was exactly 20 minutes. Talk about convenient.

Being from BC, I happen to have certain standards when it comes to ski hills, but the one nearest our place is granted leniency on three counts: (a) it's 20 minutes away, (b) going on 2-for-1 Tuesday evenings puts the lift price at a laughable $12.50, and (c) after so many years of hardly hitting the slopes at all, this is certainly better than nothing (especially after a good powdery snowdump).

The second time I went was with some buddies on Christmas Eve. The drive up was fast, in part because no one else was heading the same way. I soon learned why: there was to be no night skiing on Christmas Eve. The hill could have at least called us and let us know... or, you know, we could have checked the website.

[Aside, while my adrenalin is pumping: Two minutes ago I heard a siren outside coming awfully fast and I turned my head slightly to see what it is. I was a little surprised to see a fire truck barrelling along at what must have been well over 100km/h in a 50 zone. That NEVER happens right here, since there's an intersection right there as well. A minute later I heard another siren approaching so this time I decided to go to the window and look. This truck was encountering a red light (the first must not have) and slowed considerably (sort of) for the intersection. Good thing too, because a suddenly a 5-ton truck went through its own green light unawares; the fire truck literally locked tires and skidded laboriously to a halt to avoid t-boning the 5-ton. I fully expected to see bits of 5-ton all over the road, but fortunately this didn't happen. Although I would have had some spectacular photos for a blog post...]

Back to the less exciting. The hill was closed. Obviously when this happens you go to the next one and hope it's running. Okay, we phoned ahead this time. Another 20 minutes and we were at the next hill (a slightly better one). So that's at least two hills ridiculously close to home. Things just get better and better.

Hmm, what else. I bought some junk on usedottawa.com (like craigslist but around here it has a much bigger audience for some reason). The junk included some stuff I really didn't want, so I turned around and sold a couple of items for what I initially paid for the whole lot. If I can magnify this sort of dealing a hundred-fold, I can start thinking about quitting my day job...

It's -22 out this morning (or so my sister in Smithers tells me). I did go out to put out the garbage but it didn't feel very cold (under the carport). The silly thing is that the forecast for sometime next week is a full 33 degrees higher! Why can't it just stay below freezing until April? No one likes the mess of melting snow, so it may as well just happen when it's expected to.

My sister Marian, hubby Brian and young'un Levi came over for the turn of the year. Levi is one cute little guy and I found him surprisingly manageable for being at the age where I'd expect him to touch and break stuff just for kicks. But what do I know? And he's pretty smart with stairs (of which we have plenty): a good number of feet from the stair he wants to descend, he drops to all fours and crawls backwards to the stair like a careful driver--not hitting too much on the way. Very amusing to watch. Poor Marian had a cold, so she was perpetually tired and stuffed up and couldn't taste all the good foods that go with the season.

On a good day, our complex has all of three visitor parking spots available. These days were not good days, since the snow from the last couple of dumps had been plowed to those spots and not yet removed. For a day or two Brian could park their Jeep in an absent neighbour's carport, but after that he had no choice but to park next to a big pile of snow that really shouldn't have been there. It snowed a little that night, and the next morning some unimpressed lazy snowplower had decided that the Jeep was in his way and had pushed whatever snow he could gather and piled in front the Jeep. Yay for 4WD... we didn't even have to use shovels.



On New Year's Eve, Brian cooked a wonderful fancy dinner for us. I generally take pride in my culinary abilities (I make a mean slice of toast) but this achievement almost put my own to shame.



Levi didn't appreciate good cooking quite so much, so he got to eat his favourite dish all by himself: yogurt. And no, that's not a print on his shirt.



At 6:57pm, to commemorate Ottawa being chosen as the capital city in 1857, a 17-minute display of fireworks was held near Parliament Hill. From our balcony we couldn't see the lower stuff since there's a building in the way, but we got to see enough anyway. The 3-second sound delay was interesting as well. At midnight there was another 400-second fireworks display to salute Quebec City's 400th anniversary this coming year.



A good time was had by all. Marian had brought Settlers (board game) along since we haven't bought it yet. Quite a good game (more so if one wins). Luckily we're not too tempted to buy it since you can't play it with only two players.