Kroger wasn’t so bad. I loaded up by my standards and had to use 4 of those flimsy plastic pieces of crap in addition to my large stalwart bright blue Kroger cloth bags. As promised I pulled into the Starbucks drive through and ordered my usual White Chocolate Mocha…Grande. I had two of those little plastic gift cards and even though I only had 24 cents on one, I hate to just throw those away with even the smallest amount of money on them. I gave the cute little girl the two cards and she very deftly did as instructed and now I have 78 cents left on the $5 second card. I’m a financial wizard!

Upon unloading the groceries, I discovered I had not bought any of the small fishy cat foods…Fancy Feast is one brand, but there are others. I have two cats. One of them, the female, is younger and hangs around outside a lot. Probably because she likes the company…ahem…of the neighbor’s bad-boy Tom cat that lurks in the shadows hoping for a little pussy to come along. And indeed she does; about three times a day..or more possibly! I stopped watching. It gives me an eerie voyeuristic feeling.

Sorry, I digressed. There’s a routine we engage in around here in regards to cat feeding. They eat dry cat food as a regular dietary standard, but every other day I split one of those little Fancy Feast cans with the two of them. They are pretty smart. They have come to expect a treat when I walk in the door with groceries. Kinda like real kids. Well, today I had none for them…and besides they don’t get their treat until 4 PM. I’m very strict about that. I have to have some structure in my life!

I put away all the groceries, vacuumed for about 30 seconds, washed a few dishes and retreated to the basement for a look at email. Samus, the old man Siamese I have, followed me down. Now let me back up a second and explain that I had already tried to get him to go outside in the nice cool air upstairs. He would have none of it. He is an ornery, determined old cat…sort of like me…and he felt that if he went outside he wouldn’t get the inevitable juicy, fishy treat that was surely coming his way. So back to the basement. As I said, he followed me downstairs. I turned on the computer and as it was booting up, I stepped to the basement exit door and opened it to look out. Samus, the old geezer, apparently thought I was going out and he trotted outside on the driveway. Of course I stepped back inside and regaling in my skill at fooling the Siamese fat boy, I sat down at the computer to do my thing.

Just click HERE to see the show. Enjoy!

So, I felt okay to go in to work on Thursday, but with a little sore jaw. The Ibuprofen and Tylenol fixed that right up.

Friday morning I met Marvin and C.A. for a slab ride up to Hungry Mother State Park in Virginia for a weekend of riding the twisty roads and camping with about 10 other guys in loop “C”. It rained…or misted I should say, for a little bit of the Saturday riding and then about 3 AM Sunday it rained while we slept. The Sunday ride back south was absolutely wonderful. The roads were nice. The weather was beautiful. And the bikes ran great!

That wasn’t the case just a few short hours ago. On Monday I ended up at the dentist’s office at noon and through some careful “hunting” and checking together we figured out the offending tooth was not the one originally suspected! My far back molar on my left side upper has a couple of cracks in it around an existing filling. Who knows how long that filling has been there.

He cleaned it out some to see the crack better and determined that it went down toward the root, thus the pain. Then he refilled it with a medicated filling to ease the pain somewhat temporarily. This apparently DID help since I slept pretty good last night only waking three times after midnight. I went on to school armed with a new bottle of over the counter pain killer and some Sensidyne toothpaste.  I made it okay until about lunch time and the tooth pain returned very badly about every 30 minutes. At 2PM I called the dentist and requested a phone in prescription of some kind of good pain killer and the Vicodin was retrieved at about 3:15 from the Publix pharmacy. I snarfed one down on the way home and not long after I got in the door I ate me a small chicken salad croissant with some banana pudding for dessert, after which I began to feel much better.

It is now about 6:30 and I have been napping for the last hour or so with very little pain in the jaw. Oh blessed relief! The only thing that got me up this time was my cat meowing for some food.

By the time I got home, my offensive tooth was aching again. I cleaned my teeth real good with the Waterpik and took a Tylenol. I lay down to sleep at 9:30, but the pain came…and came again….and again…about every 30 minutes it came in waves. I took another Extra strength Tylenol. Later I found an old pain med that Jenny had left here…Tramadol. I don’t know what that is but I took it! None of the pain meds seemed to phase it. I would lay down for 15 minutes…or 20 minutes and the pain would wake me. It is lasting about 30 to 40 minutes before it fades enough to sleep again…but sleep only comes in 15 to 20 minutes parcels. Finally at 3AM I called the dentist’s office and left a message for them to call me.

I just woke again at 5:15 and tried to sleep another 15 minutes as the pain crept up on me. Finally my alarm went off at 5:35 as if I needed it. I called for a sub at work and now I’ll continue the same dreadful activity until the dentist returns my call.

Tooth still aches, although not as bad…or maybe I’m just getting used to it. It’s more a nagging, on again off again, kind of in the background pain that won’t stop. I dread the experience and the expense of solving the problem.

The heat continues make all matters worse…but what can one do about that, other than drink lots of cool water…OUCH! IT HURTS THE TOOTH TO DRINK COOL WATER!!!…and lay around in the air conditioned comfort of home and hearth.

I have managed to begin a new painting. That is the bright side of the past few days!

Oil on canvas. Its a portrait of Sparky (Jenny) I have had in the preliminary planning stages for over a year. I just got a wild hair to finish it now and move on to my  next one..a self-portrait.

I’ve been taking the stuff since Monday at 1:00…and every 12 hours after that. Whatever is wrong, it does not want to leave happily. This antibiotic hopefully is helping, but I don’t know. The affliction is subsiding somewhat and today I actually feel pretty good in the mouth area…but it isn’t gone by any means. I’m beginning to self-diagnose again and I believe it must be a very sensitive root that is partially exposed from the deep pocket on a certain pre-molar tooth. I can only guess at the next step of treatment should that be the case….and it ain’t pleasant.

To complicate things more, I have been back at school for pre-planning this week to prepare for the kids to return on August 2. Today was our annual “Open House” activity and with some more Advil, I’ve been able to function almost like normal. A couple more days and if it continues to improve, albeit slowly, then the weekend might prove to be productive.

Pretty huh?

If not treated properly it will develop into a fullfledged infection and have to be worked on by the dentist. I think that’s where I am at this point! Yech! Being the weekend I have to just survive until tomorrow when I can visit the dentist and have him check it.

This all seemed to begin after a very nice cookout dinner with a bunch of friends on Thursday night. Ate too much, and probably forced a microdot of hamburger up into that pocket which won’t come out. Friday it seemed to be getting worse as I visited with my daughter and grandchildren for her birthday.

Yesterday I started taking Advil to relieve the pain, and the rest of an unfinished antibiotic prescription. I know that’s bad to do, but I’m hoping it will calm it down so I can get through the weekend.

Luckily, I have tomorrow off as a forced furlough day without pay. Not only do I lose a day’s pay, it’s gonna cost me to visit the dentist!