So it goes...

So I got my crown yesterday. My crown + a filling replacement with composite. A double header so to speak. Two and a half hours of unbridled pain and suffering. All I can do is thank my maker for Novocaine. It is the wonder drug of all time. Now if they could invent a drug or earphones that would neutralize the sound of a high-speed, water cooled drill penetrating my cranium, I'd be all set. It really isn't the pain thing, thought there is something to that. It's really about the noise, the smell, the agape- ness of my mouth, all of it. It's a bit like being awake for major surgery, really. Let's see, what is the strongest bone in your body? Hmm , your teeth. Let's grind away at those and see if we can make them better. I'm having a hard time with that. So here's how it works. It's the strangest process I've ever heard of. They started by numbing both sides of my mouth, because my crown was to be upper left and my filling was lower right. Right ...

What a week! So many icons of my youth dropping in a week makes me a bit introspective. It all fits into that death and dying thing that seems to be creeping up everytime I begin to forget about it. Life is but a whisper, and everyone thinks it's just a big long winded story. Not always, my friend. Sometimes its like a sneeze. Sometimes it's like a quick leap over a crack in the sidewalk. Sometimes it's like a raging river and sometimes it's like a muffled scream. So again, to my point of a few posts ago. Embrace every day. No, embrace every minute of every day. See joy and beauty in the small things. I saw a college girl walking toward her dorm tonight. Flip flops, hippie purse, skirt and bandana. It occurred to me how simplistic and happy those days were for me. Not the skirt/purse part, but the college student part. I was (am) idealistic, convinced that I was never going to buy into the system of a house in the burbs and 2 cars. Alas, "sigh"... My point how...

I'm on a 3 day sabattical at the Boys Club Crystal River campout. There are sure to be some tales when I return, so check back because right now I'm... Blogging off.

I was tasked with building a set of stairs to our back yard this past weekend. We have a 24" drop from a rock wall on the upper to the lower backyard area. It seemed like such a simple project. Silly me. First of all let me start by saying there's a reason I'm not a carpenter or tradesman by choice. I don't much care for it. The other reason I'm not is because I am just not that good at it. I do OK for most projects, but am my own worst critic and so am never completely happy with anything I've done. (Kind of like my writing.) That said, I took the project on as a challenge to reassert my architectural aptitude. After much research online and through men friends of mine, I had a good idea of what needed to be done. It was really 3 simple steps. Secure a 2X6X40" board to the wall Screw the stringers to the board in #1 Screw the steps to the string No where was mentioned "Screw up", but that came without provocation anyways. Shopping Trip #1 The sh...

Got a few minutes free so thought I'd sneak an extry post in with more random thoughts. I saw a GM truck the other day that had those obnoxious stickers on the back window that are the sign of a true "wingnut" (That's the nice term). This one said "Eats Fords, Shi** Dodges". I thought it was quite a statement given that GM is bankrupt. At this point I think GM is eating anything it can get it's grimy little hands on. Come to think of it so is Dodge/Chrysler. Unfortunately you and I are paying for more of their bad decisions than they are at the moment. I wonder why they didn't see the writing on the wall when gas was first nearing $2.00/Gallon and start making Priuses instead of more Tahoes. Alas hindsight is 20/20. I had read the other day in my High School Annual Update Newsletter that a guy from my class had passed away suddenly. A real nice guy at that. It brought to the forefront once again that whole death thing that has been haunting me lately...

Ah, Wednesday. Blog Day. There is a song by Morrissey (Formerly of the Smiths) that is titled "Every Day is like Sunday". I wish every Day was a blog day. My beautiful daughter took that leap into adolescence known as brace face on Tuesday of this week. This is a right of passage that I never new, nor did Donna. So we were not "braced" for the resultant fallout from Sar . Poor girl got it tough it seems. From her description, her orthodontist was trained by the same sadist my dentist was. (e.g. Steve Martin in "Little Shop"). It wasn't enough that she had to have them all put on, but within one hour of when she had them installed, if that is the term, one of her brackets busted off. Or perhaps came unglued is a better term. I'm sorry, unglued was the description of Donna when she heard the part had broken. Needless to say, Sar had to go back in for an adjustment of sorts today. While they were repairing the broken brackets, they n...

A strange day at the Landwehr Compound. Random news factoids and points of minimal interest to cover, so if you're in the mood for cohesive thought, I'll have to say you're out of luck. Ben's last game was this morning at 10:00. I'd love to say he went out with a splash, but it sounded a bit more like a convertible Fiat tumbling down a canyon wall, leaking fluids and landing top down. Graceful it was not. It's always fun to watch, but when you lose 5-1, it takes the " funness " down a level. On the upside, Ben played at an intense level after his initial slow start. It seemed like the first 7 minutes of the game he was still with Sponge Bob and Patrick on the couch, where he was 30 minutes prior to game time. (The story of getting him dressed and ready for each practice and game is one I'll save for later. Suffice it to say that it's like trying to motivate and dress Jello.) Once they got a couple goals scored against them, and he moved from d...

I went to Sarah's final band concert on Wed. It was held at Carroll University in Shattuck Auditorium. I'm figuring for Middle Schoolers , it's the equivalent of Carnegie Hall. A beautiful, acoustically-sound facility it is. The seventh graders were up first and were slated to perform 5 songs. They did a great job for the most part. There were some parts that sounded like the tubist got kicked in the privates in the middle of it. Other parts sounded like one of the clarinetists was playing under water, or perhaps inside an overturned port-a-potty. But like I said, overall they were pretty tight as a group. Sarah's flute of course was spot-on for the duration. Being a "beginning band instrumentalist", she was encouraged not to do one of the songs and because of this slight, the song was horrible. That will tea ch 'em. The eighth graders did well too. They've got a drummer though who kept dropping one of his sticks, much to the instructors' chagrin...