Anyway, as a result of sleeping the day away on Friday, I missed my aunt's graduation from surgical tech school. So, here's a great big public CONGRATULATIONS to my auntie, who has worked her fanny off over the last two years and deserves much more than my piddly congratulations. My only excuse for missing the ceremony is I was unconscious. Hopefully that will be a sufficient excuse... (And congrats to my sister as well, who graduated two weeks ago from high school!! I am a bit behind on my updates.)

This weekend I did manage to summon up a little bit of energy and picked up a few plants for my summer "garden." My summer basil is in its little pot and the rosemary I killed over the winter has been replaced with a new (and alive!) rosemary plant. (I swear it wasn't exactly my fault - the container it was in didn't have sufficient drainage. That little issue has been remedied.) And, on a whim, I picked up a brandywine tomato plant and a jalapeño pepper plant and a few additional containers and planted those as well. My side yard gets full sun and I have a plan for making it look pretty over the next couple years, but for the moment it is pretty much unused. I figured I could afford to spend a bit of extra cash and see how I do this year with a couple items: so far nothing is happening but I've been watering as needed and things look good so far!

Of course, with the way the weather has been here in the northwest this last month, I'm not sure we're going to have enough sun all summer to grow anything, but I can always hope. And if nothing happens, I'm only out $5.

Yesterday I had my first dentist appointment in two years. Before moving to Boston I went to the dentist every six months like clockwork: I'd go, get my cleaning, the dentist would poke around with his little dental tools for a while before telling me I had beautiful teeth, and then I'd schedule the next appointment before I left. It pretty much just took care of itself and the insurance paid the bill and I didn't have to think about it (hardly) at all.

But then I moved to Boston and had planned, while there, to find a new dentist and continue my habit of Good Oral Hygiene. But then I decided to move back to Portland and figured it'd be easiest to just wait until I got home to go rather than finding some random dentist in New England. So I waited, and then I got back, and then I didn't go to the dentist. For about 6 months. And then I got my current job and dental insurance and I went back to my usual dentist. And then he moved to a location that was totally inconvenient for me, so I decided - again - to find a new dentist.

That was two years ago. I actually had made a couple attempts since then to find a dentist in this area that was covered by my insurance, but the insurance company's website was useless and I didn't want to just pick someone out of the phone book, and couldn't find any good recommendations from people I trust for a dentist who was nearby.

But a few weeks ago I got to talking to my dad, who'd recently been in for a cleaning, and I asked who his dentist was and where he was located. Turns out my dad's been seeing this guy for a million years (ok, not quite that long) and has known him since before he was a dentist and before I was born, and he just happens to be about 3 miles down the road from my apartment. Can you say kismet!?

So I called up Dr. Knows My Dad's office, made an appointment and yesterday I went in. I've always had really strong teeth (I didn't get my first cavity until I was 24, for instance) so I wasn't expecting them to find anything serious. They did a full series of x-rays (18 of those suckers) and then the hygienist spent some time measuring my gums and calling out random numbers to her assistant. Bottom line? My gums are healthy. And then the chiseling and scraping commenced.

The actual cleaning portion was uneventful, but it turns out that I had a few "sticky" spots in a couple of my teeth that needed to be filled. As Dr. Knows My Dad wasn't too busy he offered to fill them right then so I wouldn't have to make two trips. (It's only 3 miles, but with gas at $4.25 a gallon, every little bit helps.) He'd told me that he wasn't going to numb me up since the spots were pretty shallow - and he didn't. And it didn't hurt so much as it was just terribly, terribly uncomfortable. I'm glad he didn't bother to numb it, because for as little as he used the drill it would have been a waste...

But damn, people, even just a little bit of that drill is NOT FUN. I do not like it, Sam I Am. Not in a car, not in a tree, Dr. KMD please let me be! But he continued to drill for a bit and then filled the holes with that weird putty stuff they use and then did some sanding to make sure the bite was correct. So I went home and felt residual sensitivity in my teeth ALL DAY. I woke up feeling fine this morning and considering I'd not seen a dentist in two years, two cavities isn't bad at all...

So I'm done with (self-inflicted) torture of the dental variety for at least 6 months. But at least I got out of having one of those awful fluoride treatments! The dentist tried several times to persuade me, but I refused. I haven't had one since I graduated from high school and I'll be damned if I'm going to start now! In general I don't have trouble with having dental work done, but I draw the line at those awful trays. They wouldn't be so bad on their own, but combine them with the fluoride goop and its nasty bubble-gummy cherry coca-cola flavor and they make me gag every time. Nothin' doing!

So that's been my week: a little bit of fun, a lot of sleep, a bit of torture. All in all a normal course of events for this blogger. Stay tuned for updates on my newest endeavor: I joined Toastmasters a couple weeks ago and, believe it or not, it is really fun! I haven't given my first "formal" speech yet (heck, I haven't even written it) so we shall see how I feel about public speaking after I do that!