Some Day I'll Blog Again

Whoo! Here are several things that I've been meaning to blog about these days:

(1) The New Jorb (JORB!)

Gah! It's hard to be a working mom. Out of the past seven days, I've worked six of them. I'm so tired all the time!! And Weston seems to be both getting used to the babysitting deal, and ironically experiencing more and more separation anxiety. I'm only supposed to be working Saturdays and Sundays, but it turns out that I'm basically at the forefront of a wave of new hires at the hospital, which means I've been filling in many of the holes in the schedule.

And as much as I would LOVE to share stories about this new gig, it turns out that HIPAA regulations are extremely stringent and so I basically can't say anything about anything. (Questions? Try asking this guy.) But, I can tell you that even though it gets incredibly busy at times, I love this job. It taps into two of my strengths (or so I like to think): clerical work and compassion. I'm eager to get into my regular weekend schedule one of these days (I miss Weston), but in the meantime, I really like working in a mostly busy and an always interesting admissions department. And I guess I can also acknowledge that no one has tried to physically attack me yet, which is a good thing. You'd be amazed at how well the Snack Basket pacifies people.

(And, it may be interesting to note that whenever I offer someone the Snack Basket, I apparently resort to my new, inconsistent southern accent. "Can I get you a snack? How about some water?" I don't know why, but taking care of people in the admissions department makes my southern accent kick in. I guess I feel more folksy and personable when I talk southern. Hahahaha!!)

(2) Weather

In a nutshell, I love Oklahoma weather. Especially the silent, warm-weather lightning storms. Here are some more clouds for ya:

(3) Root canal

Oh, the root canal drama. OH!!! Oh my heck. So, I was supposed to have my root canal this morning. Once I was seated, the dentist came in and informed me (thanks to my pleas about maybe just skipping the whole root canal) that not only do I DEFINITELY need a root canal, but I may end up needing an extraction all together. (That means they yank my tooth. My whole, glorious, tender, beloved, been-with-me-for-years tooth.)

For you dental aficionados, I have a condition called "ideopathic internal resorption" in one of my upper molars. In other words, the inside of my tooth is so inflamed (for no apparent reason) that it's eating the tooth away. So, either I get a root canal, or (if it's bad enough) I get the tooth extracted, or (if I do nothing) the tooth cracks and falls apart on its own. Yay!!!

So, in the middle of my little root canal experiment this morning, the dentist all of a sudden puts in a temporary filling (again), closes up shop, and then tells me once I'm lucid enough that it's indeed worse than he thought, and he's going to refer me to an endodontist. So I'm like, what the heck, Tooth. I thought we were cool! Anyway, the dentist said, "If we're going to save this tooth, we need a specialist." Awesome.

So now my mouth is aching, I STILL haven't had a real root canal, and I MAY need to have the tooth pulled anyway. Argh.

Well, at least the dentist didn't charge me for the visit (I love him... he's the one who wanted to pray for me), and at least I got to have nitrous oxide during the aborted procedure. That stuff is a hoot! It made me feel so dizzy and tingly and tired and floaty that I started having really strange thoughts. Like, I was convinced I was lying completely crooked on the chair, and I kept trying to straighten myself out, even though I was already perfectly straight. Then, I started imagining two little Jeans in my head -- one that was lucid (since nitrous oxide only fogs your mind; it doesn't completely knock you out or block out the world), and one who was completely loopy. Lucid Jean was standing and holding a clipboard, looking very focused, while Loopy Jean was wiggly and jiggly and about to fall over. Their conversations went like this:

Loopy Jean: "What's happening? Where am I again?"

Lucid Jean: (exasperated sigh) "You're at the dentist. He's doing a root canal."

Loopy Jean: "Why do I feel so funny...?"

Lucid Jean: "You're on nitrous oxide, you dummy!! Now stay focused!!"

Loopy Jean: "I can't keep my eyes open..."

Etc. Their little conversations continued for most of the hour.

Anyway, when I got home, the only thing that cheered me up about the whole stupid tooth situation was smiling at myself in the mirror. I liked it so much (and I like you so much) that I took a picture. And the ONLY reason I'm posting this is because: (A) I'm already married; (B) there are enough embarassing pictures of me out there already that this one is just white noise at this point; and (C) I seem to be getting less and less vain as I get older. (I can only imagine the pictures that I'll be posting on here when I'm 70 and LOVIN' the dementia!!!)

My big post-procedure smile:

Hahaha! If only the anesthetic hadn't worn off later in the afternoon... OW.

(4) WESTON!

To appease poor Grandma, I'm also posting a few Weston photos. Can I just say how much I LOVE living in a new apartment with a nice, clean bathtub? No matter how hard we scrubbed our old bathtub, it was disgusting and I could never take bathtime pictures. So, hooray!! The camera is BACK in the bathroom, baby!! (Haha... that sounds really weird.)

But seriously, how cute is this little fella:

P.S. Tim just did a new blog post, too! Check it out! Huzzah!!