Wednesday, July 23, 2008

i was an anti-dentite


My ongoing dental saga continues, but finally with positive results. My sinus infection that just kept giving, eventually pushing onto the nerve of my tooth, seems to have been squashed, or so I hope. But it left in its wake a tooth that now needs to have a root canal, a post and a crown. *sigh*

I have no desire to return to the Russian sadist in Bensonhurst, as much for inconvenience as sadism. The last dental office I went to wasn't even a real dentist's office. Not to say that it was a converted Mr. Softee truck, but it was actually more of a clinic. You could only see the dentist one day a week and you couldn't make an appointment, you just had to show up and take your chances. And they were recommended to me by my insurance. Thanks Aetna! I've been calling many different dentists trying to find someone, to no avail. The responses I was getting ranged from "We no longer accept Aetna." to "We no longer accept any insurance." to "We accept insurance, but are not seeing new patients." Eventually my friend suggested I call 1-800-DENTIST and lo! I got an appointment with a convenient dentist that has a lab on site, so I don't have to fuss too much with the whole post and crown issue.

I had my first appointment today with the full mouth x-rays, figuring it all out, etc. Yes, everything can be done in their office in a short, reasonable timespan. But the best part is the cost. I had to pay almost $1,900 out of pocket when I had the same procedure done with the Russian sadist 2 years ago. This whole thing is going to cost me $925 bucks total. Um, yeah. That's a huge difference! I just can't believe the way dental care and procedures can vary from office to office. But I remember one of the things I hated about the Russian sadist was the way she was always trying to upsell me with whitening systems and whatnot while I was trapped with her hand in my mouth.

I don't remember having such difficulties finding a good dentist in Ohio. All dentist's offices were kind of similar there: clean, quiet, sterile. I just haven't found that to be true here. I remember when the Williamsburg Savings Bank building was loaded with dentists, before it was sold for condos. I tried to get in to 2 of those dentists a few years ago and neither accepted insurance. Is this a trend?

Thursday, July 03, 2008

hey, it exists!

Of course it does. I had once mentioned to Jamie that I wish there was a website where I can plot my various walks to see exactly how much I walk at a particular time, without wearing a pedometer. I then promptly forgot about this wish until tonight. But I just remembered it and found exactly what I am looking for on Prevention Magazine's website.

Last year my mother-in-law and I did a virtual walking challenge thing where we wore a pedometer for 6 or 8 weeks and walked a "virtual" route around the US. It was a really lame fitness challenge though because I wanted it to show me actual sights and things along my chosen route, which was the Gulf of Mexico. Instead I would enter my daily steps walked and a dotted line would travel across a map. Lame. And anyway, living in NYC and working in a bookstore, I average 16,000-18,000 steps per day and I finished my entire route in less than 4 weeks. But now I have a pedometer for when and if I absolutely must know how far I'm walking. And according to Prevention's website, today I walked just under 6 miles, not including Arlo's morning walk and all of the random walking around the house.

And speaking of Arlo, I just picked him up from the groomer and he's sporting a dashing new summer haircut. But of course, on the walk home he had to go and spoil the look. At the first intersection he decided to sit his white, white butt on the filthy sidewalk and scoot along. So now he's nice and white with a nasty, gray butt. Ruiner.

good things today, despite the heat

I got my new driver's license in the mail today and finally (!) I have a license picture that I am not ashamed of, even happy to have! When I went many years ago to get my DL, I wasn't looking too good that day and the woman behind the camera was frustrating me beyond belief. I wear my glasses all the time and she insisted that I remove them for the photo. I protested, she got pissed off and insisted again that I remove my glasses. The person at the camera directly next to me was having his photo taken with his glasses on and when I pointed this out, it just pissed her off even more and she threatened to make me leave. So my previous DL picture was one of sarcastic surprise, sans spectacles.

This time around, my hair looked cute, I wore lipstick and the woman didn't hassle me about my glasses. And it's a good picture. Yay!

I've had 2 days off, in fairly good health, giving me an opportunity to get a lot of things done that have been languishing on my "For Christ's Sake, Kaci, Just Fucking Get It Done Already" list.
-Lug large quanity of coins to bank
-Take Arlo to the groomer, which helps solve....
-Removing disgusting amounts of animal hair everywhere
-Clean out fridge
-Listen to records
-Color hair a more shocking shade of red (why not?!)

Along the listening to records line: I have a friend who has a tendency to come home late at night after a few cocktails and listen to a particular album, song or artist over and over and over again. That's basically what I've been doing the past 2 days, minus the cocktails. I've listened to Cat Stevens' Firecat and the Teaser at least 15 times. Right now I'm listening to Xanadu (just once, but it had to be done while Jamie's at work.....it might be a deal breaker) and I'm going into a repeat performance of Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights.

And going in to the holiday weekend, Jamie and I both have to work on the 4th proper, but I will be off early enough to head to Jersey City for my friend's barbecue. Saturday night we will be going to see our friend John's band play and if you've never been , the M Shanghai String Band is one of the best live bands I've ever seen. They play the first Saturday of each month at M Shanghai restaurant in Williamsburg, in an wonderful intimate basement space. John is one of the 2 banjo players, joining guitar, mandolin, stand up bass, saw, 2 fiddles, harmonica and multi-part harmonies. It's a foot-stomping good time and you should definitely check them out sometime. The first time I went to see them play they had a guy playing with them on the mandolin and after the show John introduced us to each other. His name was Tommy, he was older, very nice and great on the mandolin. Nice to meet you Tommy. The next day John emailed me and all it said was "You have no idea who you met, do you?" Um, nope. Turns out Tommy is Tommy Ramone. Dar! So yeah. And the bass player is Rose Thomson from Babe the Blue Ox, who was one of my favorite bands in my early 20's. Oh, and M Shanghai the restaurant has incredibly delicious food upstairs, so check it out!