Over the past couple of years, my wife and I have had very separate and busy lives throughout the day. Of course this means that the time that we do have together is valuable. We often find ourselves driving in our separate cars, on separate roads, but with an intent to end at the same destination at a specific time. A good example of this is when we have to meet at the dance studio after work.

We presented a Foxtrot routine last night at the studio and although it went decently, we had our usual timing issues with the music. The Girl was pissed off enough about her performance afterwards that she had more than a couple of glasses of wine at the studio after our routine. This was before she remembered that we had driven separately and would have to leave in separate cars.

I’ve currently got a Yaris that is a courtesy rental while my car is yet again in for some repair work. The Yaris is an odd little car and I can’t get used to the fact that the speedometer sits in the middle of the dashboard to the right of the driver. This is a perfect location for backseat drivers to see how fast you’re going, but not all that great for the driver themselves. I thought that maybe a GPS pops out of the dash in front of the driver. Alas, that’s not the case.

Anyway, I ended up leaving the rental at the studio and drove The Girl’s car home with both of us in it. We drove back to the studio this morning to pick the rental up and then I headed home while she headed off to do some temping work. She was ahead of me on the road. And this is what transpired on facebook:

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If some of you are gum addicts and primarily chew sugar-free gum, or if some of you eat a lot of diabetic (artificially sweetened) products, you might have noticed that you get the runs shortly afterwards.

Here’s some evidence¹ that you’re not imagining what has been the cause of the problem. It’s only a couple of case reports, so that’s marginally better than anecdotal evidence, but still:
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1. Bauditz J, Norman K, Biering H, Lochs H, Pirlich M., Severe Weight Loss Caused by Chewng Gum, BMJ. 2008 Jan 12;336(7635):96-7. [↩]

You know how I don’t usually do memes. Fragileheart tagged me on this one though. She also tagged Canucklehead. He agreed to do it so I’d feel left out if I didn’t.

The Rules:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’ve been tagged, and to read your blog.

My 8 Random facts/habits:

1. The book currently at my bedside is a textbook on endodontic microsurgery by Kim. The bookmark in it is a whole article on emergency management of restricted jaw opening. There’s nothing like having to choose whether to read the book you’re trying to read, or to read the bookmark instead.
2. Interacting with people drains my energy. Interacting with nature rejuvenates me: I touched each of the new White Birches on our property, they were planted last Autumn, and welcomed them to their new home. They felt good.
3. Edgar will be upset to hear that although everything I do at work is based on the scientific method, I live my life less strictly. The Silva Method (when it was less religious-based) provided me the tools to achieve what I have in life. I dabbled in NLP for a while back in dental school.
4. I believe that extra-terrestrials exist and have been a member of SETI@Home for uncountable years.
5. I believe in Karma.
6. Our friend, Mark, recently said something that I will remember for the rest of my life — and that too many dentists have forgotten: The largest influence towards a positive treatment outcome is that the treater (healer) cares about his patient. Those that have followed my blog for a while know how I feel about dentists that care more about the money than the patient.
7. I have been fingerprinted by the U.S. government.
8. I tried to fail 80% of the students in the last endodontics course that I taught. I haven’t taught since.

I’ve tagged:

Haley, Debbie, Tam, Edgar, Laney, Kamala, Rudy, and Ginny. Sorry guys, but rules are rules.

Umm…I don’t think that Oral B will be selling this any time soon.

As many of you know, The Girl has never taken to cooking. We have managed just fine with her doing the grocery shopping, chopping stuff up, and me doing the actual application of heat to food.

My brother and sister-in-law had us over for dinner a few weeks ago and served us an absolutely delicious meal. Kelly, my sister-in-law is a registered dietician and knows that I’m trying to watch my saturated fat intake. Even with minimal sodium and fat in the dishes that we had, we couldn’t believe how exotic and tasty they were.

That’s when she told us that the recipes were all from Rose Reisman’s book, The Complete Light Kitchen. We were so impressed that we bought a copy for ourselves and over the last week The Girl has actually been cooking. She’s discovered the joy of cooking. She’s still discovering how not to use every utensil and dish in the cupboards during the preparation of food.

I’m sitting at work having leftovers of Swordfish with mango salsa. Yummy.

We cooked this last night. The recipe called for either barbecuing the swordfish, or baking it in the oven. We thought the barbecue was a good idea. I haven’t sparked it up for the year as yet, so this would have been a good occasion.

This is how it looked as I walked out onto the deck towards it:

And this is what I found inside it:

Note the string over the burner:

For some reason, seeing all of this gave me a bad case of the HeeBeeJeeBees, so I shut the lid, ran back inside, and told her that we’re baking the swordfish. Which we did. The BBQ will stay that way until the weather gets a little warmer and I can arm myself with a garden hose.

This is how the dish looked:

And this how we ended up after a delicious dinner:

Although, to tell you the truth, Ameloblast is in that position for most of the day (especially since he’s been retired from blogging).