As of today, our windows are still intact along with our lives and the rest of the house. Much has happened over the months since that night with Y on the front porch. Y and B’s house went up for sale shortly after all of this. It is still for sale, much to B’s frustration but not to Y’s. Y loves living in the area and their girls have a well-established social life here now.

Often when The Girl was out walking, B just happened to be either driving by in her car or sitting in wait. B would then resort to either flooring the accelerator past The Girl, or following her slowly a short distance behind — all intimidation tactics. We debated reporting her activity to the police, but didn’t know if B’s behavior was illegal. We decided to play things by ear a little longer. Most of Y and B’s neighbours have commented at one time or another about her strange behavior with her driving her car up and down the street pointlessly. They also wonder why she stops at the top of our street for a minute or two at a time and just looks to the end of it — looks to our house. Through our windows we would often see her zipping around in front of our house checking our property out.

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My wife did manage to calm down before the night was through. Although thoughts of murder and vandalism ran through her head, she overcame and tried to put the whole incident behind her. We agreed that we would have nothing to do with Y and B in the future.

It was around lunch time a couple of days later that my wife remembered that B had wanted all of us to get together to discuss the situation and for her to call to set that up. My wife had calmed down enough to feel that she could have a rational, intelligible conversation at this point.

She dialed their number.

Y answered, “Hello?”

“Can I speak to B?”

B came on the phone, “Hello?”

“This is The Girl…”

“Yes, I’m ready to talk to you now,” B said. “I…”

“No! You’re done talking. You’re gonna listen now!”

“You…”

“Shut up and listen! Who the fuck do you think you are? How dare you come over to my place and I find you alone with my husband and you’re the one accusing me of cheating with yours. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Forget where we live, who we are, that we were ever friends!” My wife hung up.

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We made it into Toronto last weekend to see this show. Enjoyed the dancing (much more authentic than the dancing we saw in the stage performance of Dirty Dancing), kind of enjoyed the music, definitely enjoyed the acting.

This show was on Broadway for so many years that it would have been a shame to not have seen it. It’s currently on tour.

Our work is part of our life and how we work is also how we live. The energy that we interact with there is what creates a happy or unhappy work environment for each of us.

I love what I do and I think that I’m pretty good at it. Those two things usually go hand in hand. But last week a particular case highlighted a few things.

The case involved a female soldier suffering from a moderate cellulitis¹. The infection was from a tooth that had had a root canal started at her base. An instrument broke off in the tooth, and infection subsequently set in.

She ended up in the emerg department at a hospital and was started on IV antibiotics and narcotics. I saw her the following day.

By the time I saw her the lip and face were still very sensitive and the overall facial swelling still existed. In a nutshell I had to basically contend with an anxious patient, attempt to achieve some discharge from a tooth that was blocked internally with the broken instrument, and also get her numbed up enough to be able to do the work.

She and I worked together to manage her anxiety and fear and so I was able to achieve some positive results with the tooth and swelling.

I was fucking exhausted afterwards. Even though the work itself for this case turned out to be fairly easy, the whole management aspect just left me feeling drained.

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1. A painful swelling of the soft tissue of the mouth and face resulting from a diffuse spreading of purulent exudate along the fascial planes that separate the muscle bundles. [↩]