TroubleMaker

Remember back in 2007, when we had my wife’s great aunt and her friend over from Romania for a visit? We couldn’t get rid of them fast enough because of the fighting between them.

So, in a moment of weakness, we decided to invite TroubleMaker (TM) back alone for a visit.

She arrived here after not having slept for 36 hours (combined travel and pre-travel insomniac excitement time). Nausea prevented her from eating well for the first day. While throwing up into the toilet during day 2, her lower denture fell in and then she accidentally flushed it.

“Can you get it back?” she asked.

I pointed to our septic tank. “See those green plastic covers in the ground over there?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s where it is now.”

We took her to a denturist nearby. $1600 later and she now has 2 new full dentures (upper and lower). The previous lower denture cost  50 Euros (which we explained to the denturist as he looked at her old upper denture in disbelief).

The first three or four days with the new dentures was new-found torture for The Girl and me as the usual denture sores developed and TM was still not able to eat properly.

After a denture adjustment or two, TM was able to eat decently again. More importantly, she was able to take her “nerve” pill and keep it down. That wonder pill, the “nerve” pill, has almost transformed her into a normal woman. Almost…but definitely enough for us to enjoy life again.

She’s here until the end of July.

I hope to also be.

A long, long time ago, from an IP address far, far away, Fragileheart tagged me with this meme.

I’m only going to partially play by the rules though — I won’t tag anyone else at the end of this.

1. Adrian is my brother, my only sibling whom I see maybe every 4 months or so. He is my brother, 7 years younger, whom I yelled at, oppressed, and took advantage of in ways that only he remembers best. Yet with all the good he’s brought into my life, I can’t imagine growing up without him.
2. Naegele’s Rule has no application within my life for the foreseeable future. The Girl and I have no plans for human children of our own.
3. Teeth are obviously a huge part of my life. Shortly after I started practicing, however, I almost quit the profession. I had a difficult time dealing with the bullshit I saw happening to patients in too many of the offices that referred to me. I stuck it out though, created stringent policies to deter referrals from unethical dentists, and am much happier now.
4. Hodoscopes trace the paths of charged particles. I believe that life is one giant hodoscope and that all of us are particles within its field. Life is about energy on many levels. How we manipulate this energy is how we define our living.
5. Orchitis is basically…uncomfortable for a guy. I’m sure that every man can recall every single time he’s had a traumatic impact to his nuts. Any guy that says otherwise is either lying about remembering or lying about being a guy. My worst memory of this kind of thing is when I decided to be an idiot gymnast and I attempted to walk along some monkey bars. My feet slipped of course. My balls stopped my fall before my wildly flailing hands could.
6. Nymphicus Hollandicus was Tweety, the first bird The Girl and I ever owned. He loved her, but hated me because I was the one who clipped his nails and wings. He grew up to be a very spoilt bird who loudly demanded more incessesant attention than we could share. He now lives with the manager at a pet store that we frequent. He’s very happy there since he’s the only bird in the house and he gets to accompany his new owner on car trips and horseback rides.
7. Ygdrasil — the Norse mythologic Ash tree — reminds me of a girl I once knew. The tree’s roots and branches hold Earth, Heaven, and Hell together. Jannike, my favorite Norwegian, broke that all apart for me. The stars were strangely aligned when I met her. The fragmentation that she brought into my world prepared me for the rest of my life.

My office manager (woman on the left) has worked with me for the last 8.5 years. We’ve worked together in different offices and have had our differences — some of them quite major. Like AssistantGirl (the one in black), she was a dental “refugee” and had escaped a crappy work environment run by an ego-maniacal dentist where the bottom line was the single most important priority.

Through the last few years we’ve taught each other much about the practice of dentistry, the art of patient interaction, and tolerance. She has helped me to build 2 practices over those 8 years.

If you believe that there’s no such thing as a “coincidence” and that all events occur for a reason, you would have proof if you were to delve into the history between us.

It’s been a rough road but it has been a straight road.

I wish OfficeMom and her husband all the best with her growing family, her move away from the area, and her future endeavors. I know that our paths will intersect often in life and the black magic of facebook will facilitate that.

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).

Note to self: When your sister-in-law, who is a registered dietitian, tells you to sprinkle flax seeds over your food in order to increase your Omega-3 intake, don’t go overboard with the quantity. If you do, you will spend a much longer time in the smallest room of the house than you really want to.