Crispy Plants & Dental Drills

We're getting some heat, and I love it. It was in the lower 90s today and we're desperate for rain. The 'lawn' is starting to crisp. The garden is pretty much a lost cause this year, though we're getting plenty of Hungarian hot wax peppers and several green bell peppers are almost ready. It appears that we will have a good carrot year. I guess I could have a pretty productive plot if I was around enough to tend to it.

Losing the tomato plants was a kick in the teeth. I will miss the BLTs.

Hurricane Bill churns off the coast and will pass by with little more than some big waves on eastern facing shores. It appears there is no chance of it suddenly shifting gears and heading for us. That's good. 1991 was our last blast from a hurricane. Hurricane Bob. I remember it very well and was without lights for a week. It was a good storm, but small. One of these days, we'll get "The Big One" again. It won't be pretty.

That same year we had the Halloween Storm, aka "The Perfect Storm". I think it is now widely considered "The Unnamed Hurricane".

Despite being busy (or at least feeling busy) I've had nothing of real interest to add to the blog.

We did have a nice cookout and fire with the in-laws at FBF on Sunday night. It was a perfect night for a fire and the Harpoon beer was good. By far, the hit of the night were the Hungarian hot wax peppers stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon based on this recipe from Pioneer Woman. We very easily could have used two more trays full. We didn't have jalapeno peppers, so we used the bunches of Hungarian we had in the garden. Of course, almost anything wrapped in bacon is probably going to be a success.

So, aside from getting a good, short run in on Wednesday, there is nothing much going on. Is August always this boring?

The Dentist.

Earlier this year, I had a consultation with an orthodontist about getting braces to straighten my teeth. They are not terrible, but bad enough for me to be self-conscious about them. It was a lot of money, so we just sort of forgot about it. That was probably a good thing. Mrs is a dental hygienist. Her boss is great and has done some wonderful work in my mouth and has saved several of my teeth. I have no fear of going to the dentist. He and his assistant make me feel all the more comfortable and I trust them implicitly.

I have known them for many years now. We have all vacationed together many times. I enjoy going in and seeing them.

The Dentist has recently decided to add Invisalign to his list of services. I went in for a consultation which includes having special impressions taken which are then shipped off to Invisalign. They work their magic and an interactive computer profile of the case is then made available to the dentist on line. I went back for a cleaning with Mrs (I really like the cleanings) and was able to see the case on the computer which includes the expected progression and results. Cool stuff.

Today was the installation of the first set of appliances. They start by bonding these little nubs onto certain teeth which coincide with indentations on the appliance. This causes whatever shifting is needed in the teeth to start them on their way to being straighter. In my case (and probably in most cases), some teeth need to be slightly altered to make room for them to shift. I required to .3mm gaps between certain teeth on the bottom. This required quite the effort on The Dentist's part as my teeth were hideously close together. Hard-to-get-floss-through close together. The shaving down, for lack of a better term, usually only requires manual "sanding" of the teeth surface with small, diamond-coated sandpaper-like strips. My teeth broke them. All of them. They even tried forcing tiny wooden wedges in between them in an attempt to get enough of a gap to allow for the paper. This didn't work.

So, out comes the drill hand piece fitted with this neat little grinding wheel. This was not an overly comfortable experience, but it did the trick and created enough room to get the paper in and make the required gaps. This should be the worst of it.

The plastic appliances just snap into place over the little nubs. They are a bit difficult to remove, which has to be done before eating. So, it should be an interesting 32 weeks.