challenge

All right miss Tara, since you're so smart, can you tell what I'm making?

I'll give you a hint: I'm frickin' cold!

new blog

Hey everybody, my mom has a second blog.  Yes, it's still about Frenchy French stuff.  Give it a look-see.

http://yourfrenchlife.synthasite.com

guess what

I have a new old haircut.  Or an old new haircut.  Whatever.

This was a hard decision.  I didn't really have the money for a good haircut and what's the point of a bad haircut.  I mean, my hair already looked crappy.  Did I need it to look crappy and short? So out came the clippers.  I'm hoping that by the time my hair grows back I'll be able to afford a professional.  We'll see.  I was a little hesitant since I'll be seeing my mom soon for Thanksgiving and she always likes it when I actually have hair.  She thinks I look fine with a shaved head but of course likes hair more.  I wouldn't usually think that's such a big deal except for that since my mom now lives in France I haven't seen her for nearly a year and it'd be nice to be able to do little things to make her happy.  Oh well, I'd better knit her a hat or something to make up for it.  Get it? No hair=new hat.

Just this morning my last remaining client at the Pilates studio in Brooklyn told me today was going to be our last session, at least until his wife gets a new job or he gets a better one.  I was bummed because I've been working with him for about a year and half and he's great. I'm not totally freaking out about money right now but I might be soon.  But then I'll just be in the same boat as half the nation so nothing special there.

So here's the explanation of my last post.  I got the new antibiotics from the pharmacy and haven't had any negative reactions, at least none that I'm aware of.  But last Friday I decided to go to the dentist just to make sure that nothing was wrong with my teeth.  Lauren A. recommended the Ryan Center, which I must say was pretty great (thanks Lauren).  When I first walked in the front desk was a little snooty but I think they were just super busy.  The Ryan Center has a sliding scale fee which was great for me since I don't have a steady income.  The dentist took some x-rays of my jaw and told me that yep, I'll need to have a root canal done on my upper back molar and maybe even on the one next to it.  But his more immediate concern was the infected abscess in my mouth. I was aware of some swelling but I just figured my jaw was swollen from the sinus infection. He referred me to the emergency room at St. Luke's hospital which was about 20 blocks away.  I walked on up and was quickly sent to the dental department since they were closing soon. The surgeon numbed me up first then punctured and drained of the abscess of "quite a bit of puss." Awesome.  Let me tell you, the draining didn't hurt so much but getting that needle stuck in that swelling to numb it hurt like hell.  It was stuck in there for a good 10 seconds (I counted), twice! It really really hurt.

Anyway, the oral surgeon agreed that I would need a root canal or a tooth extraction.  He set up another appointment for me that's a week away in case I wanted to get it done there.  I think he could only extract my tooth and not do the root canal, it was a little unclear and I was a bit woozy. But he said I was welcome to cancel the appointment if I decided to go to Columbia, which is where the dentist at the Ryan Center referred me.

That was my day Friday.  And the best part: everyone was so nice!  Seriously.  The cashier desk at the Ryan Center was nice, the receptionist for the dentist was nice, the dental assistant and dentist were nice, the guy doing my intake at the emergency room guessed my last name was Danish and talked to me about how beautiful Denmark is, the woman filling out my info and income at the hospital chatted with me about the economy and our new president, the woman who took my x-rays at the hospital joked with me about my earrings because I couldn't take them out and they showed up on the x-ray and the oral surgeon was understanding about my wincing when plunging in that needle.  I was really amazed.  I could have had a supremely horrible experience but I didn't.  And I really believe it's because how great everyone was.  I think there might be a lesson here.

And does anyone know why the formatting of my posts is all wonky? See how the paragraphs of this post are all like single spaced but the ones in the post two down are like 1.5 or even double spaced?  What's up with that? Is it because I'm creating this one on my Mac with Safari Inconsistent formatting drives me nuts.

update

I have two words:

oral abscess

Two phrases:

root canal

tooth extraction

And one sentence:

What the f**k?

Details to come.

ongoing

If you were at my apartment last Sunday and thought I was acting a little strange there was a reason for it.  I had a bunch of ibuprofen and decongestants floating around in my body in an effort to counteract the intense pain all along the right side of my face.  And it probably seemed odd that I kept disappearing for minutes at a time.  Well, I was going into the bedroom and doing headstands, that helped the pain too.  I finally went to a doctor yesterday and she thought I probably have a sinus infection, or that something is terrible wrong with my teeth.  I can't believe how long I've been sick and then right when I think I'm better my face starts to feel like someone's crushing it from the inside.  I've been using my neti pot like 3 times a day which at first helped but now I don't notice a difference. Anyway, I got a prescription for antibiotics which I started taking last night but about two hours after taking the first one my face started to itch, then turn red.  Then the rest of my body also turned red and itched like hell.  Needless to say I didn't take the next dose this morning. I called the doctor's office and am now waiting for them to get back to me.  Either they'll call in a different prescription or I'll have to go back in and see someone again.  And all this pain has kept me from eating the delicious cake in the fridge!  Is life not unfair?!

super sneak

A little while ago my sister texted me Meet the Bear in Istanbul.  I didn't immediately know what that meant so didn't pay attention.  Later, while washing dishes, it ran through my head again and for a moment and I thought, Wait, what if Ida has really been a spy all these years and she's been attacked and sent me this special code that one of her allies will come asking for later but then they'll have to kill me so that the enemy doesn't get it.  She's sentenced me to death! How could she do this to me?! So I quickly sat down at my computer to blog about it.  Now you know too.  If I die in a "car crash" or "elevator mishap" it was no accident!  Avenge me!  Meet the Bear in Istanbul!

Okay, I know I was being crazy for a moment.  I thought that I would google the phrase and it would turn out to be some children's book or something but so far the only results I'm getting are for gay bath houses (particularly serving "bears") in Istanbul.  My first thought was true!  Avenge me!

I got her back though.  I responded Put a snap on the grouch bag! Let's see how long she lasts knowing that one.  Hah.