Rites of Passage

It’s been hard to blog in the last few days and I expect posting will continue to be slower than normal for a few more days yet.

The Last Amazon hit one of those rites of passages earlier in the week. She had all four of her wisdom teeth removed by the Butcher of Prague (as known as my dentist) and a great deal of my free time has been helping her get through this experience as easily as humanly possible. She has been absolutely mortified because she has been reduced to being spooned fed by me or her younger brother, but it’s either that or suffer the twin consequences of hunger and pain.

She could have alleviated some of her suffering by having the teeth removed one by one over a period of a eight weeks but she elected to do it all at one go. I may call my dentist the Butcher of Prague but the truth is he is a highly skilled professional and we would be hard pressed to find another dentist with his same expertise. It’s been doubly hard for her as she has had absolutely perfect teeth up to this point. Every dentist she has ever been too has swooned over her beautifully shaped pearly whites.

She may be growing up faster than I would like but I take comfort in those little things she does that remind me she is not quite there yet. She insisted on taking her teeth with her when we left the dentist’s office as she wanted to be able to show them off to her brothers.

In my ongoing zeal to quit smoking I have discovered a few unpleasant facts. Zyban will not mask or shield you from the physical effects of nicotine withdrawal. I had a very rough three days and thought my living in a perpetual state of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ was a horrendous side effect of the Zyban. I called my angry GP to complain and he laughed himself silly over my plight. Glad I made your year Fred.

I really don’t know how you non-smokers stand the putrid smell and stench of living in this city. I had thought it smelled bad before but now it’s absolutely horrendous. I’m mulling over in my mind the feasibility of walking around with a gas mask on every time I leave the house. I was at a shopping mall on the weekend and was so overwhelmed by the smell of body odor emanating from my fellow shoppers that I insisted on leaving after a half-hour. And for heaven’s sake - if you are going to stand behind me at the cashier’s line and breathe down my neck - at least do me the courtesy of sucking on a very strong breathe mint.