snaggled, but not for long

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together in a little crooked house

This, of course, says nothing about the man's crooked teeth - but you know he had them. As do I. I am afflicted with my mother's small jaw and have a sufficient number of teeth on the bottom so as to make things crowded. And now, restless.

We had our semi-annual dentist appointments this morning [and, for once, Mr.Q came away cavity free] and I mentioned that my teeth felt rather disquieted. They are antsy. On the move. And not in any sort of nice military straight line either: they are meandering. Or jockeying for the most comfy position in case they want to stretch out fully. I'm not entirely sure.

Either way, my smile is now taking on more of the crooked fence appearance. [My back and my cat are other stories entirely]. So I hesitantly asked about what could easily be done about them. I've been through braces. Three years of braces. And these damn teeth went right back to where they started. Now, that they are bent on even further mutiny, I'm not inclined to go to insane, expensive and ugly measures only to lose the battle once again.

Fortunately, I've been informed that there is a retainer option - for the errant bottom teeth only - that will most likely be accepted by my medical plan [note: they have not yet actually asked my medical plan yet...]. Damn brilliant. How can I argue with this? We can get these little buggers back in line and then keep them there with an occasional bit of reinforcement.

If I can't be rid of the "bit of extra weight" that, as my mother told my sister, I am carrying around, then I can at least dazzle the populace with a precision smile.

they literally broke the mould

I am now sporting a rather medieval maze of wires and springs around my bottom teeth. And I put out good money to do so.

The dentist made casts of my teeth a couple of weeks ago and send them away to some nameless, faceless teeth-altering corporation. There, the teeth - my teeth - were broken off the mould and reset on it in a straight line. Ta da! Just like that: a straight smile. Then a retainer was made to that new and improved dental form and, with springs to allow for room, that is what now exerts a little pressure on my drunken picket fence of a lower jaw.

This, after over 2 years of braces in my late teens.

With the genes I've inherited, I am not surprised that I have come to this and I am more than willing to take these steps to save my smile. I just wasn't expecting such an archaic looking contraption...

Here's hoping that, by the time the Magpie needs braces or retainers or appliances [and, based on her three bottom teeth thus far, we will], we'll be out of the dark ages.

seriuosly old newness

So....um...yeah. This is what happens when you find out that you can do a Technorati search on your flickr photo stream and find out all sorts of places where people have used your [Creative Commons tagged] photos. Then you think, hey!, I should do a Technorati search on my blog! I haven't done that in ages! And then you discover that you were tagged for a meme, like, nearly three months ago and didn't clue in.

Oops.

Turns out today is a meme kind of day - as in, I wasn't sure what I was going to write about. With sincere apologies to mothergoosemouse for the lateness in responding, here it is: 18 new, previously undivulged [I think] things about me.

1. I've never smoked, but I kind of like the smell of some nicotine products. But that only goes for some brands of Canadian smokes and pipe tobacco. I've never met an American cigarette that I could be within 50 feet of.
2. I am, by turns, horrified, intrigued and confused by skin: blackheads, zits, skin tags, moles, stray long hairs.... bizarre stuff.
3. If I have any say in the matter, I prefer my sandwiches dry: no mayo, no mustard, no butter or margarine.
4. I don't like going to movie theatres.
5. Nudity's fine by me.
   
6. I shudder at the thought of something going wrong with my knees or ankles. Other body parts? Eh. Doesn't bother me. Knee or ankle joints? Serious cringing.
7. When my adult eye teeth came in, they were over top of my baby eye teeth: both baby teeth had to be pulled and I had a retainer to bring the adult ones down.
8. I had to have my last baby teeth pulled in grade 11, so I could get my braces.
9. I have three toenails that are a little on the thick side.
   
10. Mr.Q thinks they are the grossest things ever in the history of gross things.
11. I talk to myself at work. It's a lab thing.
12. I talk to myself outside of work. That's a crazy thing.
13. I don't understand the concept of hanging onto regrets.
14. I like cereal. A lot.
15. I quite literally kick Mr.Q when he snores.
16. I like to eat lunch alone: it's my me time.
17. I don't always [hardly ever] separate darks and lights.
18. I like pigeons.

What? Tag people at this late date? C'mon, this meme is now so last season! But if you do want to do it, or did it way back when, leave a comment and let me know. Otherwise I may not get around to reading it for some ridiculous amount of time.

love is in the air...oh, wait, that's sweat and bad braking

Mr.Q has been getting the car an awful lot since he began his Grand Tour of Stay at Home Daddy. Granted, he has Mobile Baby whereas I had Eat and Poop Baby, but still. I'm nice like that.

So, I took the train in again this morning. But, I took the other Sky Train line in, after hitting up my dentist who works over that way. [part of the retainer maintenance that, this time, involved adding blobs of goo to my two front bottom teeth. to remain there for the next month. no, you do not get photos.] I thought that, this being the newer line, that it would also have the less congested train. I had visions of getting a seat. Putting my feet up. Being served coffee, perhaps, while enjoying a complimentary newspaper.

Or, at least getting a seat. Sadly, this was not to be the case and, not only was it crowded, I had some teenage-ish [I'm getting old: anyone younger than me is vaguely teenage-ish as far as I'm now concerned] guy with an open hockey back staggers into me as the train is leaving the station, stepping on my foot, smashing what's left of my right boob after the Magpie's morning feeding, and generally grinding his sorry self into me for a good 20 seconds.

He muttered something that sounded like sorry afterward...

And, while the rest of my trip into work was uneventful, the ride home was fraught with leanings, brushes and general invasions of personal space by persons of varying gender - men, women and two who hadn't quite decided. I could have chosen to swing any number of ways today and been quite successful, wedding rings, deflated breasts, water retention and all.

We'll be looking for a second car toward the end of the year, once Mr.Q gets set to head back to work and we'll both need the option to drop off and pick up the Magpie. In the mean time, I guess I'll be taking the bus and the train a good chunk of the time. Maybe I'll have to start dressing up.