Last night was in the low 20’s. That’s winter. Today will be in the low 40’s, sort of spring. In the front garden, the daffodil buds are high. The purple hyacinths are poking above the ground. I can hardly wait for them to bloom. I can hardly wait for color. I’m tired of grays and browns. 

Today is a dark, rainy day, but I have to go out anyway. I have a dentist appointment, just a cleaning, and I need some stamps. 

When I was a kid, I loved my dentist. He always gave me gas so I just slept through it all. My father, though, thought that dentist was too expensive so he decided to take me to East Boston to his childhood dentist. That man could have easily stepped into the role of Orin Scrivello D.D.S. in Little Shop of Horrors. His equipment was old. I think it was the same equipment he used on my father. He didn’t use Novocain. I was in so much pain I held on to the arms of the chair so hard I swear I left finger indentations. Tears would stream down my cheeks. I remember getting home and being in horrific pain. He had left an exposed nerve. My father took me back. I think I would have preferred the exposed nerve. 

My childhood doctor was a big man, a huge man. He wore suspenders. He’d sit behind his desk asking questions. My parents were of the generation that didn’t have check-ups so we didn’t either. I saw the doctor only when I needed to for things like stitches or heavy duty colds. My doctor’s office was on the first floor of his house. The house was old, huge and beautiful. It was right beside the driveway of the school parking lot and playground. I remember all the wood in the waiting area, the beautiful stairs and a wooden newel which was big and shiny. I also remember the skeleton in his office. It was real and hung by the window. That house is still there, still beautiful.

Break time! I’m off to the dentist.

I’m now home with clean, shiny teeth.

I hate crooked pictures. I have even straightened a couple in my doctor’s office. They assault my sensibilities. I hate socks which slide down into my shoes, but I don’t mind holey socks. I am not a fan of refried beans. They look disgusting like something a baby may have left. I love corn but not so much cream corn as it spreads cross the plate. I do have a corn bread recipe which calls for cream corn. The bread is delicious. Having been an English teacher, I hear all the grammatical errors on TV. The most common is the wrong use of a pronoun as the object of the preposition. I always correct it out loud. The dogs think I’m talking to them. 

This entry was posted on March 24, 2025 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.