Healthy

This fall weekend's weather should be sunny and in the mid-70s all three days. What more could a person want? I will be going to a big festival that is centered around the celebration of being young, pretty, rich and politically connected. But I try not to think about that part.
Going to the dentist for tooth-drilling and filling this week was predictably miserable (I don't understand ... I take care of my teeth!), but my dentist is experienced and quick. That counts for a lot! I tried to appreciate all that I could about it, that I am responsibly seeking and taking dentist help, that the walls in there were a nice, calm blue, with brick on one wall painted white, and this particular room did not have Fox News playing in it as most of the other rooms do. As I watched in the waiting room, I was informed, after a story about sugary drinks being OK for kids in moderation (further evidence, as if I needed it, that Fox News is poison!), that the Fox News channel is celebrating its 14-year birthday right now. The news people had a tall, round, candy-coated cake to help commemorate. I couldn't believe my eyes. My dental office should ban all sugar-related stories unless they are anti-sugar stories.
A few days earlier, I saw my former (young and therefore much less experienced) dentist at a health fair, with a giant poster of him on it behind him. I last saw him almost four years ago. When he filled my cavity, it took more than an hour. My jaw couldn't take being open all that time. After sitting there for a very long time, with him struggling over my tooth, he dropped a metal tool on my eye (I noticed my new dentist passes tools under my chin, not over my eyes). I had to go back the next day and the next day because it wasn't done right. He left some things in my mouth that shouldn't have been there. He put too much filling in my mouth. I couldn't use the tooth for eating like I should have been able to. I had to go back three times. The tooth felt like a marble countertop, smooth and flat, not like a tooth should feel. After three years, I finally made it back to the dentist, but to my new dentist who someone had recommended. At the health fair, the young dentist remembered me, saying that he remembered I had some sensitivity on my tooth, after I told him he had worked on a cavity of mine. Four years ago! He asked me how it was doing now, and I said, fine, but I was afraid to go back to the dentist for a few years, and that my new dentist had fixed it. I was just being honest, and he asked, but I couldn't help feeling guilty about it, in case he felt bad. You don't want to go to a health fair, at your booth, putting yourself out there, and have someone talk to you about how you messed up. I guess that's just the risk you take. Lately I've been telling people when they do something that bothers me. At first, I feel good about it, like I really needed to do it, and then I worry that they think I'm mean or a little crazy. I think I prefer the healthier way (note I WAS at a health fair) -- to tell people rather than keep it to myself and let it eat away at me. I guess you call that getting older.