Of dead kittens, fall feasts, and crunchy tootsie rolls

Okay, so I haven't been blogging much lately, due to a combination of being busy with schoolwork and my assistantship and running up to Georgia and north Florida just about every other weekend. However, since people continue to read this blog (as mind boggling of a thought as that is) I thought I'd try to catch you up on the things that have been going on in my weird world.

First, alas, I have some very sad news. Poor little Blondie, one of the kittens I found on the side of the road this past summer, was killed over the weekend. She had discovered the cat door, and had started going in and out. However, having grown up with Brin, the kitten-friendly pit bull, she had no fear of large dogs. Apparently she would sit on the front gate and pounce on neighborhood dogs as they walked by. And this weekend she went into the backyard with Viktor and Kali, who are not cat friendly. Poor, poor baby. I'm assuming, however, that it was a quick death, and I expect that she just thought they were playing up until the end. Or at least I really want to think so.

Blondie is the one on the left :(
The rest of my time "up north" wasn't as depressing. The main reason for my trip was to attend an annual "fall feast" held in north Florida at the home of someone I went to high school with waaaaay back in the day. This was the first time I'd ever been, but it was so much fun. Here are some photos :-)


I lift my pinky as I sip my Bud Light. This is something I do subconsciously.

There was hairdressing for a fashion show.

And fancy make-up for some...

...and steampunk cranks for others.

My costume was geek. Haha. I dressed as me.
Besides, everyone was looking at the dominatrix anyway.

There were several bands.

And a lot of scenes that reminded me of high school.
Or possibly Hell. Surely those two are interchangeable?

Also, I was shown how to shuck oysters. And ate a lot of raw oysters.
While drunk. And was not ill.

Amazingly, I was up at 7:30am. I am NEVER up that early. Apparently dawn light makes for cool photos. Who knew?
Back in Orlando... I was in class Tuesday night, and was given a tootsie roll by one of my classmates. As I was eating it, I noticed that it was crunching. Tootsie rolls aren't supposed to crunch. I thought that perhaps this is what tootsie rolls do when they get old, so I swallowed it and pretended nothing was wrong. Then I ran my tongue over my teeth, and discovered that half of that ginormous filling that I got in South Korea last year was missing. I sat through the rest of class trying not to freak out. It didn't hurt (unless I ate and anything went down the hole), although it did develop a dull ache. I was able to get an appointment at a dentist recommended to me by a classmate (Dr. John Russo - not scary at all!) for Thursday. I got all the Korean amalgam removed and replaced with ceramic, and I got a new cavity in the neighboring tooth filled as well. This is all wonderful and great, as I now have a mouthful of teeth that look like teeth, with no amalgam or gaping holes or cavities in sight. Unfortunately it cost $575, which rather left me wishing I'd gotten the gold tooth when it was on offer in Korea. Sigh. The dentist also said he could fix my ailing front tooth bonding (also acquired in Korea), but I'll have to put that off until I rebuild my bank account.

Dental Damage

I was never one of those kids who had a fear of the dentist. I even kind of enjoyed going, despite the fact that many of the trips were to have teeth pulled (most of my baby teeth didn't fall out on their own, then later when I was getting braces, I had to have some permanent teeth yanked because my mouth was too small). I had my first cavity discovered, drilled and filled by a super-cute Costa Rican dentist in Tilaran back in 2002. It wasn't until 2004 or 5, when I was living in San Diego, that my fear of the dentist started.

I had gone in for a cleaning - just a cleaning - although the whole thing was terribly painful. I left with all of my gums bleeding and the dentist telling me that was just because I was on birth control. The whole event was pretty scary, and soured me on the whole dentist thing. Since then my trips to the dentist have been pretty few and far between - although I went to one here in Daegu back in May. I had my teeth cleaned, the abraded enamel on my front teeth fixed, and two cavities diagnosed. It wasn't a bad experience at all.

I went this morning to have the cavities worked on. It was pretty horrible. While the Costa Rican dentist had drilled-n-filled without any anaesthetic, he had told me to let him know if I felt any pain, and that then he would shoot me up with some novocaine. This fella didn't give me that option; he just started drilling. All the yowling in pain coming from the patient on the chair (me), didn't slow the drill one bit. He only did one of the two cavities... meaning that I need to go back and do this again if I want the other one fixed. My filling choices were gold or amalgam... as the former cost $250 while the latter cost $25, I went with the amalgam. It's pretty ugly - I look rather like I have some chewing gum stuck on one of my molars. Not a big fan.

It doesn't hurt any more (the pain stopped as soon as the drill did), but it feels odd, like it almost hurts, if that makes any sense. And I've felt nauseous all day :-(

Now I'm faced with the choice of finding a new dentist in Seoul, or returning for more torture in September when I come back to Daegu to collect Charlie. According to my boss, getting cavities filled without being numbed is normal over here...

spay day!

I took Charlie to the vet this morning to get spayed. Somehow - with that sixth sense pets have - she must've known we were going to the vet. Instead of sitting in my lap, purring, while I drank my morning coffee, she hid under the bed. In the end I had to chase her out from under the bed with a broom. I felt absolutely terrible about having to do so. When I brought her home from the vet, she ran under the bed and hid. She was still hiding under the bed glaring at me when I got home for work, but as I was typing this, she came out and sat my my feet for a little while. I think I've been forgiven :-)

While Charlie was at the vet (on the 4th floor of Lotte Plaza in Yulha-dong), I decided that if she could undergo major surgery, I could buck up and go get my teeth cleaned. And as there is a dentist located on the 3rd floor of Lotte Plaza, it seemed like a good idea. I've had a bit of a dentist phobia for years following a bad dental experience in the US, and it's taken me a while to work up the nerve to go. But I'm glad I went. I got my teeth cleaned, two cavities detected (boo - I'll get them fixed next month), and had the abraded enamel on my front teeth patched.

Between the vet and the dentist, it was an expensive morning - but worth it all around, I think!