Monthly Archives for February 2012

February Vacation

It’s back to the rat race.  Today I spent the day at the office, followed by a 3-hour class that I hope will help me successfully redecorate the family room.  When I arrived home at 9:40 p.m., I realized that tomorrow is school picture day for Norah, and she had chosen the fairy princess background and needed a fairy princess dress.  That’s one good thing about living where we do…I was in and out of Kohls literally 15 minutes later, with 2 dresses, a little white sweater, and 2 pairs of white tights.  I hope the fairy princess is happy.

On my way home from Kohls I was thinking about this blog post, and how I would write about the fact that we survived February school vacation.  But the truth is…it was actually enjoyable.  There were years when school vacations were tough, but this year was different.

I started out with a Moms’ Night Out for Elizabeth’s 40th birthday.  Anyone who makes it to 40 without going to see a bunch of drag queens strut their stuff MUST go to Jacques Cabaret, especially if they’re from Kansas.  The…um…ladies were hilarious, if a little scary at times, and were surprisingly good dancers and lip-syncers.  I knew I shouldn’t have let the kids see the photos when Norah told our tour guides later in the week that, “Mommy and her friends went to see boys dressed as ladies, but they still had man-voices.”  (She saw a G-rated video too.)

I can’t decide which is my favorite photo of the birthday girl, so here are two.

The next day Aliya had a soccer game at 7 a.m., and after that we headed to West Yarmouth, on Cape Cod.  I was a little disappointed with the hotel, but it was fine, and there was plenty to keep the kids occupied.  We went on a great tour of the Cape with Des and Terry of Cape Cod Scenic Tours, which I highly recommend.

The next day we met our friends, the Pearlmans, and went to Provincetown and North Truro after stopping at the Chocolate Sparrow.  Race Point Beach was beautiful and the kids used teamwork to roll a giant log back into the water from the top of the beach.  We saw a bunch of crazy young adults(?) swimming in their underwear, went to the library to see the giant ship, went to lunch at the Squealing Pig, and then to Highland Light where we almost froze our butts off.  Here are a bunch of pictures from the gorgeous day.

On the way home we stopped at Battleship Cove in Fall River, another highly recommended activity.  We got to explore every nook and cranny of a destroyer, a submarine, and several other boats.

I spent the rest of the week trying to catch up on some work, and then Aliya’s team won the championship, followed by my favorite Moroccan dish with Ben’s family and the Pearces, then a sleepover for Aliya, and finally a little housecleaning and a trip to the movies.  Hugo was AMAZING.  We packed quite a lot in, but we had a lot of fun.  I wonder what April vacation will bring!

I don’t have oral cancer. Yay.

Aside from an unexpected professional house-cleaning which I am still rejoicing over, the other stand-out event of last week was a trip to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned.  Normally, I wouldn’t expect a teeth-cleaning to be very exciting, but I spent almost 3 hours in the chair followed by a separate appointment with the oral surgeon a couple of days later.

One of my crowns had fallen off a couple of days before the cleaning, and luckily I recovered it right away rather than losing it down the chute.  I had the crown with me at the dentist, but the hygienist had to clean the exposed tooth before re-cementing it.  She needed to give me Novocain before the cleaning, so she gave me 2 shots and then as she prepared to give me a 3rd, she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh my God!  It’s huge back here!!  Are you in pain???” and on and on.  She felt around for a few minutes and peered in several times, and then decided that she didn’t dare give me another shot because she didn’t want to stick the needle in the “problem area.”

The hygienist’s reaction made it very obvious that she thought there was something wrong with me, and that it was serious.  I literally trembled through the whole cleaning.  When the hygienist left the room I started Googling for possibilities, and none of them were good.  When my dentist (who I have known and loved for many years) came in after the cleaning, she was white as a ghost and had a very fearful expression.  I told her that she should never play Poker…it was obvious that she was worried.  She said, “You know why I’m concerned, right?”

Well, I had no idea other than the Google results, but she started talking about oral cancer.  ORAL CANCER??  What are the chances?  I’ve smoked 17 cigarettes in my life (I remember this because I bought 1 pack at the age of 16ish, and I managed to smoke all but 3 of them before the pack was discovered in my secret hiding place – a can of tennis balls with the pack on the bottom).  I’m not a big drinker, and I even tested negative for HPV.  I guess anything’s possible, but when I obsess about what I’m going to die from, oral cancer isn’t in the Top 20.

The dentist FINALLY looked into my mouth and within 2 seconds she said, “Oh.  That’s not what that is.”  O-M-G.  W-T-F?  Couldn’t we have squared this away before the cleaning??

What the hygienist saw was bruising and swelling caused when the missing crown allowed my cheek tissue to expand into the void, and then I bit it a few times.  I’m sure it looked scary when she saw it, but she should have either a) kept it to herself rather than exclaiming about it, or b) brought the dentist in right away rather than making me fear the worst through the whole cleaning.  I still love my dentist and hygienist, but I think a change in procedure is in order.

I had to go see the oral surgeon because it’s their protocol in that situation, and at that point he couldn’t even see what had been visible two days before.  He said my cheek was “within normal limits,” so I guess I can go back to obsessing about the other possibilities for my demise.