Dark Sky

Night is well advanced, and there is no aurora borealis. There has been a spectacular drop in temperature from last night, though. Then, I was comfortable in shirt sleeves. Tonight, I shiver in a heavy jacket. The younger cat slept outdoors last night, but when I let her out just after midnight tonight, she was at the door, wanting back in, within ten minutes. Still, I doubt that it's cold enough for frost. It simply feels very cold in contrast to the recent mild nights. A frost would be nice, and would at last bring a bit more red into this mostly brown and yellow fall.

A while ago, Sluggo did an odd thing I've never seen before. There was a popping and fizzing sound from the monitor, and the picture suddenly turned into a dim, distorted hourglass shape down the center of the screen. I turned the monitor off and then back on, and the picture returned to normal. I have no idea what happened. I've had Sluggo forget that he has a monitor before, with the screen going blank so that I have to shut down the bad way, but I've never seen anything such as this partial blanking before. Computers=weird.

Bzzzzzzzzzzz

In about an hour, I'll be getting needles stuck into my gums, some old metal gouged out of a hole in my tooth, more tooth ground away, new metal stuck into the enlarged hole, and then going home to try to eat dinner with a numb face. I'll probably bite my tongue while I can't feel it. That usually happens. Yay, dentistry.

The day is bright and cold, with a stiff breeze and a few big cumulus clouds. I've got weather whiplash. The birds are chattering madly, as though in astonishment at the sudden change. The young ones have never experienced a day this cold. They probably thought that it would always be warm in daylight. The cats have adjusted, though. They have found bright patches of sunlight in spots sheltered from the wind for their afternoon naps. Easy for them to relax. They don't have to get their teeth drilled.

Mrmf mbler mrfll

Done. I got a resin filling this time, instead of the amalgam which I've gotten in the past, so I won't be picking little balls of silver and mercury from beneath my tongue for the next couple of days. I think my bite might be a bit off, though. It's always hard to tell when your mouth is numb. It was a lower molar, so I had to get the needle jammed into that place at the back of my mouth, where it grinds against the bone, and then it sits there for several minutes while the novocaine slowly oozes into your flesh. After that, it wasn't bad. The resin fillings don't take as long to install as do the amalgam fillings, and there isn't a lot of that pressing. They stick a device in your mouth which emits what I take to be ultraviolet light (I didn't ask, since my tongue was numb and I wanted to use it as little as possible) and it sets right away. Then they grind down the excess, and it's done.

Sweet potato for dinner, since it doesn't require any of that hazardous chewing. All you do is mash it around a bit with your numb tongue and swallow. Beer helps, as always. Anyway, I've survived, but when the numbness wears off, I'll be sore. And, in spite of precautions, I'm pretty sure I did bite myself. I tasted the unmistakable flavor of blood. Mmmm, blood.