:: W4B photography's companion blog ::

:: Thursday, December 01, 2005 ::

the teeth of the matter
stuff: Have an issue with my teeth. One in particular. A rear right lower molar. I mentioned this last Friday. I went and spoke to the DDS who poked and x-ray'd and such and she said that she could extract or possibly do a root canal but it was going to be pretty messy and so she was referring me to an oral surgeon. If the tooth needed extracting, the roots were curled and would be a tough job. And as there was a slice missing from the tooth it was indicative of problems so it could shatter. I did the "stop talking now" gesture and she said she would see what we could do for an appointment. I received a call on Monday saying my appointment would be tomorrow, Dec 2. I thought it was going to be the consult but the surgeon wants to extract it. And I want to be knocked out for it. (I am going to see if they could take a pic of me unconscious as that would be interesting but I don't know if they will go for it).

Anyhow. Long story short. A timeframe for a consult was not a good time frame for a procedure as I had no one available to stay with me and take me home as per their guidelines. I called them back and after a bit of back and forth where they said they don't do afternoon procedures, I found they do in fact do them. And so Tuesday Dec 13th will be the day now. This will mean taking the day off work and likely the day after. No real pain at the moment, just discomfort and gingerly eating of foods. A nuisance too.

Morgan helped me snap out if my fear of dentists while going through this. And has helped me get centred on "Now" instead of obsessing over what could happen and such. And recommended an interesting book called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle which I picked up from Chapters and started to read a couple of days ago. The excercises in the first couple of chapter he describes to block out all the 'noise' and stray thoughts are standard meditation stuff, but he writes very conversationally and it is easy to understand. And not so difficult to put into practice. I look forward to finishing the book over the next while.

I found it curious - there are no coincidences after all - that as I was reading it, my eyes fell on the century old greenish black bronze Buddha that sits prominently on a large side table I have. Not sure how many of these particular figures are out there, but it came from Kobe Japan and was cast from a mold that was destroyed in an early 20th century earthquake there. It is about 16 inches tall, weighs just over 10 lbs, and I belieive it is modelled after the Great Buddha of Kamakura though I am not completly certain. Perhaps taking some pictures of this particular Buddha are in order.

It came into my posession via my mom's side of the family. I had always known this Buddha as one of the objects belonging to my grandmother, and later after she passed away it sat rather dusty on a shelf in my parents house for years. When I got into my family history a few years back I found out that my grandparents lived in Japan in the interwar period. That was where my mom and two uncles were born. My grandfather worked for the British Steel industry there. And as any good and loyal british subject would do was reporting intelligence on Japanese steel usage and warship building back to MI-6 in the UK.

They evacuated to England before the commencement of hostilities at the end of the 1930s, but took with them a great deal of fine porcelain and other items they had accumulated after living there for many years. Some of these items, "the family china" for instance, I have now. When I began to research the plates and saucers and such at my father's request before he passed away, I realized that some of them were in fact even then close to a century old - some much older. And each piece sometimes worth a considerable amount. We used them on occasion as childen to eat off and I found that staggering. And Cool.

Only once as an adult, at a holiday dinner than Morgan and I hosted, did we use a great deal of the Arita style blue and white china plates (similar to this), and the imari covered bowls (which are I believe are Meiji (1868-1912)period and look similar to this. Every place setting probably had a considerable value of china mixed and matched together. It was very cool to think that these settings had been used in all likelyhood in three distinct centuries - the 19th, 20th and 21st.

OK. Enough history for now. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:49 [+] :: 3 comments
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3 Comments:

If you are going to interface for the extraction, you always have the option of being put under. I will vouch for them though cause that's who pulled mine last month - wisdom tooth, fractured and previous filling had fallen out. No pain and I was awake - took 20 minutes. And I fear the dentist (that's why I'm in the boat that I am.. lol)

By  Karen, at 10:20 PM  

thanks Karen. Interface is the place. and I wanna be knocked out. though I am not overpleased with that. lesser and least painful of two evils. :)

By  Mike Wood, at 10:26 PM  

Hey Mike I will be on vacation then and so if you need someone that day i can certinaly help out!!
S

By  Anonymous, at 5:22 PM  

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