amazing discovery!

okay, i've never been what some would consider a "high maintenance" kind of girl. but i do like to sport a look that's a step above just getting up in the morning, even if i'm hanging around the house in sweats and a tee-shirt. i don't wear a ton of makeup at all, but i like to keep my toenails polished and i carry lip gloss everywhere i go and use it very liberally (shiny lips make me feel pretty). my latest feat has been to try and grow out my hair. those of you who know me very well know that i've gone through several phases of pixie short to (relative) rapunzel lengths. i chopped all of it off in college, grew it out to below my shoulders all through dental school, and promptly chopped it all off again when i got pregnant because my hair grew like a weed and i just didn't want to deal (horrendous pics during that phase, lemme tell you!). canuck loves me no matter what, but he fancies me in long hair and refers to the pixie years as "when you were hacking at your hair like a redwood tree." so he's happy that i'm going the longer route again. anyways, i've been going stir crazy with this in-between length, and because i had bangs AND layers, it's even worse. the bangs are too long to wear, too short to stay put swiped to the side, and the back has about 5 different lenghts. plus it's very fine and likes to go together in one piece. very attractive. but i'm committed to this and have not cut my hair since november, and do not plan to do so until june. it's been a real bugger holding out for so long, but i swore restraint. anyways, my sister-in-law has a ceramic straightening iron that she uses (she has fine hair like myself, but it's nice and long and looks good on her) when she goes out and wants to look extra nice. she has a date tonite and left it out to cool, so i figured, what the hell, and tried it on myself. i was really surprised, it came out pretty cool! i never thought i would use one of those things ever in my life, simply amazing! i'm really pumped, anything i can do to get me through the next month-and-a-half will be a godsend. now i really feel like a high-maintenance chick!

cookie, nonna and i went to the doctor today. she still has a lingering cough from mc donald's petri dish so we went to get it checked out. no fever, lungs, ears, and throat look good, it's just a stubborn little bug with lingering congestion. no worse fo wear, she's running around like crazy, tearing things up, torturing maui, and getting into things she shouldn't be. her latest thing is to help me clean the bathroom by splashing around the toilet brushes in the toilet (ick). and yesterday i was wearing a purple fitted top and she says to me, " look, mommy, purple," and i said, "yes, honey, you like my purple shirt?" and she says, "no, mommy purple boobs!" she's a real rip, this one! now we're trying to get her to take naps on her own at a set time. i don't understand. when nonna puts her to bed and i'm not around, she's a good girl and just rolls over to sleep in her room, no problems. with me, it's a song and dance, she wants me to take a nap with her, and she refuses to let me leave. "mommy, go to sleep!" today i had to play bad cop when daddy came home just as she was winding down. now this kid is getting good at playing us against each other, and she's got daddy wrapped around her little finger. so fo course after 45 minutes of me trying to get her down in her room and her crying and resisting, he climbs into bed with her and she's out in a minute! i wanted to kill canuck for sabotaging my efforts, but i couldn't blame him. i had to do everything in my power not to do the same, except i was home all day with her and my patience was wearing thin. i think i'm more of the enforcer when it comes to stuff like that. but that's what being a mommy is all about, right???

what kind of fae are you???

What type of Fae are you?

so, i'm a nymph, but i'm definitely not a psychiatrist. which is what i essentially was yesterday at the office. i wouldn't mind, except i don't get paid to be a psychiatrist, i get paid to be a dentist. one lunatic after another walked through my door yesterday. my only sane patient cancelled, and i saw a very nice gentleman with a horrendous infection, but he was not my patient and i could only treat him on an emergency basis. what i did get was a schizophrenic who i have treated 3 times in the past have a psychotic episode and tell me that i was not her dentist, she wanted to go home right now, and that she was doomed to go to hell. so i spent the 2 hours that i had booked to complete her restorative treatment talking to her about god and the devil. then enter the guy who wants me to rip out all of his "mercury fillings" because they are causing "physical and psychological" problems (no kidding!). and that guy who drilled his own tooth who was in my schedule? officially banned from my practice, no more ms. nice doctor mommy. i won't even get into it, but let's just say i let him have it and this time he won't be coming back.

so, it's been slow in my office lately. i'm going to look for another gig sometime this week and consolidate my days at this place, as i don't think they have enough sane patients to book me for a solid three days. we need the extra money once we take on that mortgage. and i'm ready to do a lot of dentistry. and i don't want to be a psychiatrist anymore because i'm simply not good at it and the pay is sucky.

holy crap, i have a house!!!

i just had to say it again!!!

what goes around comes back around again...or the "circle of life"

wow, it's really amazing how things can turn around, like just when you think that door's closed and locked, someone's found the key and you're staring right back into that what you thought was an empty room.

so, i'm checking through my schedule next week and guess who's on it.... guy who drilled his own tooth wants to book restorative work with me. i pretty much kicked him out of my practice for drilling his own tooth with an endodontic infection on one side of his mouth, but i had placed sedative fillings on two molars on the other side after removing two large amalgam restorations. remember, they were causing systemic candidiasis in this patient.* the teeth, numbers 46 and 47, need crowns but at the time i wouldn't start anything until i got a guarantee that he won't go and usurp all my hard work and make his own crap in his basement. which he didn't, he just went ahead and drilled his own tooth. he's been back several times since the debacule to pay the remainder of his balance, and we've chatted a bit. he's upset that i'm mad at him, but he stands by his decision to drill his own tooth. and yet, he STILL wants me to finish his work after i chewed him out. and i'm like, fine, but as long as you understand that i am the doctor and you are the patient, and i went to school for a reason and i know what i'm doing. if you don't like what i'm saying, go somewhere else, as is your right, and don't waste my time again. i never like to pull power trips on patients, but c'mon....and i never thought he would actually book an appointment with me ever again. but he did, and he's my last patient on tuesday evening. thank god i have wednesday off. unreal!

*insert sarcastic voice here.

that was part one. here's the real kicker... canuck and i put an offer on a house several weeks ago, one that was overpriced and the agent very rude (see previous post). i vowed that i would never even take a sneaking glance at that property again, screw all involved, i won't do business like that. anyway, cancuk and i saw around ten more houses since then, all of them totally wrong, totally overpriced, or both. moral was starting to get pretty low. while we were pulling into the driveway of the next hell-hole to view, our agent's cell phone rings, and it's the creepy seller's agent again! the house is STILL on the market, an offer is being placed, are your clients still interested? at first we were pretty reticent, i mean, the place was nice but overpriced. then we saw a few more places that were dumps and overpriced and we were like, yeah, why not, what the hell? after some phone calls, some debate, some yelling and some interesting dialogue between our agents, that house is now ours! we close may 31, and will be moving into our new home a bit after that when we get it spruced up and to our liking. luckily, it won't take much, some paint and and a little elbow grease, but the place is pretty much rennovated and ready to go. unreal!

so, it's really funny how things work out in the end, no? nothing is ever really final and some things just come back to haunt you, some good, some bad, some just unreal.

fresh new faces

back to work after a little break. last few weeks, i felt like i lived at the office. but i was just making up time because of the days i took of last week and the shortened week for the easter holiday. so this week i only work two days and have a three day weekend!

yesterday was an interesting day, full of adventure and excitement. we started out with our "quarterly meeting" with our regional manager. remember, i'm in a private office that's run by a corporation, so they have to do these fiscal meetings 4 times a year to make sure everything's on track. there's percentages, metrics, reviews, clinical audits, and other crap that both me and my colleague who's been there over seven years just roll our eyes at. sometimes i forget that it's even like that, we dentists just "do our thing in the back". i really love my office manager, but she's relatively new to this position as well and she had picked up where the last person had left off (with the office in financial disarray). this was her second Q meeting, so she was a little stressed out about the numbers and stuff. we're definitely improving from where we were before and we're on target to meeting our yearly goals, but the numbers were a little short for her taste, even though our regional manager said that we rocked AND that the revenue from the second doctor (moi) was only generated in February, the last month of Q3. as for me, for a new dentist i'm apparently doing very well, and that's good to know. i could always be doing better, but that will come with time and more new patients.

we got a new assistant yesterday, praise the lord! i like her already, and even though it was her first day and she knew absolutely nothing about where anything was, she was fantastic. she tried to anticipate my every move, she took initiative, and the patients felt comfortable with her. we ran a bit behind, but hey, that always happens, right? we worked through the break but she still hustled, so i bought her an ice-cap from second cup. all-in-all, i think this may work out really nicely.

i've been getting a rash of patients that have been having some post-op sensitivity to bonded resins lately. i just ordered some gluma, a step i'll add in the bonding process that will hopefully take care of it. but i already had to remove one patient's fillings and place a ZOE sedative and wait for things to calm down. i hope i don't have to switch products, since we just ordered two more bottles of the prime-and-bond from 3M. that crap is expensive!

best flight ever!

everyone who knows me also knows that i can't stand flying. i'm one of those white-knuckled, teeth gritting, rosary-praying, hyperventillating passengers, especially during take-off and landing. but my flight back today KICKED ASS! it was a new plane, an embraer 175, smaller than the usual airbus 319/320 that air canada usually uses on their LGA-YYZ route. it was a brand new aircraft, and had tv's at each seat, just like jet blue (my favorite airline!). there weren't satellite channels like on jet blue, but on-demand television where you could choose from a number of movies like chronicles of narnia and syriana, different t.v. shows, and kids movies. i watched law & order and cookie watched the simpsons. on our final approach to toronto, we flew over niagara falls and i actually saw the falls, it was a perfectly crystal clear day! kinda makes me not afraid to fly anymore, right???

last note, my dad sent me this great article from the new york times about ancient dental practices!

back home for a few

april 5 was my nana's 80th birthday (happy birthday nana-nana!) and my family threw her a huge birthday bash at a pub in stamford, connecticut. all 20 or so of her neices and nephews showed up to wish her a happy one, and she got some really great gifts. she was so cute, saying, "wow, they spent so much on me, i can't believe it!" and i was like, "nana, of course you deserve it, you were everyone's favorite aunt and my favorite nana!" in all reality, my nana is pretty darn cool. she's sweet, laid back, and has something nice to say about everyone (unfortunately, even george bush, "he really means well"). i really miss her, but i try to call her at least once a week just to chat and catch up.

so, cookie and i boarded a flight out of toronto at around 6:30 a.m., sans daddy. airfare is really quite ridiculous nowadays and there was no way all three of us could afford to go - cookie is now a full price ticket, despite the fact that after the seatbelt sign goes off, she's plopped in my lap looking out the window. we got up at around 4 a.m. and it's 10 p.m. now and i'm just starting to unwind. it was a long day, but really good to see everyone. tomorrow, cookie, nana and i can hang out, maybe do some shopping. i need some cheap sweats. i miss target up in toronto, and the days of spending $70 on a pair of track pants from roots are over if we want that house in the near future (btw, canuck was NOT happy about that last purchase, but in the end even he conceded that they were cute).

strange dental story of the day - a patient asked me to check his teeth for STDs and is convinced that periodontal disease is sexually contagious. just try keeping a straight face while explaining this, i mean you feel really bad about the misinfo, but how can a dentist say "i don't see any signs of STDs on your teeth." btw, all this was going on while a woman who was waiting for her husband in the lounge area boldly confronted a disabled patient of mine on why he had no hands. my receptionist told me that a melee almost broke out before the poor woman realized she shouldn't ask such personal questions to complete strangers. thankfully, the situation diffused before i got involved and i heard all of this secondhand. so, yesterday was a very interesting day, to say the least!

house hunting woes, part 1

hopefully there will only be a part one, but i have a feeling there's more to come in the future. so, on sunday we saw a home that was perfect for us. i felt comfortable as soon as i walked in, lots of light, open concept, nice backyard. needed a bit of paint and some TLC, but the price was perfect, it really felt like a nice home for our family. the house even smelled good and i just loved the name of the street it was on! we were all set to put in an offer on monday when canuck calls me at work and says, guess what, the house is no longer on the market, the guy's renting it out instead. we were crushed, especially since there's been slim pickings in the neighborhood lately. so i plugged along the rest of the day, bummed but dealing. however, a few hours later when he picks me up from work he says, guess what, it's back on, he knows we want to put in an offer and he's interested! of course we were delighted, 'cause we knew we could get a good price and we had a shot at it. so our agent trapses over to our house later that night, and we are further told that there's another offer on the table, we're in competition! stress, stress, stress!!! so we did all the paperwork, and she headed over to the house to talk to the selling agent and their people, we should expect a call late that night or early the next morning. we were crossing our fingers the whole time. around 11:30 the phone rings, it's our agent. guess what, you won't believe what happened, the owner took the house of the market, AGAIN, even with two offers on the table. when she arrived at the house, all the family was there screaming at each other. apparently, it was the wife who wanted to sell and the husband who backed down repeatedly. now, we were pissed, but imagine how the listing agent felt. what a waste of time fo all involved! then the listing agent started screaming at them, and everyone was just way pissed off. the end result, no house for us. what a letdown! i'm telling you, after all this, i don't know if i want to move, buy, or sell another home ever again!

so, we wait until something else pops up. we hope the st. joseph statue starts working it's magic soon!