Driving and crying

I came home from the dentist feeling like crying again today, but this time it was tears of pure joy. I love my new dentist. I love my new hygenist. I hugged them both before I left. I love the staff. I love the not so fancy office. I'm almost excited about getting the work done. It will be so great not to be embarrassed about my teeth anymore.

The only big down side is it's going to cost a small fortune. I don't even have a figure yet but it's clearly not going to be small. I had part one of the teeth cleaning today. The technology has changed a lot since the last time I had it done. She used some kind of ultrasonic thingy that doesn't hurt or make you feel like they're yanking your teeth out with the scraping. But I have to have it done in two stages because I let it go so long that I have to wait for my gums to readjust in between the treatments.

Meanwhile, the dentist is a charmer. Real southerner with an strong accent. He spent a lot of time talking to me after the hygenist was done. He welcomed me into his family. He's gives you his home phone. I get to call him Danny. How cool is that? I left there actually feeling like part of their family.

The worst part of the whole experience was getting lost on the way over. Internet directions have their limits if you know what I mean. I checked mapquest and google before I left. It looked pretty straightforward on the maps. I decided to take the slow road instead of the highway because the directions looked just as complicated and the slow road was five miles shorter and only five minutes longer in estimated time, which was about half a hour. I left an hour early. Good thing, because it took that long to get there.

I'd never been inside that city before and the streets are really squirrelly. Also it was raining and even though I trusted Sam's recommendation, I was still a nervous wreck in anticipation of the impending horror of having strangers messing around in my mouth. I missed the turn that was supposed to be a slight right just over the railroad tracks. I never saw any damn tracks. I realized on the way home that it was because you drive under the tracks and the turn is a hard right on a much smaller road than the map made it seem to be. But I'll be good the next time. It only took a little over 20 minutes on the return trip, the road is scenic and quite lovely, and now I have some landmarks.

If it's a sunny day for my next appointment, I'll get a photo of the little house with the giant three tiered fountain. It was quite remarkable.