Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Ruby gets her wisdom teeth out - all four!

I was experiencing some pain with the left side of my jaw, so I decided to go see a dentist. I assumed it was my wisdom teeth. But long before this, I noticed that one of my left upper molars has been "pushed" out of alignment, and I immediately assumed it was my wisdom teeth doing the damage. Plus the shifting in my teeth has unfortunately become visible. So much for almost 2 years-worth of braces. And when was the last time I saw my retainer...?

So I got the x-rays done, and yup...the teeth had to go. That was January 2002.

Since I was in school and had crappy insurance, the operation would have cost around $1600...so I just delayed it, and lived with the on and off pain.

Couple years later...

Brian and I get married! whoohoo! Along with all the joys of being married to Brian, I could join his healthcare insurance and finally get those pesky teeth out. My two upper ones had already broken through, while the bottom two remained completely cushioned in my gums.

Tuesday, August 17th
Well, the procedure itself didn't take THAT long. I just had local anesthesia, so lucky me, I could hear everything, down to the crushing of my teeth. I guess the worst part about it was the yanking, especially for the two lower teeth that were pretty stubborn in coming out, which therefore required the drilling. Actually, scratch that. The worst part was getting the anesthesia. The needle was humungous! and getting pricked with it oh, at least four times really did hurt. At least that pain was relatively brief. After the procedure, I asked if I could keep some souvenirs, and although they didn't allow it for hygiene purposes, they gave me 3 of the 4 teeth. It was pretty disturbing seeing the teeth, because I had no idea how long they would be. And here you can get an idea:

Now for the "fun" part.

For those who may not know, it is recommended to get your wisdom teeth out as early as possible, because the older you get, the longer the healing process took. Boy, did I wish I got mine out years ago. Not only did it stink not being able to eat, but when I thought I was ready, I chose probably the worst thing for me - yogurt. It wasn't my fault. It was recommended to have cold dairy foods, but eating it with nothing else in your stomach for over a day, and being lactose intolerant, well, you can imagine what happened. So that was unfortunate.

So the couch, and only the couch became my temporary living space for several days. I couldn't do anything for the rest of the week, having no energy to move, popping pills, and dealing with the pain, let alone wrapping ice packs around my face to keep the swelling down. Even when the pain subsided and the appropriate amount of time passed so the holes would heal, I did have to deal with the swelling that lasted for more than a week. The swelling was decreasing by this point:

When I could manage to leave the apt for the first time, still being rather conscious of the puffiness, Brian did discover some bruising on both sides of my face when we stopped in a Baskin and Robbins for a treat. Oh great! The day I go out is when the bruising appears.

Oh well.

Thank goodness I got this done during a break in our busy schedule and that everything's pretty much back to normal.

Sunday, August 15, 2004

Celebrating Mom's Birthday in NYC - August 14, 2004

What a fun night this was! especially after a day of running around doing errands back in NJ, such as buying really cheap magazine holders at IKEA, getting Brian fitted for his tux for Karl and Tonya's wedding, and finally picking up proofs from our wedding.

Elmer and Hoong-San did a very nice job coordinating everything. After nixing the Indian restaurant idea (in prep for our trip to India in October), they made reservations at Birdland, where the food is as tasty as the jazz. The reservations were early so we didn't end up stuffing ourselves when the Lee Konitz Trio took to the stage at 9pm.


Mom, Brian and I awaiting the Lee Konitz Trio at Birdland


Elmer, Hoong-San and Dad waiting for the main course to arrive

After a fantastic set, we all headed off for some more music AND dancing at Swing 46 which luckily was only a couple blocks away since it was raining. The live band rocked as they performed a good mix of swing and fox trot.


Elmer and Hoong-San doing the jitterbug

The fox trot was wasted on Brian and me since we could never quite get the "swing" of it. But Mom and Dad took full advantage of it.


Mom and Dad looking so suave


Brian thought the place reminded him of the scene in "Swingers" where Mike (Jon Favreau) whips out his swing skills with Heather Graham. Even the booth we sat in looked similar. There was a whole range of dancers there, from beginners to the competitive. Some of them even wore 50's style clothes, although it didn't fare well with some of them. Speaking of which, I had my own wardrobe malfunction. Wearing a loosely cinched tube top is not the best thing, especially twirling and moving around so quickly. So after its falling off somewhat, from the announcement of my family watching, I had to wear my hoodie, which I didn't enjoy since it felt like 100 degrees in the dance area.


Elmer taking Mom for a spin


Brian and I putting our lessons to good use


after a couple of drinks and a couple hours of dancing

I think we left close to 1am and headed back home to Jersey where we ate cake and ice cream and gave our mom her gifts, a book by Dean Koontz and really kinda random Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 dvds.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Celebrating Dad's Birthday at the Jersey Shore

We took a very long, multi-leg trip down the shore for the weekend of August 6th. Here is how we traveled:

- from home, we took a T to South Station
- from South Station, we took a commuter rail to Providence, RI
- from Providence, we took a 7:55pm flight to Philly, arriving after 9pm
- from the Philly airport, we took a subway to the Greyhound terminal in Center City
- from the terminal, we took a bus to Atlantic City (and we missed the bus we wanted by just a few minutes, so we had to wait another hour before we could get going...)
- picked up by parents to go to shore house

Even with the horrific shore and just weekend traffic in general, I wonder if we could have just taken a bus to NYC and then to AC in less or about the same amount of time...but needless to say, when we got back to the house, everyone was fast asleep. Brian and I stayed up a little while longer to look at some wedding photos (once we started, we couldn't stop) before retiring to the pull-out couch, near where Sarah and Kevin were sleeping.

The next day, we met up with Cliff down in our familiar haunt of Sea Isle City, where we hit the usual spots, such as the promenade and arcade, and then stopped off at a not-so-usual place, the Pizza Putt with miniature golf on the roof, and had a bite to eat. We picked up some fudge and chocolate covered pretzels as well as some ice cream from Yum Yums, the place that brings back a fond memory of a kid named Zack and his unfortunate incident. We then headed back to the house for some Bocce...




Bravely playing Bocce (that's pronounced"botchy") ball in mosquito AND beehive territory, the teams were like this (we didn't actually have the team names used below):

The A-Team: Ruby, Cliff, and Joe, Sr.
Team B (for Brian, I guess): Brian, Kevin, and Joe, Jr. (replaced later by Mike)

What a surprisingly fun game! It being my first time, I did rather well...at least in the beginning. The A-Team eventually succumbed to a 1-2 defeat, due to a final winning throw/roll by Brian.

We had a wonderful steak dinner with the absolutely most scrumptuous lump crab cakes ever, from Bobby Chez's Margate location. They're bigger than the size of a tennis ball that was slightly flattened, filled only with fresh crab meat, no imitation. Truly fantastic.




I couldn't contain myself every time our card was opened. It was such a ridiculous sound. The imitating parrot was also such a riot that it rarely stayed in one place. After we sang "Happy Birthday," the neighbors next door had guests over and also sang "Happy Birthday." Soon a debate on whether someone should go visit them was necessary ensued. After the dinner and cake, we laughed ourselves to tears, watching Dave Chappelle specials on On Demand. And for the late late show, Sarah and I watch Phone Booth before heading to bed.



When it was FINALLY warm enough to go to the beach (the past few days, even before we got there, had been rather cool /overcast), we could only enjoy just a couple hours of sun since everyone would be heading back to Philly. We had lunch outside at a nearby restaurant, where I ordered yummy linguine with clam sauce, and it seemed that I was another step further away from the healthy food regiment I had just a couple months ago. We drove back to Philly with just a little time to relax before heading off to catch our 8:30pm direct flight back to Boston.