Molecule Moving

6/8/2022     

I didn’t know a Panoply of Dental Moments was coming my way this week, but such is life with teeth. One can brush, floss, slosh, and swish - but if one’s teeth want to crumble, they do. Yesterday I had my six-month cleaning. The hygienist said several times that I brush and floss beautifully. I was proud and thinking maybe I would give myself a “well-done” sticker when I got home. Then the dentist came in to do the check-up and said two fillings had cracks around them and needed to be replaced.

Oh hell. There was an open hour available to do this the next day, so I drove back. I don’t always talk out loud to myself in the car but when I’m anxious I do so there was some “you can do this, you got this” chatter. Then a woodchuck waddled across the road after which three deer leapt across the same road. They say a man can never step into the same river twice, because he will not be the same man and it will not be the same river and I thought about that yesterday, during that drive. I was a newly anxious woman and now the road had creatures.

Soon I was at my dental office that is kitted out to look like a log cabin. Why would dentists choose that? Are we supposed to feel cozy and calm recalling 19th century dental care that started with getting the person drunk and ended with pliers, screaming, and blood?

The dentist fixed my teeth. Wasn’t great. Wasn’t horrible. I was done in 40 minutes whereupon the front desk people said the total would be $560.00. (This was just for the fillings. I’d paid for the cleaning the day before.) I may have sworn out loud.

Prices are going up like crazy everywhere. We came through a pandemic and we are supplying a war and CEO-and stock-price driven monopolies are outright fleecing us because they can. Dental practices are probably making up for lost business. I bet some of the elements in the filling material as well as tools are from complicated places. Worldwide shipping is nuts. So here we are.

I don’t know how families on modest incomes are going to afford dental care.

I came home and read a library book for three hours. For dinner last night Len drove out to buy a hot fudge sundae for me.

Ice cream for dinner was my silver lining.

…

I read this tweet from a Michael Herriot: “Serious question for white people: What do YOU mean when you say “woke?”

Do you think of yourself as ‘woke?’

I think for most of us, if we claim any “wokeness’ at all, we probably remember life experiences where we were not in charge, where we were disrespected, intimidated, scared, or badly used. We remember where we were vulnerable and anxious.  

Being woke grows, I think, out of a deep and respectful understanding  that confidence and safety are not birthrights.

…

Here is a small way to use your wokeness.

My state senator and rep are Republicans who win because of Wisconsin's blithering gerrymandering. Such as: In 2012 there was a 430,000 majority of Democratic votes over Republican votes, but Republicans won 60 out of 99 senate districts because of gerrymandering.

BUT: Many elected officials have political issue surveys at their websites that are skewed to make you say that you support their talking points. Take a few minutes to look at the websites of your officials. If they have surveys, take those surveys using your “wokeness.”

Next time an elected official says, “The majority of voters in my district want …. “and then they state something that seems suspicious to you – quite likely they are quoting from their own partisan-slanted survey.

You can do these surveys often. You have to sign in with your name and address, but no one in their offices is going to comb through everything to see if a constituent fills it out once, or once a week. Political website surveys are not legal documents, they are a gimmick they use in order to look as if they are “communicating with their constituents.”

…

This: “Art is born the moment you move a molecule intentionally. There is art and nature. How you eat, sleep, drive, walk, and talk is a declaration of your awareness, an intentional change to express, confront, or cope with life. Art. Mindfulness creates value and brings virtue to art.”  This was a tweet from Clay the Rude Scot.

I am in my annual push-pull contest with my yard. What should I plant under the hydrangeas in front? I planted the marigolds from my nephew’s Boy Scout sale, but marigolds are not fancy. Is this okay-enough or should I think of fluffier flowers and then drive out and buy them and then spend an hour crawling around in there (an ant colony bit me last year) planting them?

I replanted many beet seeds over the weekend; replanting seeds the robins and chipmunks ate. Dang critters. And then I spent $10 at the dollar store buying cookie cooling racks to cover the incipient seeds. Will this work? Are the birds going to eat the Nasturtiums seeds I planted? Should I try to make pinwheels out of something around here? Len said I can use his baby outfit (see photo of him in this suit) to make a small scarecrow. Hmm.

Are you moving molecules intentionally in your yard or deck or porch or window? Did we know we are creating art?