the root of all evil

I discovered the hard way that I am very, very allergic to fennel root. I had a lovely salad the other night at a Christmas party and ended up in the emergency room a few hours later. Anaphylactic shock, they call it. I'm fine now...just loaded up on drugs which make me stupid and tired.

Merry Christmas! :)

skills that pay the bills

My team at work had their year-end outing the other day. The day of fun included a trip to the bowling alley. And I held my own on the lane. How did I develop such bowling prowess? I took bowling as a PE class in college. It's true. It's one of the truly useful skills I learned in college. And don't get me wrong. I learned a lot of very cool and helpful things in college. But it is also very nice to be able to walk into a bowling alley after a four-year bowling hiatus and bowl a 150. Last time was a 186, so I'm slipping. I live about a half mile from a bowling alley so I ostensibly could go bowling at any time. Like, right now. Or now.

windstorm 2006

The local media outlets love to nickname our weather disasters. Snow Storm 2004. Ice Storm 2000. Typically the "storm" comes through with a sputter and the universal response is, "That's IT?!" This time was different. This was for real. Many of my friends and colleagues are without power and have been for a couple of days. They may be without power for up to a week. Trees are sitting in people's living rooms, and I don't mean the Christmas kind. Cars and houses are underwater; streets are flooded; Four people were sadly killed by weather-related accidents. I fared just fine. My lights flickered but I never lost power and my neighborhood had only a few downed trees. But my friend Lexi, who weathered the Houston hurricane last year reminded me to stock up on chocolate pudding and clam chowder, just in case, so I was well prepared.

laughing without gas

I had so much fun at the dentist today. Really! I went in for a filling that needed to be replaced and we were all braced for a crown prep. We knew there was a crack and unless the crack was just right, I'd have to get a crown on it. While he was getting my gum numb, my dentist told me hysterical dentist jokes and I had to work not to laugh. After the xrays, the whole staff came in to see my cool looking roots. Apparently my roots are very long and very curvy (I knew it wasn't in my legs!) and were quite fascinating to everyone. He removed the old filling and announced that we should all go buy lottery tickets and that we were doing a filling replacement. No crown. I was thrilled. A filling replacement has yet to turn into a root canal in my personal experience. It costs about $700 less than a crown. And it's a lot shorter and less uncomfortable. So, today my dentist is my hero. Thanks, Scott!

did you know?

The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.

"It wasn't me, officer. Didn't you see the koala bear running down the street?"
-Bill Armstrong