Tuesday, June 28

A severe thunderstorm, with lightening, thunder, and high winds cropped up at 6:30 this morning. The storm was already in full swing by the time we received a phone call from a TV station weatherman, warning us of it.

There was no sleeping after that, so we got up. I skipped my exercises, so I could get ready to go to the capital city to meet an appointment with my periodontist. I wouldn't have gotten on the treadmill, anyway, with a storm raging.

Daughter and three great-grandchildren arrived around 9 a.m., just after the storm stopped. They came to stay with Mother, and take care of Shih Tzu, while we were gone.

Before we left, I gathered story books, coloring books, and crafting materials for the kids. Around 10 a.m., we headed out. The farther we traveled, the rainier it got. By the time we arrived in the city, it was stormy and raining hard, but it slacked off enough to allow us to get into a restaurant without getting wet.

I'm glad I had the foresight to take a sweater with me, because the Italian restaurant was cold enough to hang meat, as the saying goes. Hubbie, however, shivered in his short sleeves. He never thinks he needs long sleeves in the summer, even though this isn't the first time he's shivered in a restaurant.

For lunch, we chose soup, salad and bread sticks. As we were eating, our waitress passed by with a huge hunk of chocolate cake for the birthday honoree at the next table. I practically drooled.

The next time the waitress stopped at our table, Hubbie said, "You nearly gave my wife a heart attack."

"What did I do?" the waitress asked anxiously.

"You walked past her with that chocolate cake," he laughed.

"I wanted to wrestle you to the ground for it," I grinned.

The waitress laughed, relieved that she hadn't in some way displeased us, and later brought me several pieces of chocolate mint candies. Upon request, she also brought us carafes of regular and decaf coffees. It took her a while to get the coffees to our table, because she had to make fresh pots of it. We didn't drink all of the coffee, so she offered to bring take-out cups for it. A few minutes later, she returned to the table with lids only, because, she said, whoever ordered the lids failed to order cups to go with them. We all broke laughing about this.

We enjoyed two helpings of the soups. Extra bread sticks were provided with the second helpings, but we were unable to eat them, so the waitress brought us bags for the bread that can go into the oven for reheating.

After lunch, we went across town to the area where the periodontist office is located, but since it was too early for my appointment, we stopped by a scrapbook supplies store to browse. Well, I browsed...obviously, Hubbie wasn't interested. But he was interested in a ball of white fluff in the form of a four-month-old Maltese puppy that enthusiastically greeted us as we entered the store.

Hubbie played with and cuddled the pup, while I shopped. I wasn't really looking for anything special, but I did run across a card of first-baby-tooth-lost stickers, and an on-sale rubber stamp that I purchased. I was glad to find the stickers, since I'd been looking for some to complete a scrapbook page of Great-Granddaughter losing her first tooth while she was visiting us a few months ago.

At the periodontist office, a new hygienist cleaned my teeth, because my regular one has been out sick for several weeks. The new hygienist remarked that my mouth was the cleanest she'd worked on today.

That was the good news. The bad news came from the periodontist, who said one of my jaw teeth must be removed, and another in the front needs deep cleaning, a procedure that requires an anesthetic. Naturally, this is an expensive procedure that will make my mouth sore for a time.

Since the situation isn't an emergency, I have time to plan for it. So I'll probably wait until summer activities are over, and set a time in the fall to have it done.

I think I managed to peeve the periodontist, because I asked if I should talk with my regular dentist here in town about it. "You can talk to him if you want to," he snapped, "but I'm the periodontist, and I know what should be done," and he walked out of the exam room.

Well, I didn't mean to imply he didn't know his job. I only wondered if he agreed that I should keep my regular dentist in the loop.

He left in such a huff that I didn't have the opportunity to ask him about the timing of the procedure, or how much it would cost. The hygienist and the receptionist helped me get that info.

This periodontist is a rather abrupt person on his best day, but he upped the ante today. Earlier, the hygienist said he was at the hospital with a patient. I'm thinking the patient might be a friend or relative. So maybe he was worried and took it out on me. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Doctors, however, tend to have superiority complexes. Granted, they spend a lot of time, money, and energy becoming physicians, but I pay dearly for their services...they are hired by me, and they can be fired by me.

We were ready to head home around 3 p.m. No sooner did we get on the freeway than it began storming again and rained hard until we were within forty minutes of our town. We got back at 4:30.

The kids were hungry and past ready to have supper, so we didn't delay in getting the meal on the table. Earlier, I'd called Mother, and we planned a supper of a choice of hamburgers, turkey burgers, or hot dogs, with macaroni and cheese, and salad. My original plan was salmon chowder, but I knew the kids wouldn't like that.

Following supper, Daughter, Hubbie, and the kids enjoyed Girl Scout cookies, and ice cream topped with blackberries. We visited for a while after that, before Daughter and the kids were ready to go home.

Mother went home, too, and Hubbie and I settled in to watch the 2007 Sundance film, "Dark Matter," starring Meryl Streep, and Aidan Quinn. This movie is loosely based on the actual events of a Chinese graduate student, whose theories about the origins of the universe are not accepted, and are even trivialized, by a panel of prominent scientists. One of the scientists, especially, tries to throw the student off course, because the student's ideas directly threaten his own theories. After being academically knocked down several times, the student goes on a rampage.

The second movie we watched was the 2010 Lifetime Movie Network feature, "The Devil's Teardrop." A serial killer threatens Washington, D.C., and the only clue is a handwritten note. So a handwriting expert is called in to help on the case.