I'm home from work today, sitting on the couch eating chocolate pudding, and watching movies--my faith in dentists (more specifically, oral surgeons) restored by Dr. Lechtenberg and his heavily-accented Eastern European assistant who needed only a few shots of novocaine and about 4 minutes to extract wisdom teeth #1 and #32.
breakfast, lunch, and dinner
5 years ago, a different oral surgeon spent the better part of an afternoon pulling, yanking, drilling, and breaking pieces of the other two wisdom teeth free, leaving me exhausted, sore, and vowing to cling to good ole #1 and #32 forever.
Eventually, on my (new) dentist's recommendation, I decided to give up the fight and went to see Dr. L. He told me ahead of time that I could listen to my iPod to help distract me, so I created an impressive playlist of songs that wouldn't make me freak out. While he only scheduled me for a 30-minute appointment, I prepared for the worst and had about 3 hours of music loaded. Truth be told: I have a very low tolerance for pain and, well, I'm kind of coward when it comes to things like this.
The Void
The first song ("Protection" by Massive Attack) was still playing when he said, "Okay, you're all set." Thank you, Dr. Lechtenberg. Thank you.
...tasty, tasty murder (link borrowed from The Silver Fox)
hobo nickname: Petey Lambhands
I haven't been posting much lately and I realized this past weekend, while LSB took photographs of me molding a mound of ground turkey into a loaf, that we have captured quite a few of those meatful moments over the past year.
the creation of loaf
So, I figured I that perhaps this was something to reflect upon and celebrate--a montage of meat, if you will.
sweet, spicy, and earnest
So, above and below are various photos of me as we make meatloaf, rack of lamb, and the famous Brady family spagetti sauce.
This has inspired me: everyone will be getting "meat of the month" calendars for Christmas this year.
Just about the only noteworthy thing to come from my brief visit to the Raleigh-Durham area (specifically: Durham) happened at the airport the morning of my return to Boston. Prior to this: I arrived, had a mediocre pulled-pork sandwich for lunch, stopped at Duke for a poorly-attended grad school fair, had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in a shopping plaza, and stayed at a perfectly-fine-yet-instantly-forgettable hotel. However, this morning I was a bit early for my flight, so I had a typical airport breakfast (a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and orange juice) and wandered about the terminal.
RDU is your average medium-sized airport with the usual variety of locally-themed gift stores (in this case, an Atlantic Coast Conference store offering sweatshirts, hats, and shot glasses from Duke, UNC, NC State, etc.), national-and-local chain restaurants, and cookie-cutter "newstands" selling gum, Doritos, postcards of things I didn't actually see, magnets of Carolina kitsch, travel items, and magazines.
After a few minutes of idle browsing up and down the Terminal, I spotted what appeared to be your average airport bookstore and decided to stop in before my plane was ready to board. Almost immediately, I noticed something unusual about the place. Instead of the tidy spread of shiny bestsellers and the obligatory table of Oprah-approved paperbacks, I noticed slightly tattered covers and random arrangements bordering on disorder. What is this: "Rare and Collectible?" Could it be true--a used bookstore in an airport!? In that one moment, Raleigh-Durham totally redeemed itself. Then it was time for Zone 3 to board...
