Category: Friends

An Unusual Day Off

I’m home today on a sick day – even though I’m not sick. No, I’m not abusing the system: Debbi had oral surgery this morning, the second of three she’s having this year. The first was to remove her wisdom teeth and a baby tooth that never came out, the second is a bone graft to build up the jaw under the removed baby tooth, and the third will add an implant to replace the removed baby tooth.

Since she’s being put under for these surgeries, she can’t drive herself to and from the surgeon, so I drive here there and back, and then I stick around for the afternoon to make things easier for her during her first day back, when she’s in the most pain and probably the most exhausted as her body gets over the shock. And taking care of a family member is a legitimate reason to take a sick day.

Debbi really hates going to the dentist, but we have a terrific dentist (who came highly recommended, and to whom we’ve sent many of our friends), and her oral surgeon – she says – is just as good. So she’s been very brave going through all of this. I think the experience has not been as bad as she’s feared; it’s not pleasant, but she’s able to take care of herself after the first day. She’s taking most (maybe all) of the week off anyway. She’ll certainly be out through Thursday, based on how the first surgery went. It’s just a lot to recover from. Plus she has to stick to liquid and then soft foods for several weeks, which might be the worst part of the whole thing. Over the weekend we stocked up on yogurt and fruits to make smoothies.

It’s sometimes hard to believe that those tiny things in our mouths can require so much care and be so expensive to care for, and yet we certainly want to keep them in good working order.

Anyway, Debbi’s on the couch listening to a book-on-CD through the stereo (she’s finishing up the Sue Grafton mysteries). She’ll probably be zonked until the evening. I’ve been puttering around and keeping the cats more-or-less entertained (they’d probably tell you “less”, but they are unreliable witnesses and are not to be trusted).

Couldn’t ask for a nicer day to take it easy, though: It’s sunny and about 70 out right now, with an occasional breeze. I might go read up on the porch this afternoon.

Dream Job

Back in college there was a guy a couple doors down from me in the dorm who had interned at Apple for a summer or two. I remember thinking, “Gee, I wonder if I’ll ever be a good enough programmer to work at Apple?” Working at Apple was the dream job for a lot of programmers in those days (and still is for a lot of people these days). I’ve been working at Apple for 8 years now, and it is a great job.

Everyone wants to work somewhere where they’re basically pursuing one of their hobbies at the same time. And on that count it’s hard to beat where my friend Keith is going. Keith founded (or at least co-founded) my fantasy baseball league, which I’ve been in since he recruited me in 1999, and now he’s upgrading to “reality baseball”.

And really, can you have a better dream job than that?

Congratulations, Keith!

Extractions

I should expand a little on that last entry:

Debbi learned recently that she should have her remaining wisdom teeth extracted. Moreover, she has a baby tooth which never fell out and which has cracked, and also needed to be pulled. So she scheduled an appointment for this morning to have all this done, as well as to put in a post for a future implant to replace the baby tooth. It was rather clever of her to schedule it for now, since she’s had our trip to DisneyWorld and then Karen’s visit to distract her, and she didn’t really start getting nervous (or didn’t talk about it) until last night.

The appointment was for 8 this morning, so I drove her in and then came home for breakfast. Then I drove back an hour later to pick her up. The extractions went fine, but she needs to get two bone grafts in her jaw for the post, so she got one this morning, and will get the next in a couple of months, and then will get the post probably a couple of months after that. And then the full implant probably six months after that, if I remember all the details. Quite a pain, but what can you do? (The implant, by the way, is much more expensive than the extractions were. Amazing how these tiny little things are so pricy to care for.)

Debbi’s home now. She sat on the couch and read this morning, and then the numbness started wearing off. She got some drugs from the doctor, took some, had some lunch, and has mostly been sleeping since then. She says she was more alert when she came out of the anaesthesia than she’d expected, and has not been as uncomfortable as she’d expected. And since I still have all of my teeth (and will probably have them until I die, if I take care of them), I had no idea what she should expect. But it’s gone pretty well, I think.

She’s taken the whole week off for this, and she’ll surely need at least the first three days for her body to recover. The trauma alone has probably got her laid low for today and maybe tomorrow. I’m home today to take care of her (company policy allows me to take time off to care for sick family members – which makes sense, since otherwise how would parents cope?), but it’s back to work for me tomorrow!

Debbi really, really, reallyreallyreally hates the dentist. She’s been a real trooper through this whole thing.

Beach Day

When talking about the shaky housing market these days, people in the Bay Area are naturally wondering how the market will shake out here. But we do have an intrinsic advantage that goes beyond the employment and cultural opportunities here: On a Saturday in the middle of March you can go over to the ocean and walk along the beach wearing just a light jacket.

My friend Karen has been visiting this week, staying with us but mostly here for business. She finished up the bulk of her work on Thursday, so Friday we went out and gorged ourselves on food, and then Saturday we headed over the hills to Half Moon Bay. We had brunch at one of my favorite breakfast places, the Main Street Grill downtown. We were initially surprised because we went by their storefront and it was empty – cleaned out down to the booths and stools! But it turns out they just moved a block down the street into a large venue which had been the home of the competing diner. Whew! The people and food are just the same, so overall I’d say it’s a win, and they’re still busy enough that a few people who came in after us had to wait for seats.

We spent over an hour shopping downtown; for whatever reason Karen happens to have great success finding things in the little shops and bookstores in downtown. In particular we spent quite a while in the Moon News Bookstore, which is one of those rare independent bookstores which pulls out all the stops in presentation and recommendation of the books it carries – a quantity over quality approach.

Downtown is actually experiencing a lot of turnover: Other than the second diner that went under, a travel clothing store is moving out-of-state, and several boutiques have turned over since our last visit (which must have been late last year). Some turnover is a good thing for consumers I think, but of course it’s a good thing only up until one of your favorites stores goes out of business. But at least new stores keep springing up, which means that Half Moon Bay isn’t moribund and is still in some demand.

After that we drove over to the beaches south of Pillar Point Harbor where we walked along the beach for a while. I was chilly and overcast, but not really so bad if you had a jacket on. Try that in New England this month, people! We walked north towards the harbor before turning around to walk along the trail which runs above the beaches to head back to the car. (I had thought there used to be a bookstore in that vicinity, but either I was mistaken or else it’s gone under. Ah, well!)

So after a view of the ocean, of the various coastside plants that are flowering at this time of year, and a brief encounter with a kitty-cat, we piled back into the car, picked up some coffee, and drove back home.

A great outing. I don’t know why we don’t do this more often.