A Gray Day

It's been a hell of a week, and it's only Tuesday.

I'm mainly stuck between two points of stress: First is job stress, as work has been extremely hectic lately, jumping right over the frying pan and into the fire as soon as I came back from my vacation.

Second is home stress, as Debbi is going to move in before the end of the year, and we are trying to figure out the logistics of that, the immediate piece of work being to rip out the shelving in my closet and replace it with more efficient shelving. Which means doing some spackling and painting, and then buying and installing the shelving.

I think we've basically decided on getting wall-mounted shelving from Storables. My friend Syd has very similar shelving from OSH, although we like the selection and styles at Storables better. But the principles are the same: A mounting bracket running along the top of the closet screwed to the wall studs, and then vertical posts hanging from that which the shelves attach to. I guess it's extremely strong - Syd says he's stood on his shelves after they were installed - but I feel a little skeptical. But since I don't plan to stand on them, hopefully they will simply be strong enough to hold the weight of the shelves and our clothes (and the occasional cat who jumps up on them).

But still. It's a lot of work, both at work and at home.

On top of that, I've had several other little things go wrong lately.

For instance, I got a bill from my tax preparer saying that I was 120 days overdue paying them for preparing my 2004 taxes. I checked my records, and they seem to be right. I don't know whether I never received their bill the first time, or if I forgot to pay it. This was not a big deal, but it was annoying.

Today was considerably more annoying: I decided to bike into work in the morning, which went well enough. Although they had a sign up at the fitness center which said that they were out of towels - their dryer had broken. Argh! But I guess they got it working again and a few towels started to trickle out shortly after I got there, so I didn't have to drip-dry from my shower.

Then, at lunch I got a chicken-BLT sandwich, took a bite from it, and thought, "Hmm, something doesn't feel right."

Longtime readers may dimly recall that five years ago I got a couple of crowns. One of these is what's actually called a veneer on one of my two upper front teeth. Contrary to what my old journal entry says, I was never entirely happy with getting this veneer, and my attitude towards that dentist colored considerably as I had serious trouble with their billing process. However, I've never had any problem with either the crown or the veneer.

I had a problem today, though: The veneer came right off when I bit into the sandwich. I suspect the bacon was rather overcooked, but still, the veneer had clearly lost its bond if it came off that easily.

Fortunately, my dentist (this one I like a lot, and know quite a few people who personally use him and like him) had time this afternoon for me to come in and get it reattached. Unfortunately, as I had biked in, this meant that I had to have someone drive me home to get my car, so I could make the appointment. Arrgh.

The appointment itself was fairly straightforward. He did have to use a dental laser (!!) to clean the old bonding material from the veneer and the tooth (which meant numbing up the tooth), but otherwise it was pretty easy. He also warned me that it's possible that this bond may not be as strong as the first one, and if the veneer comes off again then I may need to get a new veneer made.

So I'm going to be pretty paranoid about this veneer for a while. I mean, what if it comes off while I'm away on vacation? What a pain that would be! But hopefully it will hang in there for years to come. And this may be the straw which finally gets me to stop biting my fingernails. (Or is that too much information?)

By the way, I did actually fall asleep in the dentist's chair once he'd finished with the laser and was just placing the veneer. He says this is a good sign, that I'm getting pretty comfortable with being at the dentist.

If there was a silver lining to all of this, it's this: We actually had thunderstorms today! And they had actually been predicted in the paper! Which I hadn't read before leaving the house in the morning! So I'd have had to go get my car or get a lift home in any event. And the thunder and rain was nice (I love thunder and rainfall).

I definitely need to get to a point where I can lower my stress level, though.