13. Weather, teeth, running shoes

This morning it was warm and foggy in Missoula. Some people were wearing hats and gloves, some people weren't. Two people were walking across the river smoking a pipe and one of them said, "Is that how you can tell the people who were born here?" and the other said, "Yup." They were trying to draw some sort of birthplace/hardiness correlation, but they did not take stupidity or frizzy hair into account.

These days all I can do is wait until it's bedtime again. That's because I'm so excited to brush my teeth. I have a new toothpaste, you see, a very fancy toothpaste. It's so fancy it's available only by prescription. It's so fancy it's not even called toothpaste, it's dentifrice.

Yes, I have gone to the dentist, after two and a half years of not going to the dentist. I have a very fancy dentist. It's not like having a dentist at all, actually, it's like having a family of dentists. At my first visit, one of them did all this stuff to me, and then another one came in and did more stuff. He was the Head Dentist and he is in love with my teeth. He was very complimentary and then he tried to sell me a very fancy and expensive mouth guard. I said I'd think about it, even though I didn't intend to think about it at all.

I left for a couple weeks and then went back for another dentist visit. The person I visited with this time was not so in love with my teeth and she spent an hour doing pretty mean things, like poking needles into my gums to see if they'd bleed. They did. But she gave me the fancy toothpaste and told me to come back in six months. She told me to stop brushing so hard and she gave me a fairy-soft toothbrush. The good thing about having a family of dentists is that they don't know who's already given you a toothbrush, so now I have two fairy-soft toothbrushes, ha! They are both mauve.

I now have two of nearly everything: two toothbrushes, two stereos, two houses, for a minute today I had two car batteries. My two current pairs of running shoes are both nearing the end of their useful lives and will need to be replaced soon. Hopefully I'll be able to find some red ones.