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Well, I had intended on posting entries here more often, but here I am on a Saturday night, not having written anything here since Monday. What can I say... a busy week... yeah, as usual... On Wednesday morning I spent quite a bit of time with my mouth open while my periodontist was busy drilling into my jaw during the process of installing two dental implants (essentially, a pair of titanium screws) as part of the process of replacing the two teeth I had extracted back in December. He had done some bone grafting there immediately following the extraction and when he had checked the site a few weeks ago he had determined that I was now reading for the implants. However, because my jaw bone was not quite thick enough, so he had to do a sinus lift procedure (don't follow that link if you don't care to know too much about medical procedures) -- essentially that means pushing up the floor of the sinus just above the jaw bone and filling in that indentation with bone grafting, and then installing the titanium screws. In a few months, assuming proper osseointegration, I will be passed on to my general practitioner dentist to have two crowns installed. (I already have two dental implants and in both cases I was very happy with the results.) Despite my familiarity with invasive dental procedures, I always seem to anticipate something as easy as getting a cavity filled and end up being surprised when, afterwards, I feel as if I had just had surgery. (Duh, dummy, you just did have surgery.) So I went back home expecting to do a normal afternoon's work. After a while, however, I got smart and e-mailed my colleagues to say I was logging off the network, recorded four hours of sick leave on the time accounting system, and took a nap. Felt fine on Thursday and Friday except I was very busy juggling my usual work plus a couple of quickie projects. Uh... and also at lunchtime on Friday I had to go in to the library to set things up for today's book sale ("Friends of the library...") and I got there a few minutes before noon and none of the four or five people I had expected to show up to help were there... so I just set to work, figuring they would be along soon. Nope. (Yes, Diane, a learning experience -- now I know why, when you were running the book sales, you always made sure to get explicit statements from people about what time they were coming, etc. Next sale I will make sure to have an exact knowledge of who can show up at what time for how long.) So I was moving dozens and dozens of boxes of books from the store room to the meeting room where we were having the sale... and about quarter past two, as school was letting out, I kidnapped Nancy and brought her over to help me arrange the books on the tables and shelves. So, despite having started my work day a bit past six a.m. so that I could manage a long lunch, by the time we got back home, I ended up not being able to finish work until around 6:30 p.m. (One of my missing helpers had mistaken the scheduled time of the set up project and had showed up at the library at 4:30 wondering where everyone else was.) But we had a very successful book sale today -- with a full work crew for the entire time -- very busy all morning until the overcast skies cleared around noon and it became a bright sunny day, after which the pace of business slowed for the last two hours. (Our sales are always from 9 am until 2 pm.) The proceeds from the sale were just short of a thousand dollars. People donate books to the Friends of the Library to be used in our sales, books by the bagful, both hardcover and paperback. Our prices are quite low -- which also enables people on limited incomes to purchase lots of books: fifty cents for children's books, fifty cents for adult paperbacks, and one dollar for hardcover, except for a couple dozen very nice books (such as lavishly illustrated "coffee table" art or travel books) that we put on a special table for anywhere from two to eight dollars. We also get lots of movies, etc., for which we ask fifty cents for VHS tapes, one dollar for CDs and audio books, and two dollars for DVDs. I was really tired when I got home this afternoon... well, five hours of standing and walking then some brisk exercise cleaning up, boxing up the leftover books (thirty boxes of books we donated to another charitable organization, the rest went into our storeroom to start the collection for our next book sale in a few months)... came home, grabbed a quick snack, did some home chores, went to the supermarket, came home, fixed dinner (chicken stir fry)... and came in here to write this entry. No run... I had asked my periodontist on Wednesday if I could go running that afternoon. He laughed and said "Maybe, if you feel good, you can go for a walk on Friday." So I figured on going for a run on Friday but ended up with no time. (Yes, I know I got lots of exercise carrying those books, but it wasn't running.) So I've got to make sure I go for a run on Sunday. Jill is so far ahead of me in her training. She ran ten miles today (to the train station and back, which is just a block or two short of eight miles followed by two one-mile loops of our neighborhood and on past our house and into the next block. So now she has about seven weeks to work on strength and speed. Me? I've got seven weeks (actually seven weeks from yesterday) to get myself from jogging three miles to running ten miles... except she's 27 and I'm 66. Yeah, I'm really, really impressed by her running efforts this spring. (The ten miles in question is the annual Blessing of the Fleet 10-mile road race -- July 24th this year.) And let us not forget what feats of courage and bravery our veterans performed on the Normandy beaches on this date....
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