Dental Care

Going to the dentist has never been my favorite thing. But recently it has fallen so far down on the list that it has slipped into things I wish I never had to do again territory.

I have a new dentist. He is one of those early morning cheerful types. I am not one myself, but am familiar with the sort since I accidently married one. My previous dentist went and retired on me, but before he left he hand-picked this young, enthusiastic guy to inherit his patients. He enters the room with his mantra ‘let’s take good care of you” on his smiling lips, which are parted nicely to display his gleaming white teeth. And then he does. Take good care of us, I mean. Mostly.

This guy once told me he wanted to be a dentist since childhood. He has perfectionistic tendencies. He seems to know what he is doing. And the thing that won me over was when he noticed that my left jaw slips a little and can be painful. He watches that when he’s working and takes care not to let it happen. No other dentist in my long battle with cavities and caps has ever noticed that before. Ever.

And when one of my crowns broke he fit me in as an emergency, to take good care of me.

“I’m scheduled to have surgery next week,” I told him. “Life is really, really complicated right now. Is there anyway you can fix it so I don’t have to do a whole new crown right now?”

His face was full of concern. I heard the staff whispering like a chorus in the hallway: she’s having surgery next week, surgery next week, yes, indeed, surgery next week.

“Let’s take good care of you,” he said. And I must admit, he was my hero that day. He patched the tooth and did a little sanding here and a little sanding there and that old crown fit my mouth better than ever before.

But even good dentists have their days. And my last visit turned out to be one of them.

How bad was it? you may ask.

So bad that I was on my back in a fully reclined position for over three hours.

So bad that the newbie assistant didn’t notice that the cold water she was spraying in my mouth was not making it into the suction thingy but was instead running out the other side of my mouth and down my neck.

So bad that after about 2+ hours the Novocain was wearing off and, for the first time in my life, I had to raise my left hand and point to my mouth with the right to indicate that things were hurting more than I liked.

So bad that bits of the stuff she made me bite into to make a mold somehow ended up everywhere in my mouth, on my face and sprinkled over my clothes. It was swallow them or spit them into the blue paper napkin thing under my neck. I did not swallow them. (To her credit, she did offer me wet paper towels to wash my face.)

So bad that when Newbie handed me a mirror to look at the temporary crown she had labored over I had to ask her what is that pink spot? To which she replied: your gums were bleeding so much that it got mixed in with the acrylic and I tried to fix it but it didn’t work and I can make you a new one if you want.

So bad that the dentist caught me as I was escaping the room and put an Einstein Brothers Bagels gift card in my hand as he apologized profusely for the way they had taken good care of me.

And it is loaded up good, he added with his nice big smile as I headed out with my dripping hair and bleeding gums and new pink crown on my number 8 tooth, right there in the front.

So instead of going to pick up groceries as I had planned, I went home and showered and redid my hair. I put on clean clothes. I took some ibuprofen.

A week later, my mouth is still sore, and no matter how much I brush, my tooth is still pink. Can hardly wait for the follow up visit, so they can take good care of me again.

Madrone Forest Drive

Sanctuary stands at the end of a one-mile long dead end private road in the Sierra Nevada foothills. It is bounded on the west by what our neighbor calls the ‘hundred acre wood.’ Madrone Forest Drive has no streetlights. And, since it is heavily wooded, it gets really dark, really fast, once the sun goes down. Living up here feels like being out in the wild. We love it.

But truth be told, we aren’t really out in the wild. It is true, the hundred acre wood is home to deer and fox and skunks and wonderfully varied species of birds. A mama bear and her cub also consider it part of their territory. We know this not because we’ve actually seen them, but because they were captured on Ron’s webcam (at least the round rear portion of the mama) and because they stripped our apple tree of virtually all its apples last fall.  The deer love apples, too, so how do we know it was the bears who ate them, you may ask? The trunk of said tree bears (no pun intended) permanent, deep claw marks; many of the branches were broken by the weight of the climber; and we found, how shall I say this politely, big scat and little scat from someone big and someone small who enjoyed a meal of many, many fresh apples.

So you see, it has many of the makings of living in the wild. But, as we like to say, it is only 10 minutes to Panda Express. We had the good sense to consider the pitfalls of living out in the toolies as we age. We figure we’ve got the best of both worlds: the hundred acre wood and Panda Express.

Our first drive down Madrone Forest was following a heavy late spring snowfall. It had been plowed. The banks were quite high on each side of the serpentine road. The actual driving lane was down to one car at a time. Our realtor was confident she could get us down it with her four-wheel drive. I figured when the snow melted it would look like any other road. Imagine my surprise when we returned a month or so later after snow melt to find that it was still a narrow, one-lane road.

The etiquette of navigating this skinny strip of blacktop when meeting a car head on, we soon learned, is to ascertain who is closest to a spot that looks wide enough to sort of be a turn out and, if it is you, use it. Since there are abundant curves and trees right up to the edge of the asphalt blocking your view, this can actually be quite exhilarating at times. Nighttime only adds to the adventure. You actually get to use your brights (when does that ever happen living in San Diego, I ask you?) and it is common to have them catch the reflective tapetum lucidum[1] of various nocturnal creatures. How fun is that?

One of our humble road’s outstanding features is its quantity of road signs. In spite of the fact that the only people who drive on it are residents, guests of residents, and the occasional UPS or FedEx truck, the speed limit (15mph) is posted about 4 times both coming and going. We also have numerous ‘slow downs’ and speed bumps. (I’m telling you, those are a thrill when you hit them at 15 mph. Not.)

But my favorite sign hands down is the one that clearly states road narrows. I ask you: it’s already a one-lane road, how can it possibly get any narrower? We’d all have to drive Smart Cars.

As you may have figured out, Madrone Forest Drive is named because it works its way through the Madone forest. There are many other evergreen and deciduous trees as well. But the Madrones only grow at this elevation. Picture giant Manzanita, and you’ll have it just about right. Their bark is a gorgeous red color which sheds in the summer, looking kind of like they got too much sun and their skin is peeling. Their wood burns very hot, so we use it sparingly along with other wood in the stoves. Our neighbor to the east told us a story about loading up his large woodstove with Madrone to last them through the night and coming downstairs later to find it glowing red-hot. It actually warped that sturdy stove, so much so that they could no longer use the water reservoir.

These same neighbors had bees at one time. At least until a bear just couldn’t leave the honey alone and plundered their bee boxes. He (the neighbor, not the bear) said you haven’t tasted honey until you’ve had Madrone honey. He told us the woods used to be full of Madrone. But then a fungus or something came and they mostly got sick and had to be cut down. We have a circle of large Madrone stumps down by our back fence. They tend to grow in a cluster, their huge branches reaching up, up into the forest canopy to find the sun. We have some young ones growing on our place. But I wish there were more of the giants left.

Our neighbors to the south built a tree house in just such a stand of giant Madrone. Their property borders the Nevada County airport and, being airplane lovers and flyers, their tree house stands near the edge of the runway where they can enjoy the comings and goings of fellow pilots.

She invited me up last summer. An octogenarian herself, Bobsie cautioned me repeatedly as I climbed the steep ladder into her room-sized tree house, the way I would have done to one of my grandchildren. (Perhaps I wasn’t looking very sure-footed that day. Who knows.) It no longer has the magnificent canopy that used to provide a roof for her outdoor dinner parties, a victim of that deadly Madrone disease. But it is still an amazingly lovely place.

So we sat up there in the cool of the afternoon (she had hauled a whole set of freshly painted patio furniture up there using ropes), lazily watching planes land and take off, chatting about this and that, including the history of the building of their home here on Madrone Forest Drive more than 30 years ago. When she told her co-workers that she wanted to build an adult tree house, they did a double take and cried you want to build an ADULTERY HOUSE?? Bobsie whooped with laughter with the memory of it and I joined in, too. I tried the words adult tree house out loud, and sure enough, they rolled off my tongue sounding just like what her co-workers heard. Go ahead, try it. I dare you.

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[1] aka ‘glowing eyes’

National Asset

One afternoon many years ago, Ron and I were on layover in an airport somewhere in the middle of North America, waiting to catch the last leg of our journey home. Picture me walking several steps behind him, lugging my purse and carryon and jacket, as he leads the way towards two of those empty generic black seats. Suddenly he is stopped by a random man in the waiting area, and a conversation, mostly one-sided, ensues. I pull up and they continue talking with me awkwardly waiting…waiting…waiting for Ron to introduce me. He never does.

Finally Random Man turns to address me, glancing back at Ron with something that looks suspiciously like adoration in his eyes, and he says to me (in hushed tones), you know, your husband is a National Asset.

I can’t remember what I said. Probably nothing. I think I stood there with this completely stupid look on my face as I tried to process what in the world he was talking about and what an appropriate response would be to such a statement.

Eventually Random Man moves on and lets us proceed to the still empty black chairs.

“Why didn’t you introduce me to him?” I ask in a slightly peevish tone.

“I don’t know who he is,” National Asset replies, with a sheepish look on his face.

This may not be an appropriate place to quote Jesus, but He did say that a prophet is not without honor except among his own relatives and in his own home. And this comes to mind on the occasions when references to our very own National Asset come up. You see, unbelievably, this type of thing has happened more than once. Sometimes he is referred to as a national treasure, and sometimes as National Asset. But in either case, these stories tend to spark raucous laughter in the retelling.

Now, I would be the last, the absolute LAST, person to denigrate my husband. He is the most hardworking man I know. Not only is he amazingly skilled in his work, he is also kind to everyone. He never loses his temper. He always works to do the best job he can, without any thought for approval or gain or celebrity. He has worked equally hard for good bosses and bad bosses, and even for bosses who, due to an astonishingly odd system of regular reorganization, have no clue who he is or what he does.

To say our family is proud of him is like saying the sun is somewhat necessary for life on earth – an outrageous understatement.

But for some reason, incidents like the one described above just make me roll my eyes. To have total strangers (acting all giddy like they’ve just had a celebrity sighting) think they have some kind of duty to inform me that he is amazing - the man whose hankies I iron and whose hair I cut out in the backyard with an old tablecloth wrapped around his shoulders - well, it just seems bizarre.

They know a man who can stand in front of large crowds of very talented and intelligent folk and wow them with the way he articulates complex concepts with clarity and humor. They recognize the achievements of a life spent pursuing new ways of looking at things, of asking questions and chasing solutions. And yes, he probably does qualify as a national treasure or asset. But even if the shoe fits, it does tend to bring to mind the image of Nicholas Cage chasing madly after clues in search of, well, a treasure.

The man I know is indeed a treasure, but of a different kind. He was the first person in my life who actually loved listening to me make music. He’d find me in the choir room or chapel and quietly take a seat as I practiced piano after school. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but I trace the sweet, delicate beginning of a lifetime of loving back to those afternoons.

After Ron graduated high school and I was slogging through my senior year, my locker became our secret mail drop. I’d spin the dial on the lock each morning and open it up to find a note waiting for me, which I would then carry around in my pocket all day. Before closing up my locker at end of day a new note, in my handwriting this time, waited expectantly for pickup. I still have those notes. I’ve saved them all, like a dried bouquet of flowers that just cannot be thrown away.

So I guess the reason I find the designation of National Asset laugh-out-loud funny is because it seems pretentious and, well, gaudy. The very things Ron emphatically is not. But it does have one redeeming quality: our family finds endless delight in the value of this term for teasing purposes. And having a reason to laugh together is not a bad thing at all.

Courage, Perseverance And Faith

Daniel is a great book to read. I think it may very well be my favorite in the Old Testament. In spite of being hauled away into exile in a foreign country, where they couldn’t even retain the identity of their own language and the names given to them by their parents, young Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah held firm to their God.

I have always admired the courage it took to stand before such powerful rulers and politely refuse to deny their God when the consequence was being burned to death or eaten by lions. I have loved learning, from their experiences, that God truly is omnipotent and that He intervenes on behalf of those He loves.

I like to think that the faith I have in God is durable. That it will persevere through whatever trouble He allows or orchestrates in my life. That I will always face adversity with courage.

The truth is, I don’t always meet bad news the way I would like to. And when bad news is followed by bad news, and then MORE bad news, perseverance becomes a matter of will over weariness rather than my idealized version of courage. You know, the kind where a wounded Eowyn picks up her sword to face evil, says I am no man! and slays the nazgul.

Today my ‘nazgul’ is mold. You’d think bad news would get easier to hear with practice. The reality is that each round of bad news needs to be greeted with fresh courage. Newt Gingrich has said: Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.

I’m tired of mold. The flooding of Sanctuary’s main house was bad enough. Having everything inside brought outside - ruined things, saved things, personal things – was bad. Losing pieces of our eclectic collection of thrift and antique store treasures and family heirlooms and musical instruments was bad. Having the air inside so poisonous that we had to wear HAZMAT masks to enter was bad. Watching the walls, ceilings, floorings ripped out was bad. Having men suited up like astronauts so they could spread more poison, this time to kill the mold, was bad. And just when I thought we’d made it past the deconstruction of Sanctuary, I’m told the mold hasn’t been eradicated after all.

So, yes, I’m tired of mold. But this morning, not long before they broke the news that the air is still bad in the big house, I read from the book of Daniel, chapter 7.

But the saints of the Highest One will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, for all ages to come (verse 18).

I kept looking, and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom (verses 21-22).

It kind of sounds like something from the Lord Of The Rings. And I am reminded that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

Sanctuary, though it has been the dream of my heart for almost as long as I can remember, is not the kingdom referred to in the book of Daniel. We just want it to be a little taste of the goodness that is to come for everyone who graces us with their company.

A place of rest and refreshment.

A place to regain courage and perseverance and faith when things have been tough.

A place that is good enough to help us in the cosmic war that is being waged against the saints.

But a place that doesn’t claim to be that Kingdom which we will one day take possession of only by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I don’t know if we will need such things as courage, perseverance and faith in that eternal Kingdom where Jesus reigns. But today, when I am tired of mold, knowing that there is such a place where I will laugh at such things, or perhaps have no memory of them at all, gives me courage to persevere.

And that is not a bad thing.