"Of All the Things I've Lost...

...I miss my mind the most."

-Mark Twain

Andy tells me that he, in fact, did not eat my "ghetto sock blockers."

I guess I have to take that as truth...but honestly, they must have developed space flight and taken off to lands unknown. I HAD three sets going...(10 wire hangers for 50 cents, if I remember correctly) now they are MIA! Along with all the wire hangers I had not converted yet. Did the ghost of Joan "no wire hangers" Crawford come and clean up my room while I was out of town? (If so, she forgot to dust and vacuum.)

The hangers are not the only thing I was running around looking for this past week. I simply cannot piece together a whole lotta things that I thought I'd "put in a safe place" before I left. I'm thinking of my checkbooks. If they didn't make my skin crawl, I'd love the idea of tracking devices for all your stuff. You know, kinda like being registered at Target or somesuch fancy place and going shelf to shelf scanning all the junk you want? Do the same at home! Then your BladeRunner-esque computer tracking system can tell you exactly what happened to that pen you JUST had in your hand!

I think I know just which brain cells died between my pre and post Italy trip. Who says drugs are the only things to damage your brain? I laugh heartily at them! Stress, travel, and information overload are just as deadly to those scorpion shaped neurons (they really are, look)!

Now, add to that what was supposed to be the dental appointment to deal with Phase 2/finish that little root canal thing I had BEFORE the trip...yep, my brain is puddy. Did I fail to mention this little bit?

Right, so last Tuesday, instead of making money, I spent some at my wonderful dentist's office. (He really is very nice and gentle, and not out to cause me physical pain...mental? Well, you'll see.) I was supposed to get my "bling" put in...the gold crown that I was still trying to figure out how I could afford after spending so much on the root canal itself. Dental insurance is a beautiful thing, I hear. I wouldn't know of such things personally.

Well ladies and gents, the tooth is so gone that there is not enough above the gumline to provide sufficient anchoring space for any crown. Right. Well. What this means is that I get to meet YET ANOTHER SPECIALIST! A gum surgeon. They are going to "lengthen" my #18 molar.

Did I already mention I was given permission by my previous dentist's wife to blame this whole debacle on my X? Have I already relayed to you all that if it hadn't been for him and his running off with his campaign manager and her two kids and making my life extraordinarily unpleasant on the Big Island of Hawai'i that I would have kept my next dental appointment and regular cleaning schedule and maybe, just MAYBE all this would have been caught before it all, literally, EXPLODED in my mouth?

AAAaaauuummm, big exhale, big inhale...

Right.
So, where was I? Yes, the gum specialist tacks on another $1400 to the current "how am I going to pay for this" neuron that is slowly growing and destroying weaker and happier cells in my overcrowded cranium, like where the hell I put those stupid sock blockers, check books, and maybe a secret chocolate stash... Not to mention that whole "oh my god they are going to cut out pieces of me" nightmare that is beginning to really freak me out.

At least my allergies are settling down...before I forget the memory, here's another Italy picture:

I am such a snot...we traveled to the medieval city of Erice to see a medieval castle and have lunch at a park from which, on a clear day, you could actually see Tunisia, Africa. This would be the view MJ and I had from our park bench. See everyone, Africa is right in front of you!