Teeth are important and I do try to take care of mine but genetically, I have been "blessed" with less than optimal teeth, hair, nails. Hair is thinning, nails rip and tear off anytime I look askance at them, and teeth like to crack. So there are a lot of crowns - fillings - and even a few caps in there, and one implant. Otherwise, my teeth are still my own so not doing too badly at my age, I guess.
My teeth have personality and minds of their own. They have made it a point to always give me grief when I travel. Is it because they know I am eating strange foods, or they know there is a dentist close by that might not have been trained in hygiene? Whatever the reason, during the last two or three years (and yes, I do travel a lot), I can count on something going wrong inside my mouth either during the trip or immediately before the trip. On occasion, my teeth have messed up the timing - giving me enough opportunity to run to a dentist and get it fixed before I go. Today they have caught me out as we're leaving on holiday tonight and one of my fillings is broken.
Is it possible that dentists are like many manufacturers these day in that they build in obsoleteness into your fillings and crowns so that you have to come back for more? Or are my teeth really sentient on their own and hate to travel while most of my other body parts love it. Whatever it is, for the next two weeks, I must remember to chew only on one side of my mouth, keep my tongue from exploring the broken bit, and hope that it doesn't get worse before my return.
Showing posts with label expats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label expats. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Loving the Deliveries
Ever since the prairie days in the U.S.A. and the Wells Fargo stagecoach came rolling across the plains once a month or so, it has been exciting and a big joy to get packages delivered to your door. Well of course, I'm not that old that I actually experienced the Wells Fargo wagon but I did love the song in "The Music Man" and the image that it provoked. Now it is just as much fun to get packages delivered even if it is the Royal Mail, Fed Ex, UPS, DPD, or someone in a station wagon or car. And even when you know what it is, it is still just a bit exciting and fun to open a package and see your new possession nestled snug in it's miles of wadded up brown paper or rolls of puffed up air wrap.
I have taken to getting things delivered like duck to water. You can get almost anything delivered to your door and don't always have to be home either to get it. Most stores will provide a delivery of some sort and their on line shopping is almost as good and sometimes maybe even a little better than wandering the aisles and trying to find your items. Tesco, Waitrose, Ocado, Graze, Hello Fresh, laundry service, B&Q, Longacres, John Lewis, Just Eat, gourmet food delivery, diet craze, fish mongers, dairy products, American Food Stores, newspapers (natch) and the list goes on and on with the different business that will come to your door and bring your heart's desire. I have embraced it so wholeheartedly that there could be weeks pass before I need to step foot into a mall.
However, I try not to let that happen because I do still enjoy a good mall and a good stroll around the High Street. The problem with the home delivery is that it's really too easy to sit at your computer and check off things to have brought to the house. I can easily hit over 100 pounds with Tesco in just a few minutes. So I try to limit my on line shopping to stuff that's harder for me to carry by myself, like stocking up on water (did this when all the flooding started here just in case) or cat litter, or diet drinks. That kind of thing.
But it is hard to resist. Amazon has their "subscribe and save" service where you can sign up to get certain things delivered every month or other month, etc. I have done this with several items we use on a regular basis. I can get our cat food and diet sodas there at a cheaper price than buying them at the store. But yesterday I might have gone over the tilt meter just a tad. My deliveries arrived almost at once. They had to be passing each other in the driveway. Amazon came with all my drinks and cat food (once a month), then some things I had ordered for Valentine's day, then some wonderful must have items from ebay and then etsy, and finally my Hello Fresh box (provides 3 meals, recipes, and ingredients to cook. rather clever and fun to try new things). And Wednesday is my fish monger day as well. My front door should have been on automatic open yesterday. I can see me getting older and older and never stepping a foot outside the door as the world is brought to me. The potential is there. I just love the deliveries.
I have taken to getting things delivered like duck to water. You can get almost anything delivered to your door and don't always have to be home either to get it. Most stores will provide a delivery of some sort and their on line shopping is almost as good and sometimes maybe even a little better than wandering the aisles and trying to find your items. Tesco, Waitrose, Ocado, Graze, Hello Fresh, laundry service, B&Q, Longacres, John Lewis, Just Eat, gourmet food delivery, diet craze, fish mongers, dairy products, American Food Stores, newspapers (natch) and the list goes on and on with the different business that will come to your door and bring your heart's desire. I have embraced it so wholeheartedly that there could be weeks pass before I need to step foot into a mall.
However, I try not to let that happen because I do still enjoy a good mall and a good stroll around the High Street. The problem with the home delivery is that it's really too easy to sit at your computer and check off things to have brought to the house. I can easily hit over 100 pounds with Tesco in just a few minutes. So I try to limit my on line shopping to stuff that's harder for me to carry by myself, like stocking up on water (did this when all the flooding started here just in case) or cat litter, or diet drinks. That kind of thing.
But it is hard to resist. Amazon has their "subscribe and save" service where you can sign up to get certain things delivered every month or other month, etc. I have done this with several items we use on a regular basis. I can get our cat food and diet sodas there at a cheaper price than buying them at the store. But yesterday I might have gone over the tilt meter just a tad. My deliveries arrived almost at once. They had to be passing each other in the driveway. Amazon came with all my drinks and cat food (once a month), then some things I had ordered for Valentine's day, then some wonderful must have items from ebay and then etsy, and finally my Hello Fresh box (provides 3 meals, recipes, and ingredients to cook. rather clever and fun to try new things). And Wednesday is my fish monger day as well. My front door should have been on automatic open yesterday. I can see me getting older and older and never stepping a foot outside the door as the world is brought to me. The potential is there. I just love the deliveries.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Changing Light Bulbs and Moving Furniture
Our rental house has a "big room" which is the garage that was made into a living room. It's a wonderful room and where we spend a good deal of time. It has a very high ceiling and around the room are lights at what would be a "roof" level were it still a garage. These lights are controlled by 3 separate switches, 3 on a switch. We rarely have them all on at once because I think we could suntan if they were all running. Changing the light bulbs in any of them is a chore, adventure, hard task, difficult, etc. and you get the picture. So unless more than one is out in a set of three, we just ignore it. Very chagrined last week that all three lights in our favorite set had burned out. Dang. That really meant that we were going to have to change some light bulbs.
We got our ladder and standing on the top rung, we can just about reach the light to take off the cover and then reach in and take off the glass cover over the bulb and then pull out the bulb. This is all by feel. As this particular light series has a switch on either side of the room, we couldn't tell if it was on or off. We thought off. Blast but we were wrong after I got a second small shock. So hubby fixed that problem by just flipping the breaker.
We fiddled and fiddled and fiddled and fiddled and there was just no way we could get the blasted new bulb into this light socket. Totally by feel and stretched to the limit wasn't working. It is way too complicated, albeit a lovely fixture and quite stunning a decor, but way too complicated to continue to try and fit in the light bulb by feel only plus we had to do three of them. So the ladder is out. If we stand on the buffet which was a bit taller than the fourth ladder rung, it might be enough to see and reach. So we dragged the buffet over to under the first light and I climbed up on top of the buffet. It put me a bit closer but not enough to see over the edge and into the light socket.
Next step of course is putting a footstool on top of the buffet and climbing onto the footstool. YEA! Tall enough now and I can see into the light socket. Fiddle and fiddle and a few more fiddles and I get the light bulb into the socket and we check it by flipping the breaker again and turning on the switch. Yes, it works. Two more to go.
Now we have to move the sofa and the two end tables so we can move the buffet to the next light. Back up onto the sofa, step onto the buffet, step onto the foot stool and yes, I can reach this one too and it doesn't take very long to change the light bulb on this one. For the last one, we have to move the recliner and some baskets, move the buffet over a bit further, step back up onto the sofa, onto the buffet and onto the foot stool and viola! Light bulb changing is a snap once you can reach it and see it.
Took us 45 minutes of messing around with the ladder and trying to reach and do it all by feel and didn't change a single bulb. Took us 20 minutes of moving furniture to change all three of them. Did not rearrange the furniture but then put it all back the way it was as it was in the best arrangement for our lighting situation. We did find several missing cat toys under the various furniture pieces. Ahh, always a good weekend when hard to do chores are finished and completed.
We got our ladder and standing on the top rung, we can just about reach the light to take off the cover and then reach in and take off the glass cover over the bulb and then pull out the bulb. This is all by feel. As this particular light series has a switch on either side of the room, we couldn't tell if it was on or off. We thought off. Blast but we were wrong after I got a second small shock. So hubby fixed that problem by just flipping the breaker.
We fiddled and fiddled and fiddled and fiddled and there was just no way we could get the blasted new bulb into this light socket. Totally by feel and stretched to the limit wasn't working. It is way too complicated, albeit a lovely fixture and quite stunning a decor, but way too complicated to continue to try and fit in the light bulb by feel only plus we had to do three of them. So the ladder is out. If we stand on the buffet which was a bit taller than the fourth ladder rung, it might be enough to see and reach. So we dragged the buffet over to under the first light and I climbed up on top of the buffet. It put me a bit closer but not enough to see over the edge and into the light socket.
Next step of course is putting a footstool on top of the buffet and climbing onto the footstool. YEA! Tall enough now and I can see into the light socket. Fiddle and fiddle and a few more fiddles and I get the light bulb into the socket and we check it by flipping the breaker again and turning on the switch. Yes, it works. Two more to go.
Now we have to move the sofa and the two end tables so we can move the buffet to the next light. Back up onto the sofa, step onto the buffet, step onto the foot stool and yes, I can reach this one too and it doesn't take very long to change the light bulb on this one. For the last one, we have to move the recliner and some baskets, move the buffet over a bit further, step back up onto the sofa, onto the buffet and onto the foot stool and viola! Light bulb changing is a snap once you can reach it and see it.
Took us 45 minutes of messing around with the ladder and trying to reach and do it all by feel and didn't change a single bulb. Took us 20 minutes of moving furniture to change all three of them. Did not rearrange the furniture but then put it all back the way it was as it was in the best arrangement for our lighting situation. We did find several missing cat toys under the various furniture pieces. Ahh, always a good weekend when hard to do chores are finished and completed.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
3 Day Anti-Climatic Christmas
We held off on having our Christmas holiday and gift giving this year as we waited for our daughter to be able to come and join us. As she works in Africa on a rotational basis, she was due to come to see us on Jan 15 so our plans were to have Christmas the weekend of the 18Th and 19Th, not quite a month after the real deal. Presents were all bought and ready, but we were going to wait to decorate until that weekend.
Part of this reasoning was due to her cat. Yes, how silly to plan things around a cat but her cat and our two cats are all family members too and it is fun to watch their reactions to different things. Her cat has never had a Christmas tree. As he is incredibly smart and curious and oddly clumsy, we figured he'd just go nuts over the Christmas tree and fully expected him to climb into it and bat things off of it and just generally do mayhem, which we planned to control by keeping doors closed if necessary and watching carefully - with the camera of course.
So our daughter arrives on time. As luck would have it, my husband was out of town on a business trip and got back late on Thursday night so we had planned to put up the tree on Thursday but couldn't. Friday night, everyone was just too tired by the time the usual shopping had been done and hubby home for work and all. Finally Saturday, we managed to pull everything out of the attic/loft and get the tree put up in the living room.
All the cats were milling around it didn't take long for our two cats to go "oh yea, we remember this - not much going on that is for us" and they promptly went somewhere warm and went to sleep. My daughter's cat was interested in the proceedings. He wandered underneath the tree a couple of times, stretched up into it once and then sat down beside it to watch and see what was happening. As we expected a great deal of interest, we took care to only pull out the ornaments that were not breakable and the few breakable ones we got out, we put closer to the top of the tree to protect them.
The entire time we are decorating, her cat is just sitting and watching. With so little reaction, we even finally put a few breakable glass ornaments on the bottom and nada, nothing. Then we pulled out the tinsel garland. Surely he will take interest in this because he loves tinsel and loves to eat it! But as we are winding it around the tree, he is not even watching now, preferring to look out in the garden as there are squirrels out there.
The tree is decorated and the lights are on and the cats are totally ignoring the entire thing. How anti-climatic! We had expected a much bigger response, a much bigger interest, a lot more laughs and yelling and shouting and such but he was just not interested. Presents go under the tree and the most he does is walk around them and take a sniff here and there. Wow, did we ever call this one wrong.
Too late for actual opening of presents so we waited until around noon the next day to open our presents. All cats were present and the best thing, they thought, were a few empty boxes. Again, no interest in the tree or the ornaments or the tinsel. But it was a very nice Christmas for us, present wise and companion wise and we had a good time.
Next day, Monday, my husband is off on another business trip so I take all the ornaments off the tree and pack away everything for next year. no cats even bother to come watch this dismantling of our 3 day Christmas. No batting of the ornaments, no climbing the tree, no fighting the tinsel, no eating the papers, nothing. My daughter's cat is very smart and clever though. Could he be waiting for next year because the others told him it usually lasts much longer and he can do a lot more damage then? who knows.
Part of this reasoning was due to her cat. Yes, how silly to plan things around a cat but her cat and our two cats are all family members too and it is fun to watch their reactions to different things. Her cat has never had a Christmas tree. As he is incredibly smart and curious and oddly clumsy, we figured he'd just go nuts over the Christmas tree and fully expected him to climb into it and bat things off of it and just generally do mayhem, which we planned to control by keeping doors closed if necessary and watching carefully - with the camera of course.
So our daughter arrives on time. As luck would have it, my husband was out of town on a business trip and got back late on Thursday night so we had planned to put up the tree on Thursday but couldn't. Friday night, everyone was just too tired by the time the usual shopping had been done and hubby home for work and all. Finally Saturday, we managed to pull everything out of the attic/loft and get the tree put up in the living room.
All the cats were milling around it didn't take long for our two cats to go "oh yea, we remember this - not much going on that is for us" and they promptly went somewhere warm and went to sleep. My daughter's cat was interested in the proceedings. He wandered underneath the tree a couple of times, stretched up into it once and then sat down beside it to watch and see what was happening. As we expected a great deal of interest, we took care to only pull out the ornaments that were not breakable and the few breakable ones we got out, we put closer to the top of the tree to protect them.
The entire time we are decorating, her cat is just sitting and watching. With so little reaction, we even finally put a few breakable glass ornaments on the bottom and nada, nothing. Then we pulled out the tinsel garland. Surely he will take interest in this because he loves tinsel and loves to eat it! But as we are winding it around the tree, he is not even watching now, preferring to look out in the garden as there are squirrels out there.
The tree is decorated and the lights are on and the cats are totally ignoring the entire thing. How anti-climatic! We had expected a much bigger response, a much bigger interest, a lot more laughs and yelling and shouting and such but he was just not interested. Presents go under the tree and the most he does is walk around them and take a sniff here and there. Wow, did we ever call this one wrong.
Too late for actual opening of presents so we waited until around noon the next day to open our presents. All cats were present and the best thing, they thought, were a few empty boxes. Again, no interest in the tree or the ornaments or the tinsel. But it was a very nice Christmas for us, present wise and companion wise and we had a good time.
Next day, Monday, my husband is off on another business trip so I take all the ornaments off the tree and pack away everything for next year. no cats even bother to come watch this dismantling of our 3 day Christmas. No batting of the ornaments, no climbing the tree, no fighting the tinsel, no eating the papers, nothing. My daughter's cat is very smart and clever though. Could he be waiting for next year because the others told him it usually lasts much longer and he can do a lot more damage then? who knows.
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