Dental musings

Because I know I am not alone in this, I am not ashamed to say that tend not to listen to my dentist. Years and years of hedging about flossing! But I like my dentist and my hygienist, and I've decided to see what happens if I do what they say.

Step one for me was using a rinse. I read the directions and saw, "Pour 20 ml into the cap." And, rather than trying to find the 20 ml line in the cap, I wondered how on earth they came up with that measurement.

• Is it because there needs to be a certain ratio of liquid to tooth surface area? Not everyone has the same number of teeth. And what about my six or so crowns -- do they count toward surface area when they aren't true enamel? What if someone had only six teeth: should they use less mouthwash?
• Since you have to swish it, wouldn't it be better to calculate the volume based on mouth size, since a larger mouth will be more able to forcefully swish 20 ml than a smaller mouth? Should they recommend people calibrate their usage based on jaw size and number of teeth?
• Then my mind goes to high efficiency front loading washers. You have to use special, more concentrated detergent in them because they use less water (but can often wash more clothes in that water). How is the 20 ml impacted by the saliva content of the mouth? Perhaps they could market different products based on mouth pH, or perhaps everyone should be required to spit a certain number of times before using it so that everyone starts with a baseline dry mouth.
• Here's another one: A different mouthwash I own has you use 10 ml, and the directions say, "Do not pour past 10 ml line." OK, then what happens? Is it a structural issue for the cap? Would it be too overwhelming for the average user to swish 11 ml? What about someone with a bigger mouth?

I don't measure: I just use however much I want, which is certainly less than they suggest. I assume the makers of mouthwash will be annoyed that it takes me longer to go through one of their bottles, and I feel self-righteous as I swish away.

Then there's the two-minute toothbrush. I have a sonic one, and it has a 30-second timer on it to make sure that you brush your teeth for a full two minutes. Boy, does that get boring. I would stand over the sink and reread the mouthwash instructions, spending my two minutes coming up with more questions about their 20 ml measurement. So I decided to take those two minutes back and catch up on my New Yorkers.

The problem is, I am one of those people who can't walk around while brushing her teeth. I need to be standing over the sink, preferably with a bib on.

So there I am leaning over the sink trying to read the New Yorker, getting it soaking wet. And sometimes I finish the page before my two minutes are up, and then I either have to spend more time on the mouthwash instructions or figure out how to manage a spraying sonic toothbrush while trying to flop a wet magazine to the next page.

Today I solved the problem: I bought a cookbook stand for my bathroom. It allows me to look at a full spread of two New Yorker pages at once. I can turn the page with two fingers. It props up the magazine so it doesn't lie in a puddle of water and get dripped on.

I am pleased with the greater reading opportunities afforded me by my new dental program.

Liveblog Ted Kennedy's funeral

I am very, very sad about the passing of Uncle Teddy.  I'm one of those people for whom he seemed a family member.  But as I watch his funeral, I have a lot of irrelevant, irreverant thoughts, which I am capturing here in a liveblog.

I am obsessed with the variety of umbrellas.  I see that they have a bit of an umbrella brigade, remarkably well done.  The spin and lift of the umbrella bearer as he reaches the door and turns to get another escortee.  But the umbrellas don't match: some have vents, some do not; they have different handle lengths; I even see a few logos.  An umbrella brigade without matching umbrellas?  

(Obsession with umbrellas is not new to me.  In my time as an academic, I considered doing a research project on the image of umbrellas in India.

Looks like a fire hazard.

I like how Catilin trailed her hand from the podium, trailed her hand on Ted's casket as she went back to her seat.  

Ruddy red face of the priest behind him.

As they begin the service, the white drape over Teddy's casket is not lying straight.  It is annoying.  I imagine that Vicki is desperate to go straighten it.  Go for it, Vicki.  No one but you would be able to do it.

The camera is not showing the casket from the angle with the irregular cover over it.  That's good.  For those not in the cathedral, it's the TV images we will remember.  Oh, look, someone fixed it!

Is this priest speaking with a Rhode Island accent?  It's the kind where you understand, and then he veers off into some pronunciation that makes no sense.  I can tell RI accents because they never fail to make me laugh.  "Prepared" is the word that veered off.  Just googled his bio.  New Bedford.  It doesn't get much closer.

I guess there is a part of the Catholic mass where everyone starts hugging each other?

Communion time.  I don't actually know what is happening or what I am seeing.  They showed glowing red bricks and the underside of the curtain fringe.  It's probably that it would be disrespectful to broadcast something as holy and personal as communion.  Operationally, though, I'm curious: are they giving communion to 1500 people right now?  Ted Kennedy Junior.  Great job.  And then they clap?  Whoa, Jews don't clap.

Patrick Kennedy: Welcomed his brothers and sisters.  How delightful that the steps count.

Shopping adventure a la Pretty Woman

I took a much-needed day off of work today and went into SF to find a dress for my brother's wedding.  It felt like a scene from "Pretty Woman."

My mother had offered to pay for the dress and gave me what I thought was a very generous budget. When I entered Saks in my Target skirt and t-shirt, everyone who worked there looked away. And there are a lot of people working at Saks! It looked like they worked in pairs. As I walked through the fragrance/cosmetics/jewelry floor, there were no customers except for me. Something like 20 employees, and none looked at me.

As I wandered through the designer section, I continued not to get much attention despite the fact that I was never out of view of one of their workers. Finally I picked a dress off a rack. A woman came up to me with a big smile and said, "Would you like to try that on?" I asked her what size it was, since the sizing was Hungarian or something, and she paused and said, "Oh, that won't fit you."

Talkin' baseball

I am still not really watching baseball.  This year, I've missed two rare events, the kinds of things I'd gleefully call everyone to say I'd seen:

• An unassisted triple play (15th in major league baseball history)
  
• A perfect game -- by one of my favorite pitchers, Mark Buerhle.  Eighteenth in MLB history.  Every year, I dream of seeing a perfect game.  I missed this one.  

Southwest's compass bearing

I seem to have a new puzzle interest that has been sparked by Southwest Airlines. Flying last weekend, trying to kill time during takeoff, I flipped through the magazine to see the puzzles in the back. I love sudoku, so I did those. The next page had something called shinro. It took me a while to figure out how to do these puzzles, and then I fell for them. I ripped the page out of the magazine so I could remember the name of this game.

On my flight back, it had become August. I got on the plane and grabbed the Southwest magazine, eager to get new Shinro puzzles. Alas, they had a whole different set of puzzles.  No Shinro.

So here I am with a crumpled piece of paper pulled from the Southwest magazine, googling "shinro."  And I found this:

• I came across a new kind of puzzle called shinro that can be found in Southwest Airline magazines. According to the magazine, shinro is Japanese for “compass bearing.” The puzzle involves finding holes in a square grid. Like battleship puzzles, the number of holes in each row and column are indicated. In addition, there are a number of arrows in the grid that point to at least one hole.
  
• waa hoo! i found myself looking up shinro after flying southwest airlines, as well! thanks for the link. great puzzle!
  
• Yeah! I was just on Southwest last night and solved 4 shinro puzzles. Thanks for the info
  
• Me too! Southwest flight! landed, thirsty for more.
  
• I also flew on Southwest Airlines and was hooked!!! I Love IT!!!!
• Just discovered the Shinro puzzles on a flight on Southwest and am hooked.

Google has just four references to the paper-based game shinro on its first page of results, and all mention Southwest.  (After that, it references either shinro iPhone apps -- yay! -- or Shinro Ohtake the artist.)  My favorite is this:

If you're visiting this site, we probably have something in common... Most likely, you recently flew on Southwest Airlines and passed some of the time by working on the Shinro puzzles in an issue of Spirit Magazine. Like me, you later searched the internet looking for additional puzzles to work on and found little or nothing in the way of Shinro puzzles.

That person is creating the puzzles, so he or she is my new hero.

Who knew that something in an inflight magazine could inspire such passion?   

The banana pancake mystery

Brunch is pretty much my favorite meal. Carbs, sugar, salt (e.g., waffle, syrup, bacon). Like eating dessert with a little bit of dinner thrown in.

I'm not a great cook, but I'm pretty good at brunch basics. The first meal I hosted here was a brunch: two families, with kids. Chocolate chip pancakes and whipped cream, and plain pancakes and syrup for the more conservative. It was a hit. Everyone loved these pancakes.

My next meal was just with a few friends. Banana pancakes, blueberries, strawberries, two kinds of chocolate chips, whipped cream, and syrup. (I always serve bacon, too, to please the remaining taste buds.) Another hit. They said they were the best pancakes they'd had and encouraged me to invite them over next time I was using up an overripe banana.

One day I had a very ripe banana, and no one was coming over, so I made pancakes for myself. I like to make a full batch of pancakes and then save the leftovers to pop in the toaster oven later. I used the same recipe I've used my whole life, the "Griddlecakes" recipe from the Fanny Farmer cookbook. My cookbook opens to this page. (If I flip the pages, it also opens to the page for blueberry pie.) It was the same recipe I used for my hugely successful chocolate chip and banana pancake brunches.

The pancakes were awful. They tasted salty, bitter. I threw the entire batch out.

I double checked the recipe and decided I must have left out the salt, so the baking powder didn't rise or process or whatever baking powder does, so I figured I must have been tasting baking powder.

Next overripe banana: same recipe. I focused on adding the salt. And ... the pancakes were terrible. I was hungry, and they were perhaps somehow less bitter than the last time, so I doused them in syrup and ate them anyway.

This was a total mystery. How had the Fanny Farmer recipe stopped working? What was I missing? Do bananas mess with pancake batter, somehow, chemically? I had taken the short cut of not mixing the dry ingredients before adding them to the wet ingredients, figuring they all get mixed together in the end. Is that what broke it? I've made these pancakes a gazillion times, and I'm pretty sure I don't always (rarely, in fact) mix the dry ingredients first.

Next overripe banana: I carefully assembled the dry ingredients. And ... mystery solved.

The recipe calls for baking powder. Baking powder, as we all know, comes in a canister. Baking soda, on the other hand, comes in a box. Well, when I had gone to Trader Joe's to buy baking powder, I had grabbed the canister, had used the canister, had used the canister in all the pancakes I've made since I moved in ... and it turns out that Trader Joe's puts its baking soda in canisters. I'd been using backing soda all along. Pfffttthhh.

I made banana pancakes again this morning, this time with a new canister of baking powder. They were terrific, and, not surprisingly, were very different, with a lighter texture than all those other pancakes. The new mystery is: did the chocolate chips and whipped creams and berries and chocolate and syrup really mask the terrible flavor of those early pancakes? Did all of those people really not notice the bitter, salty, baking soda-flavored pancakes?

A Handful of Missing Commas

I like the phrase (just made it up while copyediting a friend's story). Is it the name of a band? A snack food? A chapter title in a historical mystery where a the murder hinges on typesetting?

Other ideas?

Perhaps I've been watching too much Harry Potter (Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family!), but somehow I imagine these commas as animated, like the licorice snaps in Dumbledore's office that Harry takes by the handful.

Delightfully suspicious

I'm reading a draft of a novel that a friend of mine wrote.  It's my second time through some of these sections, but here I am on a new one.  A group of friends are together for brunch -- a very "Sex and the City" scene.  I've met these friends before in previous sections.  And I'm having fun with the images coming through in my head -- it's like reading the book after seeing the movie.  Because I've had many of those "Sex and the City" brunches with my now-author friend.  I'm sure a lot of women will relate to this.

Funny, they seem to be in roughly the same location that we used to have brunch.  Which makes sense: write about locations you know.

Then the story mentions another location: one of the fictional women happens to live on the same street that one of us actually lived on.  And her name ... is almost the same in the book as it is in reality.  And there's another one with almost-my name, but I just thought that was a coincidence.  But then there's another one with almost-another-friend's-name, and, um, her personality even coincides with the real life person.  Holy cow.  So that almost-my-name might be named after me?  I don't think she is me, though.  My friend is too smart a writer.  

I now have to reread the draft.