Man's best friend - My dog Scout

The backyard apex predator.

It works!!!

Well spank my ass and call me Julie! I finally got this picture posting thing to work. For some reason the "Hello" software wasn't working right the first time I tried to use it before the holidays. I gave up on it out of frustration, but decided to try it again tonight. It prompted me to download an upgrade and voila! Now that I know it works, you'll be seeing a lot of pics on here.


Renaissance Runner revealed

Voodoo Dental Surgery

On Sunday, my friend VT turned 30. I offered to organize a party for her, but she was feeling a little sensitive about this milestone. Instead, I took her out on Saturday to dinner at a great Italian Restaurant in Stittsville called Cabotto's. Afterwards, we went back to my place where I presented her with a brownie caramel cheesecake and sang happy birthday. Then, we watched an enjoyable Johnny Depp movie from 1995 called Don Juan DeMarco.

Yesterday morning, I went in for dental surgery. Apparently, the bone never totally grew back in where my last wisdom tooth was extracted two years ago and it was causing problems in keeping the area clean. The dentist cut open the gum tissue where the wisdom tooth used to be, gave the area a thorough cleaning right down to the roots of the molar in front of it. This last part has caused a few people in my office to shudder when I described it. The dentist then started drilling on my jawbone to extract some bone material to use to fill in the area behind my molar. At one point, I tasted something bitter and chalky on my tongue and thought, "Hmmmm, I'm now tasting pulverized bits of my own jawbone. That's a little unsettling." Apparently, the dentist wasn't able to extract enough material, so he resorted to using ground up human cadaver bone instead to fill the crater. That's right, bone from a dead person. Does this seem a little voodooish to anyone else? If having cadaver bone fragments in my jaw somehow ends up zombiefying (sp?) me and I start going after all of you to eat your brains, I'd like to apologize in advance. BRAINS BRAINS BRAINS BRAINS!!!! Whoa, where did that outburst come from? Weird.

The surgery seemed to go pretty well, except when the dentist was sewing me up the freezing started to wear off, and I started becoming aware of the suture needle passing through my gum tissue. I gave him a stone cold look and growled, "If you don't refreeze my mouth pronto, I'm gonna take that scalpel and cut you open from asshole to adams apple." Actually, that's not quite true. I think what I said was, "Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh! Ahhhh!" To which the dentist asked if I could feel that and I responded, "Unnhhh hunnnh."

After I was sewn up I was given a bottle of motrin and a bottle of tylenol 3s and sent home. The meds kept the pain at bay, and I spent the day in bed reading with Scout curled up at my side. Whenever I've had dental work before involving stitches, they've always been the kind that dissolve. For some reason these are the non-dissolving kind and will have to be removed next Monday. Today, I'm back at work and remarkably pain free even without the pain medication. I'm not happy about the fact I'm not supposed to work out this week because of the surgery. I haven't missed a single training session since I started a month ago and was feeling pretty good about this, but I guess it can't be helped. The last thing I want to do is pop my stitches while trying to see how much I can bench. Plus, I'm on a soft food diet and there's a steak in my fridge that I can't eat. I can hear it calling to me. Somehow, soup just isn't the same. Just you wait, ribeye. Just you wait...

Fun Weekend

Well, my little Renaissance Runnettes, I had a pretty satisfying weekend. Friday night I went and saw the Clint Eastwood movie "Million Dollar Baby" with the Notorious MBA. Clint is in his 70's and he's doing some of his best work. At one point in the film MBA leaned over to me, pointed at Clint on the screen and whispered, "Oh my God, he's playing my dad!" I don't want to ruin the film for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but let's just say there was a plot twist neither of us saw coming, which is rare. It caught us like a flurry to the solar plexus. This flick is definitely worth seeing.

On Saturday, I went to the Bayshore Mall and ended up buying a stylin' pair of Adidas track pants and "Firefly: The complete series" on DVD. For those who've never watched Firefly, it's a cleverly written Sci-Fi Western produced by Joss Wedon, who also created "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel". Some of Joss' talents include his ability to make likeable characters and witty dialogue. Plus, actress Morena Baccarin who plays the "companion" Inara is so smoking hot I would gladly drink her bath water. Later that evening, I went out with some friends to a blues club called The Rainbow to see a local woman perform, who turned out to be pretty good. Afterwards we went over to Zak's diner for a big plate of poutine.

On Sunday, I went skating on the canal with VT and then had a tasty Tex Mex burger with salsa and jalopeno peppers at the Royal Oak by the canal. By about 8 o'clock that night I was dozing off on the couch with Scout curled up in the crook of my legs. All in all a good weekend.