So, another lousy night's sleep, knee hurting, and I've got no more "good" meds left. I think that I've turned that corner, though, the knee is much better today. Nightmares was the problem last night, besides the knee hurting, and an overactive imagination... for some reason or another, I never really considered that I might have a pulmonary embolus, until I woke up in the middle of the night slightly out of breath. So I had to lay there and think, "Am I having trouble breathing, or is this just a reaction to thinking that I *might* be having trouble breathing?" See how circular that can get? The dilemma was solved, of course, when I went back to sleep. I did wake up two or three more times durning the night, and I got up before the alarm wnet off at 06:30. Yeah, 06:30... I got to go see the dentist today. I was not prepared... ...for four hours of damned dentisty. But that's what I got. First, the teeth cleaning. Them, the prep for the bridge, then making a temp bridge, then putting in the temp bridge, then putting on the crown on the left lower molar. All of this involved some amount of pain, and the dental assistant gal jabbed me one last time between the upper lip and the gum with the suction and I grabbed it... luckily, we were about done. I think that she wasn't really thinking, but she'd been resting that damned thing in the same place for two *&^#$ hours, and I'd had about enough of it. Four hours in the chair, four long hours. My patience lasts about three and a half on a good day. I'm sure that they were right sick of me by then, too. However, I'm the one paying *them* the money to do this stuff, so I should have the upper hand, heh? Nope, don't work that way, I knew that. Not unless I'm on the other end, *then* it works that way. I got back home about noon, and Karen had already left to go on a picnic with Lacee's class. I got a few things done, then Karen got home and we did a few more things, including paying the taxes/tags on the vehicles and arranging to get the old Subaru towed off. We also took back a broken lamp that Karen had got a Target, we wanted to exchange it, but the price had gone up by 40% and they wouldn't do that so we just got the money back, and t'hell with 'em. Gold crowns are really pretty... too bad that gold is reserved for the back part of the mouth. I wanted my old dentist to put a gold top incisor in when I lost my first one, but he talked me out of it, dammit. I'm just spineless sometimes. He was a Harley rider, I thought that he'd sympathize... instead, he realized that I wasn't qualified to sport a gold tooth. Elitist bastard, heh. The "heh" was to make it a joke, I don't really want a buncha Harley guys with gold teeth paying me a visit here in Topeka, do I... unless they just wanna laugh at some of my Kawasaki Rider Jokes, heh. Tomorrow... tomorrow, my knee is gonna be just fine, I know it is, and today's dastardly dentistry shall be forgotten. Jeez, I hope that there are no dentists out there taking offence at "dastardly"! That would be about as bad as the guy that they castigated several years ago for describing something as "niggardly". I don't know what it was about, but he was a black guy, and educated much better'n those castigating him. Ain't that always the way, though? And for those of you who think that castigating has something to do with the removal of external male genetalia... no, nobody who thinks that would be reading this. For the last several days, my mouth has been watering for Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I talked Karen into getting some tonight... kinda strange that she'd be cooperative on that, she's been upset with me all day 'cause I'm "No Fun"! Well, pardon me, I've got this knee swollen out to here, my pain meds have run out and I've spent four hours with people who sit me in a chair and poke at me with sharp things and drills and such... I should really concentrate more on being *FUN*! I know I can, I *know* I can... I *know* I can.... KFC is mmmgood! But their fixin's, not so good. We got the original, with baked beans and potatoes and gravy and a side of slaw for me. The slaw was good, but the gravy and the beans were awful, to put it kindly. Then, when i had taken about three good bites out of a chicken breast, the phone rang and Karen handed it to me with a quizzical look on her face. It was my old best friend from high school, Duane Luthi. We talked for about 20 minutes and we will get together soon for some fishing and socializing. However, by the time we were done talking, the potatoes/gravy and beans were unrecoverable. Cold KFC is plenty OK, though, as you all must know. So, our plans now are: Wichita Tomorrow, Enid Thursday. Not, however, set in stone, or even in that dental goop... whatever they call that stuff that they keep putting in your mouth to make molds out of. Mold is a good name for it, you put mold in your mouth, you wanna throw up. So what is it with these warnings? "They" must be trying to scare us into giving up more of our constitutional liberties. What do they want now? A nationwide database of where every citizen is, every minute? It would be a lot like gun registration... bad guys don't register guns. Bad guys won't follow their silly rules, and they (the government) are not smart enough to catch them. We have continuing proof that they're not smart enough to catch them. How could this government (or any other in recent history, for that matter) figger out how to conspire amongst themselves to do anything? Well, 'cept for setting energy prices, stuff like that, heh... Captain Smirk still has those high ratings, of course, he's pretty happy that he's able to fake acting presidential... ah, but that smirk gives him away every time, such as recently in Little Havana.... it's really hard for me to imagine a whole lotta Cubans being so right-wing, but I guess they are. Strange, all they have to do to be anti-Castro is just be a little right of him, it's not at all necessary to be right-wing enough to support Bunches of Baby Bushes.... OK, gotta set this one up now.