Month: January 2012

A few years ago my previous dentist wrote me a prescription for five diazepam pills (aka valium). Whenever I had a particularly bad dental procedure I’d take one. I’ve been hoarding the last remaining quarter of a pill for a really rainy-dental-day and I brought it with me on Thursday, (teeth-pulling day) hoping I wouldn’t need it. But at one point I just broke down.

My student dentist has to explain everything’s he’s doing to his professor, so when the professor came back he said, “The patient took a valium.” The professor laughed and said, “Yeah, well that should just start to kick in by the time we’re done.”

I didn’t want the professor to think I was a valium addict so I said, “For the record, I’m not an addict and I don’t take valium at any other time.” And he said, “Well, for the record, we are. In fact,” he continued, looking around the room to the student dentist, the nurse, and the other professor who would be overseeing my student prostho-dentist later, “I think we’re all on it right now, aren’t we?” It was great.

In front of St. Paul’s Chapel on 9/11/11.

I recently read that there was a possibility that this might be the last season for Fringe. Oh god, I hope not. Fringe might be my second favorite show on tv. It wasn’t love at first sight. I remember thinking the Walter character was annoying, for instance, he had just too many tics. But then it rose to the level of great tv and Walter, like every other character on the show, became lovable. If not lovable, like the various bad guys or neutral guys, then interesting.

Why oh why is there talk of canceling this series?? I wonder if it never caught on in a large enough way due to the so-so start? In better news, I just read this on TV Tattle:

“Warehouse 13” expanded to 20 episodes
Syfy has given the sci-fi show seven extra episodes next season.

Me and the boys curled up on the couch. Later in the evening they will take turns. Buddy, who is at the bottom of the couch in this shot, will be at the top.

Okay, there were a few moments I’d rather not re-live, (the crunch, crunch as the tooth separated from the bone, and I couldn’t look at myself until the temps were put in, the open space in my mouth was so huge) but I’m fine. I’m swollen, but if you didn’t know what I looked like normally you wouldn’t even notice. Even better, they clearly worked very hard to make the temps look good and they do, absolutely fine. I will get even better temps in a few months, but I’m just so glad I won’t look monstrous in the meantime.

I can sing! I’m not in pain (Advil and Tylenol every 4 – 6 hours)! And everything is fine. Right now I’m very glad I bit the bullet and did this. I was going to have to do this eventually, and now it is no longer looming in my future, soon enough it will be behind me. (Plus, the one tooth was infected for a long time, and that is not good for your heart, it can lead to arteriosclerosis.)

But I am so so tired. I’m going to curl up on the couch and not leave for the rest of the day. I took this in Chelsea Market, where I went to buy a vat of soup. It was another “walking through Christmas lights and feeling like a Christmas princess” moment.

Again, I promise I won’t make this blog all-implant, all-the-time, but I am going to track the major events. In a few hours I will my minus two front teeth. I’m going out for a nice breakfast and then I’m heading over to the NYU Dental School.

Luckily, last night at my monthly MBSR meeting there were two people there who use the NYU Dental School as well. One of them also had a friend who recently completed the implant process there. Everyone was raving about how good the care is, and the person who had the implant is thrilled with the result. So, there’s that.

I’m sorry I didn’t get more practice of the Verdi Requiem in (the piece the Choral Society is doing in the spring), because I don’t know what shape I’ll be in for the new few days. But here goes. If I’m not a sobbing mess I’ll post an update later today.

I don’t have a new picture for today, so this is from New Year’s Eve. I’m going to pretend those are good luck balloons for me. That just gave me a nice movie scene idea! I tend to walk the same routes for various places. In a movie, if one character wanted to do something nice for another, they could lines the streets that they know the person is going to walk down with balloons. For instance, it would have felt fantastic if all the way to the Dental School, there were balloons tied here and there along my route.

Maybe they’d have signs. Like one could say, “Don’t worry, you won’t look like a toothless old hag!” And then the next one would say, “Okay, someday you will, but NOT TODAY, is the thing.” “Alright, you will look rather swollen, but you can hide behind a scarf or something. We won’t be hiding in the bushes taking pictures.”

Would that make a sweet movie scene?

The other day I couldn’t focus on anything so I just starting googling my street address. Among the people I came across who lived in my building were: a soviet spy, a movie actress, a holocaust survivor and a jilted lover.

Lydia Altschuler. From the FBI’s website: “Another tantalizing set of clues to Soviet intelligence emerged in the ALTO Case, where the Bureau intercepted coded messages passed from Soviet agents in Mexico to a mail drop in the United States run by a Lydia Altschuler for whom the case was named … the Bureau learned that these messages concerned Soviet attempts to free Trotsky’s assassin.”

The mail drop was my building!! I couldn’t find a picture of Lydia Altschuler, or anything about her later life. I’m guessing she changed her name.

Lynne Carver. This is Lynne playing the wife of Scrooge’s nephew in the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol, the one with Reginald Owen. Her career kinda stalled in the 1940’s and she moved to New York. Sadly, she died on August 12, 1955, a month before her 39th birthday. So young. Her husband at the time was William J. Mullhaney, so he must have lived here too, but I haven’t found much out about him yet. He was a former stage director who worked for Pitney-Bowes.

Max Krolik. From the New York Times obituary. “Max Krolik, an assistant professor of at St. John’s University, Jamaica, Queens, died Sunday after a short illness at his home … He was 42 years old.” Another one who died too young! He died on February 7, 1971. He’d published some papers on graph theory, but he was working on his doctorate and was still at the beginning of his career.

Update: A former student of Max Krolik’s, Dr. Robert O. Stanton, wrote a lovely tribute to him. It’s quite moving even if you didn’t know him!

When I googled his name to learn more about him I found this picture of him and his sister Rosa at the Chateau de la Hille on the website for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“Both were brought to the USA in 1941 through the efforts of Mme. Lilly Felddegen as part of a group of 100 children rescued by the US Committee on European Children, chaired by Marshall Field.” The complete story is here.

Finally, I found this short piece in the September 5, 1895 New York Times. I haven’t learned anything about Alberte Danes or Ferdinand Schueter/Sehueter yet, but that’s going to take a trip to the library, I think. The next time I’m there I’ll look them up. I’d really like to learn just which apartment each of these people lived in.