I had a checkup at the dentist this week. Recall that I'd scheduled it for about a month ago, but got a call that the substitute hygienist broke her shoulder. No cleaning for me.

Regular hygienist is still away on vacation, sub hygienist is still recovering, so it was the good dentist himself who cleaned my teeth. Seemed a bit strange to have the big chief doing the scraping, but he's actually very personable and humble. He did a good jack-of-all-trades job. 

The office recently got a 3D scanner, so the thing spun around my head a bit. After my cleaning, the good doctor summoned me to see my scans. It was like being asked to report to the principal's office.

"Do you have trouble with your sinus?"

Ohmigosh yes.

"Yeah, cuz you don't have any bone there", pointing to the image of the obvious hole in my head. There is a tunnel between my mouth and my left maxillary sinus, from where a tooth used to be.

Honestly, it wasn't anything I didn't already know. Flashback to 2019 when I battled with  a bum tooth - #14 for those in the know.

It ended with a gruesome extraction after a failed attempt to save it.

I didn't even care to try to save it, and was ultimately glad to just be rid of the thing. And it continues to haunt me from the grave. When the oral surgeon extracted the tooth, he had to go up into my sinus to get all of it, thus forming the aforementioned "tunnel". I recall it feeling so weird, like my whole face was open to the air. 

Yesterday was Tour de Fat here in Fort Collins. Party for a cause.

I'd only ever heard of Tour de Fat since it was cancelled in 2020 ad 2021 because of, well, y'know. This year, it was back, and what a hoot. 

Fort Collins is home to over 20 craft breweries, including New Belgium Brewing Co, which is the fourth largest craft brewer in the U.S. It's also a very bike-friendly city, as I've mentioned before with the huge turnouts for bike-to-work, etc.

Any event having to do with bicycles or craft beer will be well attended here, and Tour de Fat is all about bicycles AND beer.

It starts with a parade...

   SOURCE

Magnum and I had to check it out despite not having funky costumes or funky bicycles. I guess our usual riding gear would be sufficient. 

The venue was PACKED, to put it mildly. Everyone there to have a good time, it is a philanthropic event after all. There were food trucks and plenty of beer, but fun activities for kids too. And the costumes - so many costumes! Better than comic con.

There was a fun bike pit with various "weird" bicycles - challenging geometry, off-center hubs, assorted two-seaters - to try to ride

Parking was a bit of a challenge 😁, as it should be.

We somehow managed to stumble upon Wolfgang. We figured he'd be there, but the odds of finding him among the  masses were slim.

Alas, just as we were heading back to the bike racks for the humble task of finding ours, there he was with a friend, the odds in our favor.

Before we left, we made a pit stop at one of the ample port-a-potty stations. While there we witnessed the arrival of this guy.

As seen in the parade video above, Darth rode in on this large black tricycle adorned with quite the sound system.  

He had some party music playing at first - Tone Loc's Wild Thing - but quickly switched over to The Imperial March, A.K.A. Darth Vadar's theme.

What an entrance! And it was still just the parking lot. Stud! (speaking of John Williams, I know nothing about Darth Vadar guy...)

Then he switched back to party tunes and had random people - maybe a little drunk already - bustin' a move or two.

With that, Magnum and I headed out and took the long way home. The entire ride home and beyond, I had The Imperial March playing in my head. 

That's an earworm for ya.

Wednesday, I met wit a tutor student at the downtown library, and when I came out after our session, lo and behold...my car was MISSING! Seriously? Who would steal a little 2000 Toyota in the middle of the day from in front of a public building?!

The library is a decent sized building. Rather than having a designated parking lot, it has parking spaces all around the perimeter. I've only been there a few times, and usually I was on my bicycle. But yesterday, I drove there, parked, went inside, came back out, and gone. I was aghast.

When I'd arrived, it was pouring down rain. I realized that, Yay, I had an umbrella in the car, and I secured my bag o' tutor stuff before heading into the deluge and making my way into the library. 

All that to explain... I hadn't really paid attention to where I'd parked. *ahem*

The spot I coulda swore I parked in was actually around the corner from where I'd actually parked and where my little Toyota was sitting the whole time. But what a FREAK OUT! I was so happy to hunt down a thing I already owned!

Earlier in the day, I'd met with a different student at a different location: the student center at the college where I work. When I got home from that appointment, I realized I'd left my water bottle behind. Doofus. The campus lost and found happens to be right across the hall from where I work, and I know they get a ton of water bottles each semester, so surely someone would turn mine in. I'd hopefully find it across the hall when at work the next day.

But  nothing. There was one lone plastic lowly water bottle on the lost and found cart. Not mine. 

During a break in the work action, I made my way to the student center to see if there was any sign of my beloved water bottle. PFFFT, it was sitting on the table right where I'd left it the day before. 

Okay, there's not a lot of traffic in the student center since we're in summer semester. The few people going in probably saw a water bottle on a table and figured someone else was using that space. So BINGO, score another acquisition of something I already own!

Nothing special, but it had been a bicycle commuting prize from the grad school days. A Prize!

And speaking of tuting, I keep in my tutor bag a spare scientific calculator for when irresponsible careless reckless  students forget theirs. I don't want them borrowing my graphing calculator and do want them to feel the pain of not having their graphing calculators. So they can use the scab.

Well, when we moved just before COVID, my scab calculator went missing, never to be seen again. Then COVID hit and I wasn't meeting with students in person anyway. Now we're back, full face, so I asked the boss today if I could buy one of the several scientific calculators we have for people to use in the testing center. Employee deep discount used price, whatever that would be.

They're not all that expensive, but the principle of forking over for irresponsible careless reckless  students who forget to bring their own was off putting.

He thought for a second, and then said, "Y'know, back when COVID hit, the bookstore cleaned out a buncha calculators, so I got 'em. I've got a few of these that most tests don't allow, so we can't use them. You can have it."

On Sunday, we took a drive down to lovely Longmont, CO to visit a tree farm, aptly named "The Tree Farm".  Longmont isn't particularly known as a destination to visit - mostly, I assume, because of its proximity to Boulder, which is beautiful and very expen$$$$ive. 

Personally, I haven't spent much time in Longmont, but Magnum found out about the tree farm, so we took the field trip. On our way, we stopped at a cute coffee shop: Cavegirl Coffeehouse.  It was a trendy little place with a new agey vibe to it.  I thought the surroundings were interesting, so we investigated a bit.

It was located in "Prospect New Town" of Longmont, described as "the coolest neighborhood in America".  It's cool because it's an "urbanist community" (this post is giving my quote marks key a workout).

The goal was "to build a distinctive project which would minimize negative impacts on the land" and is "an antidote to suburban sprawl".  I can get behind that.  Not a fan of sprawl, myself - one of the reasons we left Colorado Springs.  

Anyway, we got all coffeed up - I give Cavegirl 5 stars, although we only had coffee.  They had other things, mostly beverages. They claim to be 100% gluten free, and I could've gone for a bit of gluten with my coffee, but it was all good.

Then, off to the tree farm of no elaborate name. It was moist and muddy as we were there in between rainstorms. The trees and ornamentals seemed quite happy and healthy.  

We brought home this youngling Autumn Blaze Maple, and hopefully the happy healthy will remain. 

Here he is after his first night in our garage.  Violet the bicycle for scale. I use the male pronoun, but I actually have no idea the tree's gender. He could be both male and female because trees sometimes do that.

But I figured, "we will hug him and squeeze him and name him George".

George now stands, looking quite tiny, in his station in our front yard.  

Grow, George, grow.

I had a routine mammogram scheduled for last August.  The doctor's office called and said the mammo-machine was on the fritz, and I would need to reschedule.  

I got rescheduled for September, and they called again to say that the new mammo-machine was great, but they were still working out a few bugs and I would need to reschedule.

I got rescheduled for October, and they called to check if I'd had any recent vaccinations.  If so, I would need to reschedule.

This, a couple of days after I got my flu shot. wouldn't ya know. Okay, fine.

I'm now scheduled for the end of December.  Any bets that the mammo happens?  That new machine's gonna be old by the time I get in there.  Honestly, I'm not disappointed to have these mammograms cancelled.  I've not gotten a COVID booster and was planning to wait until early next year anyway.

But yeah, that flu shot.  I noticed the morning after I got it that my left armpit was gelatinously swollen.  I'd taken the shot in my left arm and hadn't noticed the swelling until I went to shave and was all,

"WTF is THAT?"

I googled and of course learned that I was dying, but that it could also be a reaction to a vaccine in the form of swollen lymph nodes.  It took almost a week for the swelling to go down.  Anyone had that experience before?  For all I know, it's happened to me before, I just had never noticed.  I take it as evidence that my flu shot - and my lymph nodes - did its job.  

Now, onward to a completed mammogram for Christmas.

Yesterday at work, I was finishing up a woman's test administration.  As she stood waiting, she commented, "You have beautiful..."

And in that split second prior to her speaking the final word, I pondered what she could possibly be thinking.

Hair?  Eyes?  Skin?  Nails?  Voice?  Accent?  Mind?  Handwriting?  Style?

Also in that split second, the logical answer occurred to me as, "none of the above".

After all that micro pondering came the object of her affection:  "...veins".

Oh.  Yes.  Of course.  I get that sometimes, actually.  I get it from nurses, phlebotomists, paramedics, EMTs, etc.  

A nurse I worked with at the old folks home told me, "Ah, you'd be so easy to give an IV!"  One time, I went to donate blood, and the phlebotomist proclaimed, "Oooh, it's like Christmas!"

During yesterday's conversation, the tester nodded, "Yeah, I'm a paramedic".