captainsblog | Parts and Parks

As for that first bit, well, we all know that....

parts is parts. We just have one fewer of them than we did 24 hours ago.

One early casualty of COVID was my semiannual dental checkup and cleaning, which would have been in early May. I'd been in a few months earlier to have a couple of things checked out- neither causing horrible discomfort, more just worry because a spot in the lower right and another in the upper left, both sites of previous work, felt weird. Dr. Ron found a small cavity in the upper one and filled it, and the bottom checked out as needing only a minor bite adjustment. Neither got worse, but I continued to have the feeling that things were still rotten in the State of Dentalmark- particularly around the one on top.

Had we kept the May appointment, they would have been checked out, but at that point all but emergencies were being postponed, so they called sometime after the mid-March shutdown of things to call it off. It never got bad enough to rise to emergency, or even to want to schedule a more regular appointment once those became permitted earlier this month, but by late last week, the sensation on top felt different- less in and around the tooth (or more precisely the crown over same) but above it. I even noticed it was easier to floss around that particular one.

Then, yesterday at lunch, I took a bite into a burger and heard, then felt, that something had come off. Fortunately, I didn't replicate the trope Swallow-the-Diamond scene from every caper film from Hot Rock to Birds of Prey; it fell neatly into my hand and now rests in a baggie awaiting further instructions. Nor does anything hurt. Yet. I was planning to call Monday anyway, only now it's going to be First Available Appointment to see if it can be refitted or if more will be required.

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We spent the rest of yesterday doing a limited amount of outside work as the temp and humidity have shot up 20 degrees/percent compared to last weekend. I did a fair amount of shop-ping on the Transit Road corridor yesterday, finding things way more crowded than I'd like but at least no visible signs of No Mask Stupidity as took place in Tulsa last night. I counted the christenings of it posted in various online spots:

Coronapalooza
Klandemic
Illith Fair
COVIDchella
Boring Man

And my nominee....
Dyre Festival

In the end, the thing didn't produce much immediate mayhem, and the crowd was way lower than expected. Regime officials attributed that to their usual bullshit about OMGANTIFAs blocking the entrances, but by most accounts it was accomplished by thousands of teens, particularly fans of the Korean music phenomenon known as K-pop, ordering tickets to the thing that never got used.

Of course, he'll still claim is was the bigliest rally of ALL TIME, using his patented Hurricane Detector Sharpie:

Hey! What are those people in masks doing there? GET THEM OUT!

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Another Sunday morning, another Parp!, this one maybe three miles from home. Plenty of new noses to nuzzle:

Also, ART, AND PLENTY OF IT!

Those are logs, not pool noodles, and it's from the Albright-Knox, which picked perhaps the best time ever to close for two years for major renovations. This piece, though, was designed to be installed away from the gallery grounds, although it has been moved around:

It was plenty hot even as of 9 a.m., so Pepper, despite her recent shearing, still have the ground her seal of happy approval:

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The Father's Day photos are starting to fill my Facebook feed. As I've commented in the past, I have no particular fond memories of being fathered to share, but I hope later today to share a moment of conversation, and probably some hours of animation, with she who I've been a much better father to.