Thursday, February 25, 2010

Update

Well, I survived it, the root canal.  I cried the entire time, tears leaking out of my pinched eyelids, which I kept tightly closed throughout the whole procedure.  And the relief was so strong at the end that I sobbed for a full two minutes, still horizontal and shaking in the dental chair.  The assistant had to tell the endodontist that I really was okay, just letting out the pressure that I had been holding inside, which was entirely true.  But honestly it was surprisingly not as bad as I had anticipated once the laughing gas kicked in and the endodontist had given me five extra shots than normal so that I would feel nothing

When I think about how badly I deal with these kind of situations I realize that this is why I was never meant to go through pregnancy and labor.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Rotten

That's how the left side of my face feels.  The side where I had a filling put in a few weeks ago after an old one chipped back before Christmas.  The dentist said that the filling was awfully close to the nerve and if I still felt pain after a couple of weeks I would have to get a root canal.  I've denied it and ignored it and pretended that it wasn't true, but my back left upper molar - #15 - freakin' hurts.  So tomorrow at 4:00 I'm headed to the endodontist.  I just about started crying when I made the appointment today.  No offense all professional practitioners of oral care, but you are my archfoe, my archenemy, my archvillain. 

I just looked this up on Wikipedia:  "Dental fear refers to the fear of dentistry and of receiving dental care. A pathological form of this fear (specific phobia) is variously called dental phobia, odontophobia, dentophobia, dentist phobia, or dental anxiety. However, it has been suggested that the term "dental phobia" is often a misnomer, as many people with this condition do not feel their fears to be excessive or unreasonable and resemble individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder, caused by previous traumatic dental experiences."

Supposedly 75% of all adults experience some form of dental fear.

I was hoping they could put me under all the way - gas me or anesthetize me or whatever it takes to put me in unconscious oblivion - but they said no.  One endodontist said he could give me valium but that I would need somebody to drive me home afterwards and it couldn't be done until next week.  So I'm settling for laughing gas.  The nurse said they use it on little kids. 

Yep, that's sounds about right.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Dear Blogosphere,

We have a little catching up to do, don't we?  Where to start ...

First, Paul got a job.  He's funny and kind of superstitious about stuff, so even though we knew about it for a few days beforehand, blogging about it was out of the question.  So  he has been working for a week now and things are going pretty well it seems.  He works with one other attorney (a solo practitioner, as we say) doing real estate law, which is just what he wanted to do.  As an added bonus, he is working in Saratoga, which is where we go to church, so the location is great.  The day after he was hired he basically got another offer from a small firm in SF, which would have been over an hour commute each way each day which would not have been so great.  He says that he finally feels like a lawyer.  We both do and it is kind of a cool feeling in a trippy sort of way.  Like we went on a date to a chic asian-fusion restaurant last night and saw beautiful people all around and I sat there thinking, "wow, we're young, smart, and good-looking lawyers - this is really weird."  Then I got a message on my blackberry about work I needed to do that night and realized that being a lawyer is not as glamorous as it seems.

In other good news, I am going to be an aunt again.  My sister-in-law Holly is pregnant and due in July, so that is very exciting.  Also, I am going to be getting a new sister-in-law in June.  Paul's brother John proposed to his girlfriend (now fiancee) Angelica yesterday.  They haven't nailed down the date yet or which temple.  I'm really happy for him - John is a cool kid - but I have to admit I don't know anything about this girl.  I wish I did.  The thing is, they have been dating for quite some time now and I have technically been around her twice, including Thanksgiving.  Only I have never once talked to her.  See, I knew about her - that she existed and was dating John - long before I met her.  I tried to learn as much about her as I could by asking Paul about what he had heard about her, and talking to Deborah who had already met her, but I never got much detail.  Then when I was finally in the same room as her, nobody introduced us and I guess I got embarassed or something, because I didn't just go up and say "Hi, I'm Amy, John's sister-in-law."  And John was there and never said "Hey Amy, meet my GF Angelica."  And she never said "Hi, I'm Angelica."  And then after a couple hours went by, it was super weird to do a post-having-already-spent-time-around-the-person introduction so I just left and never talked to her.  So awkward. 

Also, we had our second set of visitors come out this past weekend.  Nathaniel and Dorothy flew out with their daughter Summer on Saturday evening from UT to spend Valentine's Day and President's Day with us.  It was SO much fun having them here.  Nathaniel played Wii Fit Plus until he beat all my high scores, Dorothy and I went shopping while Summer slept and the boys babysat, we went to Big Basin, Santa Cruz, SF, and Half Moon Bay, and just generally had a good time hanging out together watching the olympics and playing with Summer. 















And finally, if you have not seen this commercial which makes me laugh or this commercial which makes me tear up, you have been missing out.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Parenthetically speaking

Amy came across this today at work. Pretty funny stuff.


A brief excerpt from Chief Judge Alex Kozinski’s concurrence today (free reg. req.) in Bull v. City and County of San Francisco, in which he recites case law on what constitutes a crime of violence:

“[W]e often disagree. See, e.g., United States v. Chambers, 473 F.3d 724, 726 (7th Cir. 2007) (escape is a crime of violence); United States v. Piccolo, 441 F.3d 1084, 1088 (9th Cir. 2006) (no it’s not); United States v. Asberry, 394 F.3d 712, 715-16 (9th Cir. 2005) (statutory rape is a crime of violence); id. at 722 (Bea, J., concurring) (no way); United States v. Wenner, 351 F.3d 969, 974 (9th Cir. 2003) (burglary is not a crime of violence); id. at 977 (Wallace, J., dissenting) (is too); United States v. Johnson, 448 F.3d 1017, 1018 (8th Cir. 2006) (grand theft auto is); Von Don Nguyen v. Holder, 571 F.3d 524, 525 (6th Cir. 2009) (au contraire); Malta-Espinoza v. Gonzales, 478 F.3d 1080, 1084 (9th Cir. 2007) (stalking isn’t); id. at 1088 (Duffy, J., dissenting) (“I respectfully dissent.”); United States v. Saavedra-Velazquez, 578 F.3d 1103, 1110 (9th Cir. 2009) (Reinhardt, J.) (attempted robbery is); id. (Reinhardt, J., specially concurring) (or is it?); United States v. Trinidad- Aquino, 259 F.3d 1140, 1146 (drunk-driving-resulting-inbodily- injury is a gentle crime); id. at 1147 (Kozinski, J., dissenting) (Bull!).

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Spring already?

Spring has sprung in Campbell, CA!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Get this:

Paul was assigned a home teaching companion for church.  His new companion is a cop.  I'm going to refer to them as Law and Order.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Sunday Drive

On Sunday Amy and I went on a drive over to the eastern foothillls towards the southern end of the San Jose valley, known as Henry W. Coe State Park. Less than an hour away, we climbed up out of the valley through green rolling hills historically used by ranchers to graze their cattle.


The weather was absolutely perfect, and we enjoyed driving the curvy roads with our sunroof open and the windows down. The hills are dotted with old oak trees like this one, which Amy thinks look just like lightning:


We plan on going back to the park in the future to do some hiking and camping. Here are some more photos we took on our drive.