So Willow had been diagnosed by our family dentist with three cavities. For some reason our dentist doesn’t fill cavities, so Lea did some research for a good dentist. Lea doesn’t do anything halfway, so she found one of the best dentists in Dallas, one who can do cavities with a water laser and is renowned for his cosmetic denstistry–you know, the type that works with modeling agencies.

I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it was the right place when I showed up ten minutes late and without the required paperwork. The receptionist simply nodded, said, “That’s okay. Do you want some coffee or juice or water?” Nice.

As soon as I finished the paperwork, the dental hygienist came out and took Willow and me for a tour of the entire office. We saw the consultation room, the hygiene area where they do cleaning, the areas where they do actual dental work, and even a photography area where they take photos of everyone’s “happy smiles” when they’re done.

During the tour I was introduced to everyone, and about halfway through the interview I was introduce to the dentist, Doctor Strader, who proceeded to escort us around for the rest of the tour.

Willow then was shown a dollhouse filled with toys, and she was told to “pick a few.” They were dollar store toys, but they were good dollar store toys. Willow picked a tic tac toe game with a whiteboard-type marker, a pair of sunglasses, and a pretend camera. The whole time the dental hygienist was telling Willow to “pick another one!”

Willow then was escorted back to a room where she had her X-rays, which were done on a high tech digital machine. I had expected the hygienist to come in and do a bunch of work or for us to wait, but immediately the dentist came in and started working on Willow’s teeth. However, he started by introducing Willow to the tools.

He said, “Here is my weather tool. Here’s the wind,” and then he blew air at Willow’s hair. She laughed. Then he said, “And now here’s the rain.” He then pushed another button and sprayed water into the air, landing on Willow’s face. She laughed again.

He then showed her the drill, which had a pair of lights. He showed off the lights, and then he showed Willow how the drill was for making you look better. He then asked Willow for her hand. He then proceeded to gently drill a smiley face into her thumbnail! Willow loved it.

I have NEVER seen a dentist with a better rapport with kids. Willow was screaming in the car on the way, and now here she was laughing over a dental drill.

The dental tech came in with the X-rays, and Dr. Strader asked me to come look at them. He then illustrated that Willow has three cavities, but they are all in between the teeth, and thus he is going to have to drill six teeth. He gently described to me how her issue wasn’t teeth brushing but probably a bit too much sugar and recommended cutting down on it.

He then said that the job was simple enough that he would prefer to use nitrous oxide. He said he would use it judiciously but would make sure Willow was always comfortable. I nodded my head and he went in to work on Willow. While I watched, I was once again offered a drink.

The dentist worked on Willow, and she didn’t cry once. Not one time. In fact, when it was all over, she said, “Again!” It was amazing.

Afterward, as I was checking out, the receptionist said Willow could have a compact-sized mirror with a light on it with the dentist’s name. It was clearly a pretty expensive goodbye gift. At our old dentist we would expect a magnet for the fridge, here we got a lighted mirror. In fact, the receptionist said Willow could take another one home for her sister.

All in all, the experience could not have been better. Willow not only found the whole experience easy, we were treated like royalty. The whole time I was thinking that I was glad that Lea went through and found one of the best dentists in Dallas. It’s easy to sit back and say “a dentist is a dentist,” but I long ago lost my working class background biases and now can see pretty clearly: You do get what you pay for.

Oh, and you do pay.

Having her six teeth drilled and taken care of will cost us $1,600. But, I tell you, after Lea and I traded stories of the terror and nightmares we had in our youth with dentists, we both feel it’s totally worth it. 

I tend to cash my random business and assorted other checks at a small store and check cashing place near our apartment. I went there today to cash a $50 check in online poker winnings. The person behind the counter generally is always there, and when he looked at the check, he asked me about it.

I told him, “Oh, that’s just poker winnings.”

To which he replied, “You cash the coolest checks!” I asked him what he meant, and he pointed out that last month I brought in a royalty check from sales of my novel. I replied that normally I just bring in expense checks from my job, and he laughed and said, “Expense checks are cool, too!”

I was telling Lea about the conversation, and she commented that it does appear I live this total jet set life–I’m cashing checks from sales of my novel and my poker winnings in between all those expense checks from my travels.

If only it were that glamorous.

Lea’s computer has been a source of annoyance for quite some time now. The main problem is just how slow it runs. It’s a nice computer (a Dell Dimension), but it is old enough that it is showing its age. Most of the newer programs run on the computer are slow as molasses. So today I decided to fix things.

I went out to Fry’s and looked for a RAM upgrade. RAM memory basically is the memory that runs all the programs you are using currently, and more RAM generally means more computer speed. For Lea, whose computer only had 256 MB of ram, it wouldn’t take much to improve things. That said, I spent 60 dollars on a full 2 GB of Ram. The results were as I hoped–a striking increase in speed.

Activities in Internet Explorer that would take 20 seconds or longer now take 2 seconds or less. Everything is just more snappy. The result? A happy wife. And I like happy wives, especially my own.

So I’m bugging my wife about something, and she says, “Leave me alone, I have PMS.”

I respond, “You can’t possibly have PMS. You just had PMS!”

She gave me a glare and growled through clenched teeth, “Keep that up, and I swear to god I will fucking kill you.”

I can confidently state that my wife is right, and I was wrong. She most assuredly has PMS.

Originally posted April 24, 2005

She is the best mom in the world.

Her favorite car in the world is a Kharmann Ghia, which is cool because it’s the car most like her:

• Sleek and sporty in a kind of subtle way
• Kind of noisy
• Very rare
• Not very practical
• Very cool

Her strengths balance my weaknesses.

She has a lot of strengths.

She is still the sexiest woman I have ever met.

She is just enough smarter than me that I’m not intimidated by her.

She is smarter than me.

She likes the same junk food I like.

She is challenging and will never bore me.

She is interesting and will always intrigue me.

She wins friends easily but is careful in choosing her friends.

She’s a night owl.

She puts up with comments like this:

Me: “But I need you to remind me only at the exact time that I can do it. Not the day before or even 15 minutes before, but at the exact time I can do it, that’s when you need to remind me.”
Her: “So to get anything done in the house, I have to basically be an alarm clock.”
Me: “More or less”

She hasn’t divorced me yet.

She hates being the one who lays down the law in the house for the kids, but she rarely ever admits it to me.

We can spend the entire day in different rooms of the house, yet I can still feel her close to me. I can spend 15 minutes outside the house without her, and I miss her terribly.

She is a total technophobe, but she has a blog, a damn good blog.

Her favorite radio station is XM Kids.

She has the most beautiful eyes in the world, and I will never get tired of getting lost in them.

She loves herself, her family, and her life, but she strives for more.

She hates injustice in the world, and actually does what she can to change things.

People call her by her middle name.

She has cool tastes in books.

She gave birth to three kids with no C-sections.

She has a high pain threshold.

She likes British comedies.

She is a great cook.

She loves eating out at restaurants.

She married me (and up and moved 1000 miles away) after we had dated for less than a year.

She makes me better.

She makes this list hard because I could go on and on.

So I’ll end here by saying that you can leave comments about how cool your wife is, but it won’t matter. She is nowhere near as cool as my wife.