It's been a busy few days since my last post on Thursday.
Friday I had my oral surgery to put the anchor in for my implant. That one hurt even more than the bone graft. For one, I lost count of how many lidocaine injections it took (at least 6). And the horrible deep slow grinding sound of the drill going into bone. The lidocaine wore off a little too quickly; on the drive home I was holding the ice pack to my face at every stop light.
At the periodontists they gave me two ibuprofen and two Tylenol before I left. As soon as I got home I took a vicodine (well, after checking on the chickens and giving the cats they're "Babies, I'm home" treats - the priorities must be met). The good part - the pain eased off to a tolerable level. The down side - between the boatload of lidocaine, the Tylenol/ibuprofen, and the vicodine - nausea set in. I spent a few hours hoping I wouldn't throw up.
So Friday wasn't fun. Fortunately, even when the various drugs wore off, the pain wasn't too bad. No more vicodine needed, and only the regular dose of the other two.
But me, being me, when I got a text from Suzie that evening with "it's OK to say no, and I know you're not coming in to work - but would you feel well enough to come in mid-morning and bring us some fish?" of course I said sure. We have a new guest animal- an adorable fishing cat - and for her debut day Suzie wanted her to be seen instead of hiding in the back of the habitat, hence needing live fish for her pool.
I wanted to stick around for the Saturday otter encounter because some of the live fish were also going to them, and that's fun to watch. And, of course, while waiting I helped to finish the diets and clean up in the kitchen.
By then my mouth wanted to come home.
I still went to the Infinity Con on Sunday. I had put a lot of work into the Rocky puppet and I wanted to show him off. He was, shall we say, successful. If I were to just go on my own, it would have taken me about a half hour to walk around the vendor hall.
It took some two hours. Every few feet, someone would yell "Rocky!!!" They would want a picture, or a selfie, or to dance, or to "fist my bump." A couple of people paid me the high compliment of saying that he looked near screen accurate. The local maker space had a 3D printed model from the official Project Hail Mary file, and yeah - my guy was pretty darned close.
I was particularly pleased with how I got the complex rock texture on his skin. I had covered his cardboard frame with Amazon packing paper, which I ripped into pieces and crumpled up before gluing it on. My experiments with the airbrush included holding it parallel to the surfaces, so that it caught on the edges of the irregularities. I finished by dry brushing just the top surfaces, and the result is surprisingly good.
After a couple of hours my mouth was starting to throb a bit. Rocky isn't heavy - about three pounds - but even that can add up over time. And, of course, with my luck, there had been a heavy rain and when I pulled into my drive there was a tree down and I had to deal with that to get the car to the house. It's always something.
But now it's over. It's been fun for the last month letting myself obsess over the movie, listening to interviews and behind-the-scenes, finding more of James Ortiz's work, practicing with the puppet (he moves surprisingly well). Now . . . he gets stored with the others (I'll likely hang him from the ceiling).
All this has had me pondering the concept of anticipation - which is often either the best or the worst part of anything (depending on what it is). I was dreading my surgery - I'm not that fond of pain, and I don't like having stitches in my gums. Which is why when they had a cancellation and I could get it over with three weeks earlier than scheduled, I grabbed it even though it would interfere with the Con (the con would have been a lot more fun on Saturday - that's when all the cosplayers show up). I was dreading it, and I wanted it done and over with. I didn't want to think about it any longer than necessary.
Anticipation works in the other direction. Thinking about something fun coming up is a big part of anything. Simple things like getting a package. A vacation, or Christmas. Being part of a theatre play. The run up to it is exciting. If you're lucky, you really enjoy the thing or the event. And then . . . . it's just over.
So between that, and my mouth being sore, and it being a rainy day - I pretty much did diddly-squat today. Everybody got fed, and the dishes washed, and the litterboxes cleaned, but that's about it. For today, that was enough.
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