Lucky Wednesday after Bad Tuesday

Yesterday was not fun. Maggie's scare in the middle of the night and the sleeplessness that followed were a bad start. However, after posting yesterday, I realized the guilt train was going nowhere and jumped off.  Incidents in the middle of the night are just one of the many reasons she has a nurse at her side. Maggie is fine. The nurse did what she was supposed to do.

The day got worse before it got better, though. I was eating a lovely cous cous salad with kalamata olives for lunch. Healthy...or so I thought.  I was unaware that the olives had pits and broke a tooth clean off. Arrgh. What's worse? The actual breaking of the tooth (which COMPLETELY grosses me out), the pain of sitting in the dentist chair to get it repaired or the shock of the fee. None if it is fun.

My dentist was on vacation and I had to call someone else. I called one of the three dentists who covered emergencies when my guy is out of town. I had no connection to any of them and just randomly picked one.   As I relayed my tale of woe, the kindly woman on the phone said they could help and asked my name. I told her Sally McDonald,  but Sara for insurance purposes. (Yes my given name is Sara but no one has ever called me that.)

There was a pause and then she said, "Is your maiden name Coghlan?"  Whaaaa? How could she possibly know that. I use both names professionally and on my email etc, but not in conversation. I thought about it a moment and could think of one friend who worked in a dentists office. "Kennedy? Is that you?" Sure enough. my old friend Kathy Kennedy was the receptionist. We go back to grammar school and high school days, which is a long time. We still get together for the occasional lunch or other soiree.  If you've been here long enough, San Francisco becomes  a very small town, even though it is a large city.  Knowing she was there  took away a lot of the fear of dealing with a new dentist. Score.

My appointment was at 8:45 but I had to make a quick trip to UCSF to drop off more lab work for Miss Maggie first.  Generally "quick" and "UCSF" don't belong in the same sentence, but today it really was. I had to pull into the 8 story parking structure because there is no place to park, but I whipped in, dropped off the stuff and whipped back to the car. Much to my delight, they didn't charge me the $3 parking fee because I was less than 10 minutes. Score!

As I left my friend Kathy called to tell me I might have to call another dentist because there was no assistant available. Since I was already en route I said, let's see what he can do. I feared I would be referred for a root canal anyway. Glad I didn't cancel.  He worked some magic that was almost painless and will keep things covered until my own dentist can return and make a crown. I can smile without looking like a hobo and breathe in air without pain.  Score again.

It seems this is my lucky day, which is a good thing because tonight I am participating in a trivia contest tonight to benefit Advokids and their work with children in foster care. Not sure how it will go but I will finally have a forum to air my cache of useless knowledge.

But first I will buy a lottery ticket.