I never went to the dentist as a child.  My parents both had bad teeth.  My mother had all her teeth pulled when she was 54 because fillings would cost more than she had.  I was the girl child my mother had given my father instead of the son he wanted and felt he’d been promised since my mother had given birth to my brother Grant in a previous marriage. Sometimes he tried to turn me into a boy, insisting I overcome any far I showed – for instance, making me climb a high ladder to the roof to repair shingles when I was twelve. .  I always moved the lawn once I could move the mower..  If I showed fear, he got angry.  But mostly I was an unsatisfactory substitute for a real boy and he ignored me, except when he was angry – as he frequently was.

But they had little money to waste.  When I was seventeen, I took myself to a dentist.  I was working for the telephone company as a long distance operator so I had some money.  I had made some since I was 12 at various jobs. I went to the nearest dentist to work.  He looked in my mouth, said I had three bad cavities.  He asked how much money I had.  I told him.  He said that wasn’t enough for fillings [like my mother] but he could pull them. I had been chewing aspirin at night to endure the pain, so I said, go ahead. 

Lack of protein, lots of cheap sugar = the problems of the poor.  I speak with an educated voice now, I dress well, I got myself an excellent college education, but my mouth gives away my childhood.

We finally are having some rain, although hardly the torrents the weather people predicted.  With the drought we’ve been enduring for months, any rain is appreciated, but we could use a lot more.

I began returning to my osteopath shortly after I cleared the vaccination hurdle.  I have not been almost anyplace in over a year.  A few times, Woody took me for a drive and that was exciting.  Now suddenly I’ve been to Yarmouth twice to see my dentist after long neglect and then to Sandwich almost to the bridge to get two root canals started.  Then Dale and I went to Ocean State Job Lot in Chatham, a favorite place of both of ours.  I especially liked to buy preserves, canned seafood products and garden stuff there.  I plant a lot in pots as well as in the gardens and pots break.  It was been exciting to get off the land for the first time in over a year.

We’ve transplanted all the hardy vegetables and the calendulas I started inside from the greenhouse and also planted all the hardy vegetables’ that can be grown from seeds.  Now the little greenhouse has every surface totally covered with tender plants – many tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, pumpkins, summer squash, cucumbers, sweet marjoram, summer savory, zinnias, marigolds, cosmos – and in big pots or long pots calla lilies and   dahlias.  We can’t put out an of them until the weather warms up and the danger of frost has finally passed.

A Facebook friend posted a political poem of mine published after the January 6 insurrection on FB and FB promptly said it was offensive.  They are planning to let Trump back on, and my poem is too offensive for them?  What right wing nonsense.