Dry Socket to Me!

Princess Kitten here.

Ah the dentist. I am making up for time lost to their tender embrace.

The last week has lead me to an uncomfortable bit of self-knowledge.

I appear to love having masked women prod my mouth with metal instruments.

I must. I've been back to the dentist office twice since last friday. And that is what dentists, and hygienists and dental assistants appear to do. Maybe they have off hours where they aren't jabbing folk with do-hickies that they have lying about the office. There are 24 hours in a day after all? How long can the jiggery-pokery keep one entertained? Long enough to fill 20 or 30 year long careers it seems.

No clue what path this new found understanding will force me down, but I expect it will end with “Getting A Face Tattoo”. I really wonder if the more artistically inclined subset of humanity, who enjoy the whole jabby-jabby activities on the whole, go into tattooing instead of dentistry.

I felt that I was doing fantastically well the weekend after my extractions. And maybe I was. The bleeding was lessening, and I wasn't in tremendous pain. In fact, I managed to get a couple of long hikes in over the course of two really beautiful days(seriously, sunny and 50 degrees in Febuary?). So all was well.

All I had to look forward to, was getting my sutures removed on the following Friday, and I was home free. And then the pain didn't stop. In fact, it got worse. Imagine someone slowly pressing a screw-driver into your temple. And then just leaving it there for hours upon hours.

The experience is frightening, or it was to me. I worried about having an infection that the Amoxicillin wasn't prepared for. And after 2 days of discomfort, I called my dentist office again and requested an early visit to their kind and stabby domicile. They assented, and I found myself once again leaning back in a chair as another masked women poked at my teeth and asked me if I felt any pain.

Nope. None there. Just the impending implosion of my maxilla as it all burst inwards.

They said my gums appeared to be a bit agitated, but looked to be healing well. But decided to up my anti-biotic to ten day regimen of augmentin. The sister informed me that I am in line for a nice case of Thrush. A fungal infection that is often suffered by people who take heavy doses of anti-biotics.

I thanked her kindly for setting another anxiety in my path. Just what I needed.

But, they placed a medicated pack into my wounded gum and placed more gauze over the newest edition to my jaw. Really, there was room, as now there were 2 holes just sitting there. Waiting to be filled. Don't read anything into that.

The effect was rather quick. The pain went away. And then they packed my face with some more gauze. Really, I think that I'm developing a pathological fear of gauze, soft as it may be. Gauze seems to manufacture saliva, and as I was driving back to work about a gallon seemed to materialize in my mouth. And there it sat, as spitting is impossible as you try to keep a wad of gauze clenched between your teeth. All you can do is open the flood gates and release a tsunami of drool.

When I returned to work, I felt fantastic. The lack of pain left me feeling energetic and happy. That lasted until the following morning. After yet another night of rough sleep, the pain returned. Thursday was a eternal.

I was noticing a rather large hole in the back of my jaw, were the wisdom tooth usta been. A gap in the gums through which you could see all the way to the bone. That folks, is dry socket. The cause of my pain. To paraphrase the eloquence of The Iron Sheik – THE DRY SOCKET IS A JABRONI, FUCK THE DRY SOCKET LIKE THE MONDAY!

Friday seemed longer. Felt crappy. Even though the pain receded. Only had to make it until that evening for endgame(probably not, the way my luck runs). I returned to the dentist office for hopefully for the last time, to finally have my sutures removed.

The Dr. wasn't about for the sutures. But one of the 4 Hygienists I've seen over the course of the week was able to step up. Which is how I found myself in yet another chair, being poked by a new set of tools.

She found a sliver of bone sticking out of my gum and plucked that, before removing the sutures proper. And then re-packing my face with a syringe full of gel called Sockit! Sockit! Is wonderful. I don't know how well it works. But I love puns. And it seems to be keeping my pain at bay.

Hopefully this is all over soon.

I don't think that I have the fortitude to live with chronic pain. I wonder how people manage to live like that, and don't know if they inspire me or not. I think I might be inclined to take the easier way out, as all Princess' must. That is, picking a knife-fight against a biker gang in some Mexican dive, giving a good account of myself, before finally going down for good.

It's our way.

Ninjas. Oh Ninjas. where have you gone?

The Ultimate Ninja 1986

I have been watching ninja flicks since I was a child of seven. Ever since I heard the older (and thus cooler) kids talking about how totally sweet ninjas were (really, that's how I got into Voltron too). They could do things like run across a forest floor that was littered with dry leaves and twigs without making a sound. That's really all I remember of the conversation. But I was hooked.

Ninjas, hell yeah! I watched a lot of crappy ninja flicks as a kid. And I still have a soft spot for the genre today. This is why we are here now.

Opening splash music sounds like it was ripped off of Star Wars. Just to get that out there right off the bat. It sounds like they took two separate themes from the original trilogy and slapped them together.

And that seems to be a theme for this movie, The Ultimate Ninja.

Two movies mashed together. Two different casts. They were probably made in separate decades. Did someone say muddled? Well they should have. I don't know why they felt the need to pin these movies together. But, I don't understand the workings of the film industry.

It opens up with the leader of the Red Ninjas praying and working the forms. Notice, he's a blonde dude of possible Scandinavian origins and he's wearing a headband with a picture of a Ninja right in the middle. On one side of the Ninja are the letters NIN and the other? JA. Reminds me of the SNL commercial selling this Every time the headband was splashed across the screen, I giggled like a small child.

Red Leader then ambushed by a group of Black Ninjas. The Red Ninjas' mortal and eternal foes. Red Vrs Black. Checkers. Ants. Ninjas. This dichotomy represents a truth that is common in our lives. The Red leader is murdered and the Black Ninja Statue is taken by the Black Leader. Then comes Charles, the Second in Command of the Red Ninja Brotherhood.

Chuckles helps fight off the evil Black Ninjas, but he's too late. His master has been killed. Now he's been named the New Red Leader. Mind you, there only seem to be two Red Ninjas, they have a Master/Padawan relationship ala the Sith Jedi. He is given the task of retrieving the statue. A little plastic nick-nack with the word Ninja written across the forehead. If you collect both statues, Black and Gold, you gain Real Ultimate Super Ninja POWER! Zam!

The rest of this half is the Red Ninja slowly killing the Black Ninja's minions one at a time as they're sent to assassinate him. Finally leading up to the show-down. This seems to be more of a traditional ninja movie, one where the warriors have awesome mystical powers like invisibility, a sixth sense, and teleportation. Effin sweet!

The entire thing smacks of a short, and one that I'm hoping was intended to be in part humorous. I hope so, as it is so absurd I would like to think that the filmmakers intended the jokes to be there. I mean really, a ninja wearing a headband that said 'ninja'? That's the kind of thing I would have worn when I was 8 (I did have the Karate Kid headband of awesome at one point - came with a shirt).

Now we cut to movie number two. It's not a really ninja movie. It's a lame kung fu film. With some 'clever editing' and voice dubbing in a single scene, the two movies are spliced into one. Actually at times, until the end it seemed like they had edited together three different films.

Lame movie two has a fully Asian cast. Not sure where from. IMDB says Hong Kong, and some of the names are Chinese. But others look more Thai. Maybe it was a a collaboration in the art of FAIL.

The story goes as so. Twenty years ago the bad guy named Rodger kills the protector of a town. In the battle, he allows Rodger's children to flee. Now, twenty years later, one of the sons is finishing his kung fu training in a land far away and is intent on finding his lost siblings and avenging their father.

Rodger has since settled down to a cozy life of charging the villagers 'rent' and hanging with his bitchy wife. Most of his minions are trained in kung fu, and they're rather dickish bullies who try to have their way with the villagers. Hijynks ensue. And rather lame battle scenes where the thugs beat down on the villagers and try to rape them and what-not. This is after all what thugs do.

The main hero in town is the martial arts teacher's daughter. Mostly she's passive and unwilling to lift a finger. Then strangers start appearing in town. The first is an older dude with receding hair. His Kung fu is ok, but he gets a beat down at the hands of the Heroine, if that's what she is. Difficult to tell.

Then a big bald dude appears. He's about a head taller than the other men and he fights like the stereotypical American in these movies (he resembles an Asian Yul Brynner) basically he soaks up damage and hits hard while employing moves that would make Hulk Hogan shed a tear of joy. He appears to possess psy-powers. I guess. It's implied when he keeps pointing at his head to the sound of strange music, but they don't really seem to have much effect.

They don't explain why the strangers are about. They just show up and leave randomly.

Finally, the original hero character arrives in town. And the lame sounds of frozen meat Foley effects fill the air!

Well, you can watch the rest.

The final high point of the entire film, the unintentional hilarity aside, was the single female breast. Just the one. You really only see it from the side. Yeah, sometimes I think like a 15 year old with scrambled Skinemax.