Wisdom teeth sure are ugly!!

Today I took a trip to the 'oral surgeon'. My dentist had suggested (strongly) that I have a couple of my wisdom teeth removed. One of them was in a real mess and was badly chipped, with the dentine exposed, which was causing me some considerable pain.

Anyway, I went along, had a little novocaine and had them yanked out via local anaesthetic. Mainly 'cos having a 'general' would have cost me an extra $300!! As it was I had the extra pain of paying $330. And although I'm sure there is some fancy name for the implement he used, he still pretty much used a pair of pliers for this kind of thing!

Took a couple of pictures for those of you interested in these sorts of things. And by the state of them I'm grateful to Dr Schwartz for pulling them out. That cavity was causing some discomfort and now I have a close-up view I'm not surprised. And the cyst he found and removed, plus the extra bony growth on the root of the upper, looked pretty revolting too. Ew!

By the way, it was extraordinarily painful once the novocaine wore off. Fortunately I had some extra drugs to take: they cost me $40 too.

Ground Zero, NYC

On May 10th we went into the city with some friends who were visiting - Sarah, Nigel & their baby, Grace. Had a great time walking around Central Park and going to the Central Park Zoos. We also took the time to head downtown to Ground Zero. And, frankly, it was all a little disappointing.

There were clearly a lot of people headed that way, judging by the metro and how busy that stop was. However, once we got above ground there's really nothing to see. I know it's a long while after the event. And I know that there are plans for a permanent memorial to go with the new building. Anyway, I took a few pictures of what is essentially a building site. But there's no temporary memorial of any kind, or if there is then it's not immediately obvious. And it sure is clear that a lot of people (particularly tourists) were wanting to stop by to pay their respects; I know I did.

It's just that there is nothing there at all. I don't want it to become some kind of morbid shrine, but there were almost as many casualties at 9/11 as there have been US casualties in Iraq since 2003. It really would have been nice to have something, however temporary, at which to make some acknowledgment for those who died.

What was more annoying was that although there wasn't some memorial, there were plenty of conspiracy theorist nutters handing out pamphlets about the evils of "the machine" and how there was some huge conspiracy. Most galling given that I'd tripped down there with Steph, Joe & Hannah, and Sarah, Nigel & Grace to add our thoughts. Some geezer even had the temerity, once he realised we were British, to suggest that we take a look into 7/7 as well. Don't these people have something better to be worrying about?!