Photos of Us

Jim's parents came to visit last week. His mom took these photos, so now you can finally see a little bit of our little bitty house and a bit of SB. It's the trade-off for living in paradise.

Good letter in today's paper

Divorce is bane of marriage's sanctity

Bob Barker, Santa Barbara

June 13, 2006

I don't understand how some people have come to the conclusion that gay marriage somehow undermines the sanctity of marriage.

What undermines the sanctity of marriage is divorce. So, if people want to protect the sanctity of marriage, they should be fighting for an amendment to ban divorce.

It would be interesting to see how many people, including our political leaders, would support such an amendment.

Agony of De Teeth

My teeth are conspiring against me. I have been grinding my teeth at night for years, without knowing it. The problem is so severe that my teeth are actually flat now. Anyone who knows about this problem could tell right away by looking at my teeth. Anyone, that is, except my dentist. Hello!!!! Don't you think someone could have told me!?!?

So, my new dentist (who I trust) gives me a $500 night guard to grind on. I crack 2 of them, which she says is impossible. Then I get a 3rd one which only covers some of my teeth leaving space for the most pressure to be left hanging off the back of the guard. This has caused my teeth to realign, along with moving my jaw back. That's when the headaches and shooting pain started in my ears.

So, I went back to the dentist who sent me to an orthodontist specializing in TMJ. He starts off by asking if I had braces as a kid with headgear. Then he said that headgear can pull the jaw back too far, so the jawbone and nerves are too close together, causing the pain.

The solution? He made me night guard #4 (at another $250 that I don't have), with the hopes that I won't crack it. I think he doesn't trust the first 3 were made properly. I hope he's right. Then he suggests "jaw therapy" to my dentist, but doesn't bother to tell me about it. Thank goodness she mentioned it to me. What is jaw therapy you say? Braces!!!! He wants to put me in braces again, for a year and a half, with rubberbands, so my teeth grow down enough to compensate for the grinding.

CRAP! I did everything the orthodontist told me to do and now they want another 5k from me, when I have less than $500 in the bank. Not likely.

I'm going to explore other options like cranio-sacral massage where they hold the muscles of your jaw in a relaxed position so your bones can realign. My massage therapist says grinding is a sign of mineral deficiency. So, it seems there are other, simpler, cheaper things to try first.

The Agony of De Feet

Well, we lost. The election that is. We still can't figure out how it happened. 4 candidates ran for county supervisor from the 2nd of 5 districts in Santa Barbara County. Counties in California have a lot of influence and power over some really important decisions, like land-use, development, housing, and transportation. We came in 3rd place, almost tied for last. We had almost 200 volunteers going door to door in the district, while the other candidates probably had around 20 each. With so much public support and so many people willing to spend their time helping, I can't understand who voted for the other candidates. At least Jim gets to take a very much needed break right now and we get to keep our candidate (Das) on the City Council for another 5 years.

Onward and upward.