The Ojai Post

Nothing like some good x-rays and coffee to start the day.

Didn't need x-rays, did get the coffee at Cajun Kitchen Cafe in Ventura.

Glad to hear they didn't give you x-rays.

what's up with the dentists and dental hygenists asking you questions when they have sharp objects in your mouth? I think about the 'don't talk with food in your mouth' concept and this is WORSE! Oh and even better is when they try to be funny and you feel like you have to do an obligatory 'ehhgg' or try to 'fake laugh' without laughing. Not my favorite set of folks occupation-wise... I think someone should record laughter, yes, no, etc. so you can just press a button to answer while they talk!

Ah! You have obviously not found the solution to this problem, Tyler!

Here's what you do: avoid dental care for a really long time because you're a) totally dental phobic, b) a born procrastinator, and c) without dental insurance. (And because you're somewhat convinced you bit someone to death in a former life, as your tooth karma can only be described as weird...)

Then, get really bad dental care from one of the big dental practices (aka "mills") in the area that causes you to get an enormo-horrifying abscess...

Upon doing so, stagger off to a dentist in town looking like the Elephant Man and throw yourself on his and his staff's mercy...and discover that once you become the thing that arrives in their office every week for months and months and months on end, you get to know them well enough to realize that they are lovely people who will bend over backwards to help you.

(And for the questions w/stuff in mouth problem, I just yak...they've learned with me to be careful about asking...) :-)

In all seriousness, after having major dental work done over the last two years (am actually sitting here with face swollen from bone graft surgery even as I type), I have learned both a new respect and affection for my dental people. (And they don't even yell at me any more! Heck, one day we actually shared strawberry shortcake from Bocalli's...)

:-)

On a totally off topic topic, or mostly -- how is the Cajun Kitchen? I've been meaning to get down there and haven't yet...since Shanda lost her lease on her place in Oak View, we've been loyal Vagabond goers, as she works there on the weekends for breakfast. But we need to branch out!

Best,
Leigh

Hey Y'all,
Today (the 13th), is HELP of Ojai's annual Pancake Breakfast. If you don't come by for some flapjacks, eggs and sausage, at least stop by for one of the finest bake sales ever!

The Oxnard x ray machine is ancient thank whatever hippie god you worship you didn't have to endure that!The school is a hook up though for dental work,my friend Joe did the program there and explained it in a good way for anyone hesitant to go there."The students are trying to do there best so they can pass their boards and graduate,while an office hygenist doesn't have a whole lot to prove if they do not enjoy their work and you pay much more for it."Something like that anyways.Enjoy DW I would kill my mama for some biscuits and gravy right now.

Okay, this is off dental topic but...

Where's the Change?
The Ojai Valley Democrats are getting set to write a whole lot of handwritten letters to Obama's "Organizing for Obama" head here in CA about the health care issue and the need for single payer. We're hoping, probably in vain, that grassroots efforts and democratic pressure will make some kind of difference.

Quit frankly we're more than a little tired of being told that everything we thought we voted for just can't be done. Here's just a partial list: Still in Iraq, escalating in Afghanistan, no single payer, closing GITMO (emphasis on the gerund however, not closed any time soon to say nothing of the much larger "prison" at Bagram Air Base), no accountability for the Bush Administration on torture, never mind the illegal war in Iraq, no accountability for the bank heists and the collapse of the financial sector, no real commitment on the employee free choice act.

Add to all of this a quote from Democracy Now! yesterday about the apparent willingness to embrace the Bush era State's Secrets Act legal maneuvering in order to further protect the torturers in the Bush Administration

Ben Wizner of the ACLU said, "This is a watershed moment. There’s no mistake any longer…the Obama administration has now fully embraced shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal consequences for their actions."

A lot of us who made it possible for Obama to get elected are getting good and pissed off, as we most definitely should be.

Oh, here's another one I almost forgot. How about NOT helping CA with the budget. We've got a hard deficit of something like $24 billion staring us in the face. Services, and checks are going to be cut off within 50 days. We are the 8th largest economy in the world. Does Geithner and Obama really think that letting CA go bankrupt will somehow help the economy of the US?! Do they imagine the US can get out of this recession/depression without CA? Come on. Paulson, Geithner and Summers gave fucking Wells Fargo $25 billion in TARP funds(and apparently GOD or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever only knows how much the Fed has pissed away on banks like Wells Fargo with zero oversight--$9 billion so far and totally unaccounted for. In recent committee hearings on Capitol Hill the Inspector General for the Fed had no answer for where this $9 billion since September has gone). But nothing can be done for CA. The single largest economy in the whole country.

This is NOT the change we had in mind, namely changing back to 1993 and the Clinton years.