Dyson Sphere Vacuum Cleaners

Good golly ... geeeeeeeks! Think of the time invested in that?

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I'm sorry to hear about K's mother being so self-absorbed. I know of another mother who was equally self-absorbed, but the manifestation of it took a different turn. There'll be no reasoning with her, you know. All you can do -- all you can be -- is the anchor point; the safe port in the storm. Blessed is K for having you.

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Tuesday night I bit down on a piece of pizza and heard a loud "crunch." My tooth shot through with pain. In time, the pain subsided, and I thought I'd give it a day or two to see if things returned to normal. Today -- Thursday -- it still had a dull ache, so I called the dentist and asked if it was possible to come in for a "semi-emergency" visit.

The dentist confirmed the fracture. Tooth #18 -- lower left molar, one forward from wisdom tooth. Normally, he said, that indicated a root canal. But he wanted to refer me to a specialist, so off I went to the endondist.

The endondist took one look at it and said, "Nope. Fracture runs too deep. The tooth can't be salvaged. It'll have to be extracted."

Back to the dentist, who said, "Nope ... not me. Let's get you to an oral surgeon."

Oral surgeon appointment on Monday.

The expected course of treatment here is extraction, then the placement of a metal post in my jawbone, on which one day will be glued a new (fake) tooth. But for four to six months I'm going to have to live with a gaping hole in my left side lower jaw. Then, when it's all healed back up I go back in and presumably someone will deftly cut back my gum and put a tooth on the post.

It's all goodness, though -- I live in a time and place when this can be done relatively safely. And I have insurance which will pay for a good deal of this.

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I'm going to guess that pressure cookers operate at 15psi in addition to the general atmospheric pressure present. The mechanism most cookers use to regulate the pressure is simply a weighted cap that fits on a stem that comes out the top of the lid. The weight of the cap holds pressure in, but will lift up when 15psi is reached. That would imply 15psi over and above the ambient pressure.

Soups come out wonderfully in pressure cookers -- the flavor of herbs and spices seem to really "pop" in pressure cooker soups.