Support bacteria – they’re the only culture some people have.
Today I spent the whole morning at the dentist…yes, two crown preparations were required…good ol #30 and #31. The Silver Ghost and I blasted out of the solid steel re-enforced launch pad at 7:45 AM in order to at Huntington Beach Pier at 8:30 AM.
Love our new sign on the gate!
Our dentist is A#1! We laugh giggle and banter back and forth like two kids. He keeps worring about me breathing so he taps my nose to remind me. Finally I told him I wish I was a turtle…of course he asked why. I told hime turtles breath though their butts! He thought that was really funny. For the next hour butt-breathing was a topic of giggling…finally he decided I was teasing him! Ha! I got the last laugh! Little did he know that I am such a vast warehouse os totally useless information.
Did You Know? Technically the term is cloacal respiration, and it’s not so much breathing as just diffusing oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, but the fact remains: when turtles hibernate, their main source of oxygen is through their butt.
As cold-blooded animals, when the temperature drops in the winter, a turtle’s internal temperature drops with it, and its metabolism slows down to match. While they are in this slowed-metabolism hibernation period, their oxygen needs are quite low, and the oxygen diffused from the water running over them is enough to sustain them until spring.
This breathing process is fairly common amongst amphibians and reptiles and is properly called cutaneous respiration. Besides the turtle butt-breathers, notable users of cutaneous respiration include frogs, salamanders and sea snakes.
Now that this subject matter is clear, we shall continue!
Returning home, we (actually Sue) had lunch as my mouth was pretty beat up and sore plus the novocain was not worn off yet. Novocain (procaine) is a local anesthetic. Novocain causes loss of feeling (numbness) of skin and mucous membranes. Novocain is used as an injection during surgery and other medical and dental procedures.
While Sue ate, I scooted to the mail box to get the latest bills (ugh!) and visited the soon to be very full of plums plum tree!
After lunch I worked in the garage for a while doing so organizing. I fixed the trash compactor slide-out drawer…perhaps fix is the wrong word..I cleaned it and greased the wheels so it would move easier!
It’s approaching 5:00 PM and that means it’s Melanies time.
I had a bowl of chili as my appetite has not recovered form this morning! The Sun slowly sank into the ocean and sunset was declared at 8:06 today!
We talked for a while and then decided to head for home. Mitch was going to join us but he called and had to review some legal paperwork before an important meeting tomorrow. We drove home past the new shopping center on PCH and 2nd street. It willl likely open in another month or so!
Jon called us and said he was leaving the hospital but was on a severely restricted diet for the next two weeks to try and get the stomach/intestines to heal. He said he was the favorite patient amongst the nurses because he was easy to take care of. Hats off to Sarah, his beautiful bride, who nursed him back to health and kept us informed along the way!
We returned home, had a glass of “our wine” and then watched TV for a couple of hours…with a tookie break of course!
