Well, Sparky called yesterday and ordered up HBO again because Real Time with Bill Maher is back on the air through November, the first episode of the new season was tonight. The guests were Michael Moore, Ralph Nader, Gov. Bill Owens, Rep. David Dreir, and former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell. Watch one of the rebroadcasts this week if you can, it was a slugfest. And Bill and Michael got down on their knees and begged Nader not to run for President this year which really freaked Ralph out.

The most interesting part was watching the two Republicans try and rationalize Bush's actions, especially his non-reaction to the initial announcement that the US was under attack. Dreir's face got all red and he finally lost his composure and snapped at Michael Moore saying his documentary was fiction, which was ironic because he admitted he had not even seen the film.

Bill's official website has gotten a spiffy redesign, though I'd like to suggest he add a home link and a link to his discussion boards, which appears to be a great place to go if you like to argue. I know I'm opinionated, but I try not to get into arguments on politics or religion with people who are looking for an argument, it's just an exercise in frustration.

This article in the Friday Houston Chronicle is a bit scary. I had controversial bumper stickers all over my old car and am waiting on a Kerry-Edwards sticker to arrive in the mail but haven't put anything on my "new" car yet. Not really out of fear of reprisal but more out of respect for the condition of my car. And I now have a rear window defroster grid to worry about, not that the rear window on the Maxima is very easy to see anyway. And Sparky is terrified I'm going to "junk up" my car with stickers like I did (in his opnion) with my last one. But if you can't put stickers all over a 13 year old car, where is the fun in life? I'm still looking for my extra HPD "The Badge Means We Care" sticker that I've had on all of my cars, I saw it before we moved last time, I know it's around somewhere. Besides being supportive of our local police, I actually used to work a close relative of the slain officer whose badge number is memorialized on the sticker.

Sparky has a few stickers on his old car, including a Kerry sticker he got in the mail. He used to have an "I Didn't Vote For His Daddy Either" sticker on his bumper pre 9/11, but took it off after being honked at and harrassed by local rednecks after the WTC disaster. We're both going to put the new stickers on when they arrive, though. No one ever bothered me about mine when I had the old, insignificant looking car, I wonder if they will now that I actually look like I have money?

OK, I couldn't go to bed tonight without writing something about the Democratic National Convention this week. We've watched most of it on C-SPAN, no commercials, no snotty comments and you get to see all of the speeches. While the 2000 election was very important and held our interest, this year it seemed vital that we watch and really pay attention to everything that was going on. And it's really been awe-inspiring to see the Democrats so intense and unified. For years I've been a self-proclaimed Independent, but I can really say I'm a Democrat now. There is so much hope and promise in the party, I really will be holding my breath until this whole thing is over and official.

There is so much venom and desperation coming from the Republicans (not all of them, just the ones in power) that I wouldn't put anything past them. With the combination of "divine right" and corporate greed and power this is going to be a scary next three months. But after seeing all of the speeches this week, especially John Kerry's tonight, I really believe that the Democrats are not going to back down again, and are going to be so alert for fraud and deceit that we might actually have an honest election this year. By the end of his speech tonight John Kerry was so strong & focused I think he could take on anyone. Maybe what's happened in this administration was a lesson the US needed to learn, perhaps we needed to see one moral extreme in order to propel us to fight for what's right and not just talk about it. I really do believe that after four years of madness that "Help Is On The Way".

The last two weeks in a large rambling, third-person nutshell...

When last we saw our heroine she had three temporary crowns and was awaiting yet another that hadn't been started on yet. And she was still having the same horrid dull ache in the area of the mystery tooth - which had had a root canal done three years ago (by another dentist), yet never felt quite right for years then turned grey out of nowhere one day beneath the composite white crown. So she went to her new dentist, who thought it might be a faulty root canal (too short), and he referred her to an endodontist, who discovered the tooth in front of that one was in dire need of a root canal and the mystery tooth was sort of forgotten. Except that the new dentist then removed the three year old crown and found there was decay beneath the tooth, which was removed and a new lovely smooth porcelain crown was ordered up to replace the yucky composite crown, which our heroine thought might be causing the aching because it was rough and not very hard (she grinds her teeth incessantly).

So in she goes when the three new crowns are ready, but has the foresight to warn the dentist that the mystery tooth still does not feel right, so he agrees to put the crown on with temporary cement and "wait and see" how it feels. And the newest root canal tooth gets it's tiny porcelain crown. But then it comes time to put the gold crown on the back upper molar (which had a gold crown on it but she had ground it down to a jagged mess). With so much going on in that area (all three teeth are on the back left) she didn't think she had any sensitivity in that tooth, but when the dentist cemented it on she just about came up out of the chair as a jolt of lightning went through that tooth. "It must be the cement", the dentist proposed, "sometimes it causes extra sensitivity".

One week passed and it was time for the next visit, but our heroine accidentally gave herself food poisoning with some tainted Alfredo sauce so the visit was put off another week after an uncomfortable sleepless night. The gold crown's sensitivity seemed to be lessening with time, but the mystery tooth still ached. So this past Monday it was time for the next appointment, which was supposed to be to replace a third destroyed crown (grinding, grrr) and fix a small filling on a front tooth. The dentist fought with and succeeded in removing the old damaged crown and discovered that not only was there major decay beneath it, but also on the edge of the tooth behind it (sigh). So he went to work on the newly discovered problem tooth, having to do a build-up on it before he could do molds for the new crown, which he had to also do a build-up on because of all the decay beneath the old crown.

In between taking molds of her mouth, he decided to work on the front tooth, but since it had been over an hour since he gave her a shot in the front of her mouth (he had been busy on the unexpected tooth), when he began drilling the old filling out, she screamed in pain. Oops, not numb anymore, needs another shot... He tries once, twice, hmmm, something's wrong with the needle, gets a new one from his assistant. So more anaesthetic, now her nose, face and tongue are numb. Killing time, he decides to do the upper mold. Which makes her gag, and is of a new material which did NOT want to come out without taking some of her front teeth (at least it felt that way).

But after almost three hours of forcing her TMJ-ridden jaw to stay open, and get yanked on with pliers, sawed at, drilled and other indignities, the two fillings were finally done, and the temporary crown was in place. Since her hubby had his gums scraped that morning at the same locale, she stopped and got ice cream on the way home for both of them, then passed out in bed for a few hours.

And awoke with the whole side of her facen swollen. Holy crap it hurt! All the way from her eye socket to the bottom of her jaw it's tender. That's weird, the only allergic reactions she usually gets from the shots are itchy hands. Maybe it's because she fell asleep on it, maybe she accidentally bruised it by laying on it... The ice cream came in very handy.

But the next day it's still swollen, and the day after that her gums are swollen also, this can't be good. She calls the dentist but he's out of town, "try warm salt water and Advil" she's advised and "call us in the morning if it's not better". But she's a bit more concerned about it than just the discomfort, what if a sinus is infected? Maybe something nasty got in her system from the defective needle... Three days and it's getting worse not better. And the irony is her husband had major gum work the same day and he was perfectly fine the next morning, no soreness or swelling at all. And the mystery tooth on the opposite side of her mouth still hurts so her jaws are sore from trying to eat and not injure herself any further (sigh).

Tune in tomorrow for the next episode, will the swelling be gone or will she be rushed to the emergency room in a hallucogenic fever? One thing is for certain, though, she will NOT be awake by noon Friday morning when her dentist office closes so it should be an interesting weekend.