Steve Tilford

It wasn’t quite 5 hours, but close. I finally went to the dentist and camped out in the reception office. I had an appointment for today at 10am, but since I had hardly slept an hour the night before, they was no better use of my time. I sat in the reception for 20 minutes or so and when they took me back, they were totally prepared to do a root canal.

Actually it was 3 root canals on one tooth. I didn’t understand teeth as well as I thought I did. I didn’t know that teeth can bleed. They can. I’ll spare you the gory details of the whole day, but it took a while.

I’m pretty good at the dentist. I have the best dentist in the world. That is the truth. I’ve been to a lot of different dentists in my life and my guy, Dr. Greg Johnson, is so much better than any of the others, it isn’t even fair to compare. I’m not sure you realize you have such a good dentist unless you experience it. The small things are so important. And obviously the big things too. I’ve been going to him for over 20 years and am so lucky to have him around.

That being said, I find it interesting how draining the experience is. Like I said above, I’m okay with the dentist. But, I still found it interesting that I’d be in the chair and notice that my hands were clenched. I had to make a conscious effort to relax my arms and hands. I don’t think I did such a good job with the rest of my body though. I went out for a 1 1/2 ride late in the afternoon and was waxed. Same thing this morning. I feel like I got hit by a truck.

I’m hoping that the tooth problem was the cause of me feeling badly the last 3 weeks. I’ve been bad since being in California, sore throat, etc. I felt remarkably better yesterday, but am zonked today. I’ll probably need a few days.

Seems like a lot of people are off this afternoon, so were meeting up at 1 to ride. It is supposed to be in the lower 60’s, so that should be nice. But when it is that warm now, it is also super windy, upper 20’s-30. It’s good for training hard, but bad for me. I’d like to ride 3-4 hours easy, sitting on. But, that isn’t going to happen. After daylight savings time ends, the fitness level of our group tends to drop a level, which is very understandable.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday. No glitz or advertising, just getting together with friends and eating good food and talking. It going to be warm again tomorrow, so I’m sure we’ll do an organized ride too. Then Jingle Cross.

Everything was laid out waiting when I got to the back.

This photo is hanging in the bathroom in the office. I found it funny because even though they just did a complete remodel of the office and everything is state of the art, dental offices in general just look archaic and primitive.

Spy photo of Dr. Johnson working on me.

Man, have I been sleeping a lot since this tooth incident. I like sleeping, so I can’t complain. Thanksgiving came pretty quick this year. Probably because it is about as early as it can get in November, so there is nearly a whole week left in the month.

Thanksgiving is our holiday, kind of like the 4th of July, only Americans celebrate it. (Actually, I think they celebrate it in Canada, but it is Columbus Day, and they do it in October, so that really doesn’t count.)

I once spent Thanksgiving in the French part of Switzerland, by Lake Geneva, in the small town of Aigle, now the headquarters of the UCI. I was racing cross there and had been there for a couple months already. Anyway, I decided that I should make a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. I had no idea that they didn’t have pumpkin in Switzerland. I went to about every store within a hundred km and could never find any. It was so rare, that I couldn’t come up with a word in French that people knew, so I could ask for it. Anyway, I think I eventually used canned squash I got at a health food store. It wasn’t nearly the same and was pretty disappointing.

I spent another Thanksgiving in Grand Forks North Dakota, participating in a cycling study at the US Human Nutrition Lab there. It was a very cold place in the winter. I had been confined to a lab for a couple months and the only time I could get out on my own was when I was riding my bike. I rode so far on Thanksgiving Day that year. Mainly just back and forth through the neighborhoods, watching the people go for walks, or play football together. We didn’t do that when I was a kid and even though I was just an outside observer, it was super enjoyable. Everyone seemed so friendly and happy. I think this is the time that I started really liking the holiday the best. A non commercialized US holiday where you just get together with friends and family and eat good food and hang. There can’t be anything wrong with that.

I think that it is important on Thanksgiving to think and appreciate what we all have. I hope I don’t take what I have/my life for granted. I try not to. I think it is important to realize that we, as Americans, already won the lottery, being born here in the US. We had about a 5% chance of being born here statically, so about 1 out of 20. Not that the United States is the only country worth living in, but there are many worse places and situations that we could all be experiencing. So, let’s try to appreciate what we have and not dwell on what we don’t have. We’d all be much happier if we could accomplish that.

Anyway, there is a ride at my house at noon today. I’ll probably spent the rest of the afternoon moving leaves to the compost pile in the back and mulching them. (Seems like a good Thanksgiving project.) We’re going over to a couple friend’s house, Joe and Glenda’s, to eat late this afternoon. Some other friends we ride with are going too. Most likely a few more friends will show up later, since most people eat earlier. I made pie, of course.