Month: November 2005

For the past couple of years (with a break while I was pregnant and feeling so ill I couldn’t bear to have anyone’s hands in my mouth) I have been having a LOT of dental work to fix a problem I have had with my bite since I was a kid. Well, my dentist fixed the bite problem this summer during a number of 2 and 3 hour sessions involving plenty of drilling and those lovely trays of pink goo that oozes down your throat while your eyes well up with the effort of not gagging. He’s a great dentist though and my Mum is his assistant so we always have a bit of a laugh (well they have a laugh and I just make muffled grunting noises).

So, since the main problem was fixed the only thing that has been left to do is to have my front teeth veneered so they look nice and straight because the bite had caused them to become worn down and crooked. Of all the stages this was the most nerve-wracking for me since it involves totally changing the look of my face. It’s almost like having a nose job or some other facial cosmetic surgery. I was worried that it would be like when that girl off Dirty Dancing had a nosejob and she ended up looking extremely plain and not herself at all even though it could be argued that the nose was more traditionally pretty or “right” she just looked like everybody else and it was her old “incorrect” nose that made her look like her.

Before:

After:

OK, I may have been overthinking this a little too much, but I was still nervous going in this morning. I’d been given mock teeth a couple of weeks ago that I could take in and out to give people an idea of what my new teeth were going to look like. It didn’t help my nerves that most people said I looked like Nanny McPhee (see first photo above). The session this morning was two hours long and I had to wear a lovely contraption known as a “SeeMore” Retractor which by the end of the first hour was getting pretty painful and has the unpleasant effect of making you drool all over your face:

When the time was up I was just as relieved to have that thing out of my mouth as I was anxious to see my new teeth. When he did hand me the mirror I was very happy to see that they don’t look as rough as the mock set did, although they’re not quite finished yet. He’s left them deliberately longer and squarer than they will be when they’re done. He wants me to live with them for a couple of weeks to get used to them and then he will trim them and tidy them up. So, it’s a bit difficult to judge them for now and no I won’t be posting any photos, I’m far too self-conscious for that. But if you want an idea, this is kind of how I feel right now:

Yes, these two may look all cute and cuddly and butter-wouldn’t-melt and all (that is if you like cats, for you cat-haters out there I apologise for being someone who blogs about their pets) but I’m just about ready to string them up. Don’t tell my landlord but they will not stop weeing in the house. Lately my morning routine starts with a mop and bucket and every manner of strong-smelling detergent but I’m afraid the place now has that permanent underlying tang of cat pee usually associated with crazy cat-ladies.

It doesn’t help that a leftover from my pregnancy is a superhuman sense of smell, so I can’t get it out of my nose and I wander around sniffing and asking Matt, “Can’t you smell that?” “Now, over here, it’s definitely stronger here.” and generally driving him around the bend with my obsession.

This is not a new problem, it’s just gotten worse. They started when we first moved house a few years ago and there was some upheaval and stress for them. Murphy would do it more, tending to favour a spot at the front door. I did a lot of reading up on ways and methods of getting them to stop and it seems it’s not easy to retrain a cat. I did manage to get them to stop though ***sensitive cat-lovers look away now*** thanks to this wonderful static-electric mat I found on the internet. It was also a good way to wake us up if we came downstairs barefoot half-asleep in the morning and accidentally stood on it.

Unfortunately their weeing in this house isn’t confined to one spot, they’ve branched out. They’re equal opportunity spritzers these days and the smell is almost impossible to get out. There are cleaning products out there that will get rid of it but they’re not available in Ireland and no suppliers I’ve spoken to will ship them to me.

I absolutely loathe litter trays and I can’t have one in the house because of Eve. A cat flap isn’t possible since we’re only renting here. So I’m out of ideas. Besides, right now I think they’re actually coming into the house in order to pee.

cats