this guy was in my left fist the whole time I was in the dentist's chair last week

I'm big on talismans. I wore a bracelet my BFF made for me, a necklace another close friend gave me, and earrings I associate with a third close friend. (And I had a CBD gummy - with a tiny bit of THC - to help with pain and anxiety).

Thankfully, seems like I worried for nothing. I just told him that I would leave one earbud out and not ignore him, but that I would be 74% more chill if I had something else to focus on. And he was fine. Though when he heard I was listening to The Beatles, he proceeded to explain John & Yoko's Bed In; I've chosen to believe it's because of my apparent youth rather than Mansplaining.

Cass, the WaPo would love to hear from you. [link]

On a related note: what have we decided is the appropriate response when someone apologizes, but you're not gonna say "It's OK" because it's not, at least not yet?

Different culture and all, but if it's not a situation where expressing one's true feelings and opinions is considered to be rude/hurt fragile feelings (for any reason), I'm going with smiling and nodding and saying "... very well". I think it's the equivalent of "I heard your apology".

I get most of my medical care through a local hospital (dentist, eye doctor and foot doctor are separate) and I've had blood drawn pretty frequently. I consider myself lucky - they're generally pretty good (the only little prick is what I feel, not the one doing the draw). I lucked out in regard to dentists when I moved out on my own - I'd had TERRIBLE experiences with dentists under my parents' auspices. The one I got on my own - looked like someone's kindly grandfather and was sooo gentle ... he saw I was afraid and made an extra effort with me. He retired and sold the practice, so I kept on with the new dentist who's good, but the old one has a special place in my memory.

Yeah, what Beveryly said - sorry about the jerks. I've been very lucky with doctors. Dentists, not so much. I need to find a good one now, and I've been putting it off, which is not smart.

Cass, argh. I am rooting for your triumph.

I wear a necklace my niece gave me last Christmas almost every day -- it's one of those message types; it's a brown metal disc with a hole in the middle that the chain goes through -- that says BE WELL on it. I'm like, yup, OK, I will do that. I've never had a talisman before that I'm aware of, but now I do.

It's grey and rainy here today, which I don't mind at all, and I plan to spend the day sorting out the "office" so I can actually use it as such.

Other than the creepy child molester GP when I was a preteen, I've had very good luck with doctors and dentists. I guess I should have sung the praises of the nurse who took my blood donation last week, he was very nice and the needle barely hurt. You couldn't tell I'd been stuck after about 3 days.

When I last gave blood, the nurse doing my intake looked up my history and saw I had an incomplete donation the previous time and says "was it me?" and I told her how everyone kind of pitched in to t try to get that pint out of me but we couldn't do it, and then as I was actually donating another nurse came by and "my" nurse told her she was paying special attention to me because of the previous time and she immediately says "was it me?" So, hoping Epic's jerk learns from her bad experience as that seems to be the norm and expectation

If I needed labs in the Before Times, I would ask if there was anyone in that day who specialized in pediatric draws.

Jim needed a lot of remedial periodontal work because of bad experiences; though there are several dentists here on the island with excellent reputations, we take the day (and the boat, and driving on 90) to visit our old dentist in Bellevue, who makes sure he and all his staff have ongoing training in dealing with patients who have dental anxiety.

Spoke to a salesperson this morning who told me the rumour that they are hearing about what's happening in my department (and this is very typical that they would hear before we do what is happening with us) and it makes sense as far as the organization goes but I think will further remove me from my professional aspirations, such as they are. Ah, well, we shall see.

I haven't been to the dentist since COVID and now I don't want to go until I have paid for all the work I had done when I broke my molar and all that. It's just debt that keeps piling up with every visit and not going for the visit doesn't seem that risky? IDK

Unrelated to the reorg, I have spent ALL WEEK trying to get shipped the remnants of a TJ Maxx order that was supposedly returned to us as the original shipment was overweight. This has involved a lot of back and forth with at least two of their departments and today when we finally have all the ducks in a row I am told that no, we do not have that inventory after all, maybe TJ Maxx already got it. What?