Flat

For a few years my sister and I lived in an apartment (part of a triplex). This was just after we'd moved to Toronto and before we bought a house of our own.  It was located just south of the TTC place where they later set up the Wychwood Barns complex. Back then they kept old buses and streetcars there before junking them.  As a result, they had regular patrols to deter thieves, with the result that nearby houses were also safe from burglars.

Our apartment was on the second of three stories.  The downstairs neighbors once complained about the noise--slamming doors and such--but I noticed that one night they watched the Oscars show with a bunch of friends and whenever their favorite movie won they'd cheer loudly. (This was back when the Oscars show went on past midnight.)

The apartment's furnishings were somewhat old-fashioned.  We got heat from a radiator with white coils.  And our refrigeration was the sort that you had to defrost once in a while.  In the back yard was a pear tree, though it had seen better days.  There was a loud-mouthed neighbor you could often hear yelling at his wife in Russian.

Mice

My mother was terribly afraid of mice.  Just mentioning the word "mouse" freaked her out.  She might have made a good Victorian lady.

We used to have a problem with mice in our house.  Once I managed to catch one in my glasses case and release him outdoors. (What was I going to do, kill him?) I was surprised how little it was.

In one of James Thurber's stories, he wrote about an eccentric relative who'd leave food next to the mouseholes! (Mother liked Thurber.)

I once saw a cartoon of a cat singing:

Love to eat them mousies!

Mousies what I love to eat!

Bite their little heads off,

Nibble on their tiny feet!

The dentist

Dentistry isn't my favorite subject.  It reminds me that I'm naturally a coward.  Recently my current dentist mentioned that one of my old fillings was unusually close to a nerve.  I think I remember getting that one!

I remember getting my wisdom teeth pulled when I was about thirty.  The hard part is waiting hours for the local anaesthetic to wear off.  It's like being punched in the mouth times a thousand! I'll soon be getting root canal work, which doesn't sound fun.

I suppose that sugar causes tooth decay because there's a curse on it:  growing sugar cane is backbreaking work, and it was mostly sugar production that led to the big increase in New World slavery in the 17th and 18th centuries.

I still have all my non-wisdom teeth, but they're somewhat crooked, and I've thought of getting them straightened.  But it's likely to cost a lot of money, and I don't know if it's worth it at my age.

Once I was eating ice cream and a jagged little piece of plastic from the container got into it. When I felt it in my mouth, I thought it was one of my teeth and got quite a fright!