(Found this in my drafts folder. I hate to waste a blog post, so here it is…five months later.)

Well, that was an eventful weekend.

It all started Saturday morning when I woke up. Percy the pit bull, who likes to sleep under the covers with me, was curled up in the absolute center of the bed, covers pushed southward… and the bed was wet. Apparently, poor Percy had peed himself in his sleep. Gak.

I had a dentist appointment in Excelsior (MN) that day, plus some other errands to run, so I left the bed in its pee-soaked state. Put a couple beach towels over that nasty spot when we got home late that night so I could sleep without getting damp. Result: damp pjs in the morning.

On Sunday I stripped the bed to wash everything and discovered that the memory foam mattress had been contaminated by Percy-pee. Smokey worked on eliminating it but was ultimately less than successful. All that combined with the fact that the mattress is 12 years old led me to mattress-shopping. Consumer Reports, various mattress-reviewing websites, and, ultimately, comparing three top-rated mattresses led me to this one.

It had the longest free return policy (365 days), the longest guarantee (lifetime), was the thickest (11″ vs. 10″ for the other two), and — wait for it — was the cheapest by $50 – $200. Since all three were highly rated and highly reviewed, I went with this one. Plus a waterproof mattress protector from the same vendor. No more damp mattresses for me.

We have rather odd sleeping arrangements. Back in the aughts we inherited Smokey’s parents’ adjustable beds, which I loved and he tolerated. Eventually we moved the queen-size bed that had been our former bed into our bedroom for him — he has always adored that particular mattress, plus the bed was big enough for him AND three dogs plus the occasional cat — and moved his adjustable bed downstairs to one of the spare bedrooms. He was happy, and I was happy; my back does not tolerate lying flat while reading in bed, and the adjustable bed obviated that problem admirably. Our bedroom is large enough to accommodate a queen and XL twin comfortably, although it does look a little strange.

Want to hear about my dentist appointment? Sure you do. One of my bicuspids broke a couple years ago; this dentist put on a temporary crown and told me to plan on having it replaced with a permanent one. Time went by, I occasionally remembered I supposed to get a permanent crown, and eventually in the past few weeks I began to have some sensitivity in that tooth.

Why do we drive ~100 miles to Excelsior to see a dentist? Normally, I go to one 20 miles away and I like him fine, but the the Excelsior dentist is the one we went to when we lived in Minneapolis. He was a long-time instructor at the University of Minnesota dental school and practiced in a U clinic for low-income folks, largely southeast Asian and later Somali immigrants. He is meticulous and painstaking in his work, exactly what one wants in a dentist, plus he is a one of the nicest people on the face of the planet. So when I need major work done, like a crown, I go see Joe in Excelsior.

He started out the appointment telling me that he had no idea what he was going to find when he removed the temporary crown. Maybe there would be additional decay, maybe I would need a root canal, who knew? Much tapping and an x-ray or two later, he told me 1, it looked like a crown, rather than a root canal, would be the answer, and B, the nerve in that tooth could have passed for that of a teenager. As one ages, the pulp area in the center of a tooth calcifies, but mine had not. (Yay, one part of me is still young!)

He worked on that tooth for an hour and a half to get it ready for its eventual crown. Novocaine and nitrous oxide made it (relatively) pain-free, but I was really glad when it was done. That is a l-o-n-g time to sit immobile with one’s mouth open very wide. Joe also gave me the formula for pain relief that he said is equivalent to that obtained from opiates: 3 ibuprofen and 2 Tylenol. I think he explained the chemistry, too, but I was drifting on the nitrous and didn’t pay much attention. All I know is that the dental tech gave me 3 ibuprofen and I had no pain after the Novocaine wore off.