Mishmash Musings

I usually don’t pay much attention to men’s fashion trends, but I recently came across an article about the Best Dressed Brits and thought it was kind of interesting. Can you guess who was No. 1 in the UK? I thought it might have been David Beckham, but it actually turned out to be actor Daniel Craig, who is better known throughout the world as the newest James Bond.

Beckham did make the list, but he was at No. 6, just behind Tom Ford, fashion designer of choice to many Hollywood celebs.

Other notable entries on the list include Prince Harry (No. 12), the Prince of Wales (No. 25) and the Duke of Edinburgh (No. 33). Not on the list was Prince William, which should say something about the way he dresses, considering the fact that his younger brother, father, and grandfather were all included!! Yikes.

Wow, it seems like there’s an endless supply of crazy in this country. The biggest news story of the morning concerns an 18-year-old South Carolina kid named Ryan Schallenberger who was apparently planning to bomb his Chesterfield school in an act that he called a “Columbine followup”.

The plan was thwarted when Schallenberger’s parents phoned police after 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate was delivered to their door (yay for online shopping). A subsequent search yielded a journal in which Schallenberger laid out the details of his plans. He wanted to plant bombs around the school and then leave an audio recording of some rant or other after he killed himself and who knows how many others.

According to the CNN article I read, no guns or other weapons were found in or near the Schallenberger home.

To make this whole South Carolina school bomb plot even more of a head-scratcher, it seems that Ryan Schalleberger wasn’t an outsider or loner like the Columbine killers. He is described as “handsome” and “social”, which certainly doesn’t fit the typical bullied nerd profile of other kids who have taken this path.

I’m glad the parents did the right thing and called the cops here. Now I’m interested in finding out what the kid’s deal is. Why was Ryan Schallenberger plotting to bomb his school? Obviously something wasn’t right with him, but what???

Today is 4/20, which I guess means something to all the pot smokers out there. I personally don’t see what the big deal is, and I can’t imagine anyone over 30 getting excited about this “holiday”, but hey, there’s no denying that a whole cannabis culture exists, so there ya go.

While I’m sure there will be plenty of 420 festivals and celebrations today, I think it’s safe to say that I won’t be attending any. I’m just going to spend the day like any other Sunday, going grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and watching DVDs. What can I say? I’m 34 and haven’t touched the stuff in probably 15 years!

A friend of mine recently went on vacation to San Diego, and like most people who visit there, decided to cross the border for a quick trip to Tijuana. He drove his rental car over there, then like an idiot, left his duffel and stuff in the backseat — clearly visible, mind you — while he strolled around with his buddies.

Not surprisingly, everything was gone when he returned several hours later.

Fortunately for him, it was mostly just dirty clothes and a few trinkets he’d purchased before. He was carrying his important items in a Pacsafe hip pack, otherwise that trip could have turned into a nightmare.

I thought everyone knew better than to leave a bag in an unattended car in TJ of all places, but apparently not. Yeah, he’s not my brightest friend, but whatever!

I had my monthly orthodontist appointment today rather than on a Friday like I usually do because my ortho took the day off yesterday. Things went really well, and I even got some surprising news: My braces might be ready to come off in two months!!!

I guess I’ve been making better progress than I thought, because the last time a removal date was mentioned, I was told September or October at the earliest. But now he thinks the braces might be ready for removal in two more visits, which is actually about seven weeks away since my next appointment is in three weeks rather than the usual four. God, I’m so excited!!!

Anyway, today my ortho replaced both the top and bottom archwire, to simple, standard ones with no attachments, hooks, or anything else. If you’ll recall from my January ortho update, I had a T-bar in the top archwire to help close a few gaps. I also had hooks for rubberbands, but both of those are gone now. I just have a single wire across the top, which of course looks and feels much, much better.

My ortho also finally started to address the crookedness in my front six bottom teeth. Actually, it’s just three teeth that are out of line, the three on the right side. He did a quick procedure called interproximial reduction, which essentially reduces tooth size by a little bit by stripping off the enamel. The ortho used an instrument that looked like a tiny hacksaw (without teeth) to file away the enamel to create a bit of space between the teeth that are about to be moved.

The procedure is apparently quite common, and didn’t hurt at all. There was just a lot of vibration from the instrument, but no pain. It was a bit weird seeing liquefied enamel ooze out of my mouth, though!

I’m in a bit of pain now as these archwires are putting more pressure on my teeth than I’ve had in a while. I don’t care though, because all of this will be over in seven short weeks!

I took advantage of the recent WGA strike to get caught up on The Office, a show I never really got into before. But my friends kept insisting that I’d end up loving it if I just stuck with the DVDs, so I did. I managed to get through the first three seasons in about three months, and then I caught up on Season Four by watching the eps on a friend’s TiVo. And while I don’t love the show, I do think it’s pretty funny most of the time.

Anyway, last week’s episode was about a dinner party that Jan and Michael threw for Jim, Pam, Andy, and Angela. While it wasn’t a quality ep from beginning to end, there were a few good moments. I especially liked the part where Michael showed off his brand-new flat-panel TV. It was just a tiny thing, like 8 inches or something ridiculous like that. What made the gag totally hilarious was that Michael actually had it on a tv wall mount, and said he could “stand there” for hours watching his favorite shows! I couldn’t stop laughing at that one!

I haven’t watched “Chair Model” yet, but it’s on my TiVo now, so I should get to it this weekend. I can’t believe I’m actually a fan of The Office after hating Season One and the first part of Season 2 so much!

Wow, I think I have to dig out my Earth Science textbooks from high school and reread the chapters about earthquakes. I had no idea that Illinois is sitting near a fault line, but apparently we are. How do I know now? Um, because of the 5.4 magnitude quake that hit this morning!

Fortunately, there’s no damage to speak of in my neck of the woods. Even so, it was a bit freaky. This is the kind of you expect in California, not the Windy City!

Edit: I just saw on the news that Illinois falls in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.

I don’t know why, but whenever I wake up late, even if it’s just 30 minutes or an hour past the time I set my alarm clock for, it sets off a chain reaction that throws my entire day out of whack.

Today I had planned on waking up at 5:30am as usual, but ended up “sleeping in” until 6:30. That gave me only 30 minutes to myself in the morning before waking up my son and husband instead of the hour and a half that I’m accustomed to. So I couldn’t do any writing or exercising in the morning like on a typical day.

After that, my son didn’t feel like going to preschool, and I didn’t feel like pushing him into a temper tantrum, so he ended up staying home today. That of course meant I had to entertain him for most of the day, which put me even further behind on my regular tasks.

It’s now 4pm and I’ve barely done anything work-related because I didn’t have time to sit down at the computer. Luckily, I decided not to let the entire day go to waste, so I put an audiobook on my iPod and set about giving the house a thorough cleaning by taking care of the floors, tubs, toilets, sinks, and even kitchen appliances. I always feel better when the house is clean!

Anyway, now I’m way behind on my writing and still don’t really feel like doing anything tonight. Maybe I’ll just give myself the day off, watch TV, relax…. It’s funny how waking up just an hour late takes me completely out of my groove!