Thursday February 2, 2012

Our dental appointments were at 8:30am this morning over in Los Algodones. When we arrived, I told Larry I would walk to Dr. Gaspar's and he could go to his appointment at Dr. Castro's. He insisted he would walk with me and it was a good idea as I was totally on the wrong street. This town is basically a 4 block square so I could not imagine I had gone the wrong way. We found the office, Larry dropped me off and headed back to Dr. Castro's for his appointment.

Dr. Gaspar completed my root canal and placed two posts in my tooth. When I came out to the waiting room after my appointment, Vanessa informed me that Larry was on his way over from Dr. Castro's office. At first I thought she meant he was coming to meet me and then I realized he was coming for an appointment, which was not good news. When Larry arrived, he said Dr. Castro cleaned his teeth and sent him to Dr. Gaspar to have a root canal on one of his lower front teeth. This particular tooth has been very sore since he got hit in the mouth by a tree branch out at his hunting property last fall. As it turned out, he had a small abscess at the root of the tooth which was probably started by the trauma of the blow to his mouth.

I left Larry at Dr. Gaspar's and walked to the Purple Pharmacy to look for something to eat, since we had not had breakfast. I bought a bag of peanuts, a diet coke and a carton of cigarettes. Hopefully, I will not be questioned on the last time I took cigarettes across the border as we each took a carton across last week. They allow one carton per person per month. They rarely record anything when crossing and I was pretty sure they did not make a note on the cigarettes from last week. Guess I'll find out today!

I walked around looking for a fanny pac that I had seen last week. I thought I knew where I had seen it but never did see it today. I liked the fanny pac because it was made out of fabric rather than leather and looked a little classier than a normal 'fanny pac'. I did find one fanny pac that was very nice but the lady wanted $25 for it. I didn't try to bargain much with her even though she dropped the price $5 when she saw I was leaving. I wasn't sure she would be willing to drop the price to anything close to what I was willing to pay and I didn't have a lot of time to try bargaining before my appointment with Dr. Juan. I walked by the stained glass guy and just stopped quickly to find out if he had my order from last week completed. He said it would probably be Monday before he finished so I told him I'd check with him next week. I walked through the shops located in a little alley area behind the main sidewalk shops and thought I saw a stained glass for the Cleveland Browns. I stopped to look at it, knowing Larry would love it, since he is a Brown's fan. When I looked again, I realized it was not a Brown's logo. The young guy at the shop came over to talk to me and said his brother could make me a Brown's stained glass. I laughed and asked him how many brother's there were as I also met another 'brother' last week while shopping. He said there were 3 of them and his oldest brother was the one who made the stained glass, which is the one I've bought my previous pieces from.

I made my way to Dr. Castro's(Dr. Juan)and decided to set inside to wait for my appointment as I was freezing. I wore capri's and flip flops today and it was only 44 degrees when we left home. It always warms up quickly but at 11:00 it still felt very cool.  Larry came back from Dr. Gaspar's office to tell me he would wait in the plaza at El Paraiso's for me.I waited over an hour for my appointment and the office girl was laughing when I told her that by the time I got through, Larry would have had WAY too much to drink!  I fear our bar bill will exceed our bill for dental treatment!!

I was called for my appointment and Dr. Juan prepared the root canal tooth for a crown. These dentist amaze me as they make their own temporary crowns and they look like the finished product. He told me next week when I return for the crown, he will send me to the implant dentist to have a consultation regarding the procedure and the price.

I walked over to the plaza and talked to Reuben, who is the waiter where we normally sit. He laughed and said he thought the drunk man setting at the table was my husband. When I walked over where Larry was setting, I realized Reuben was probably serious about the drunk man! When Larry told me how much he had to drink I assumed he was feeling pretty relaxed at that point. I ordered a strawberry margarita and sat down at the sunniest side of the table. I was still freezing and the sun felt wonderful! The band was very good again today. They play all of the best of American music and play it quite well. I'm sure they have all worked very hard to learn to play this music to please all the drunken Americans who sit here daily!!

Reuben came by again and we ordered nachos. The bag of peanuts I had 3 hours ago had pretty much lost their effect! I finished my margarita and ordered a BIG(quart) Pacifica Beer. We talked to a couple next to us who were from Sedona, AZ and she gave me her card to contact her after I had my implant. She said her friend was interested in having an implant so she wanted me to let her know about my implant. We ordered another Pacifica and by the time we left I was warm and VERY mellow!!  I fear our bar bill will exceed the cost for our dental plans!

We walked over to the lady who sells T-Shirts at one of shops located inside the plaza. Last week she tried to get us to buy shirts and we told her we would buy some this week. She said she remembered us from last week. We left the plaza and walked through some more of the sidewalk shops and bought a metal cat sculpture before making our way to the border.
When we walked over to the border line it was very short today. There must not be that many snowbirds in town today as earlier I noticed all of the bicycle taxi's were setting idle. It only took us about 30 minutes to cross and the border guard didn't even mention my cigarettes so I didn't have to tell her the last time I brought them across!!

I drove home, since believe it or not, I had the least amount to drink today! When we got home we were both so tired we laid down for awhile. We ended up having an apple and peanut butter for dinner since neither of us wanted to cook.