eventually i made it to boston. today's visit was making the dental impression for my crowd. my dentist doesn't tell me anything, i have to ask what they're doing. i also asked about the cavity on the adjacent molar. the dentist still recommends turning it into a crown, which i'm totally opposed. she said a quarter of the tooth is already filling, and she might not be able to patch it successfully, and if it cracks in the future, there's no chance to do a crown, only extraction. what i really need is a second advice, i still don't trust this dentist, feels like she's giving me the hard sell so she can do a crown and make more money. every time i said i want to just do the filling, she found another reason to do a crown instead. so i decided to see what she does with this current crown, if she does a good pain - and i have no future pain - might start trusting her.
anyway, they shot me up with novacaine again, because in order to do the dental impression, she had to do something with my gum which felt like she was packing it with clay. once that had time to harden, they took two silicone mold of the left side of mouth. they only needed one, but they do two in case one of them doesn't work out. earlier the nurse asked me what enamel color i wanted. she gave me two choices, they both looked the same, i picked the whiter one, nobody's going to see it anyway since it's an upper molar. to do the mold, they injected a rubbery compound and then asked me to bite down as it solidified. they sat me up so the bite would be more natural. after a period of waiting, they removed the mold. they did this twice. i asked the dentist what happens if a patient is missing both top and bottom teeth; she said in that case they can do an estimate of what the teeth should look like. once that was done, i was free to go. next appointment is in a week.
once again the dentist told me i couldn't eat for the next 2 hours. that's why i booked a slightly earlier appointment, so i could eat by 1pm. originally i was going to get some pastries from chinatown, but once again i lost my appetite when told i couldn't eat right away. instead i biked down to c-mart to get a few things.
one of the things i was looking for was chinese calendars. disappointingly, c-mart didn't sell any. so afterwards i went to the chase bank across the street. i came here last year to get some money from the ATM when the credit card machines malfunctioned at the chinese supermarkets. they had these special chinese calendars celebrating the year of the ox. so i was hoping they'd have some free calendars celebrating the year of the tiger. this chase bank is always empty even though there's half a dozen associates working there. they were happy to see me, a rare customer. "do you have any chinese calendars?" i asked the woman. "yes we do," she replied, as she opened a closet door. i asked her if i could have two calendars, she gave me a whole stack. "do you own a business?" she asked, and told me she could give me a whole case if i wanted it.
coming back, i set up the gopro on the handlebar to shoot a timewarp video. navigating the curves of the fiedler foot bridge, i crashed my bike when i made a turn on a small patch of ice. i wasn't hurt and the bike was okay, i felt more pain from the humiliation and embarrassment when a jogger who saw the whole thing asked if i was okay. you don't ride a bike as much as i have without falling off everyone once in a while.
the ride back was into a headwind. at one point i nearly decided to give up, thought about ditching my bike and taking the bus back home instead, except there are no bus routes on the charles river, so it forced me to keep peddling, even though at times it felt like i wasn't even moving. going across the mass ave bridge, i saw a bunch of common mergansers in the water. apparently they're winter migrants but i've seen mergansers on the mystic river in the summers.
i finally made it back by 12:15pm, just in time to catch the weather forecast on the news. they told me what i already knew, that with the strong winds the wind chill felt like it was in the teens. afterwards i felt traumatized by the cold, violated by the winds. i bought a bottle of sesame salad dressing that i tucked into one of the side pockets of my messenger bag. when i finally fished it out an hour later, it still felt like ice, that's how cold it was outside.
when 1pm finally came around, i had a tonkotsu instant ramen and a glass of matcha latte. the ramen tasted a little off, and it wasn't until i was nearly finished when i discovered there was a another packet (chili oil) at the bottom of the bowl. at least the matcha latte was good, i'll need to get more milk tomorrow, when the temperature is supposedly be in the upper 40's. i went to star market briefly to get some chicken thighs and navel oranges on sale. that'd be the last time i'd go out for the day.
i finished watching green knight, a movie i had in my queue since august. it's pretty good but i didn't understand the ending nor various parts of the movie, so i had to go online and have it explained to me.
for dinner i tried a sweet earth frozen meal, general tso's tofu. did i accidentally buy a bunch of frozen vegetarian meals last week? i think i did. it was a quick meal, just 5-1/2 minutes in the microwave. once again, the serving was tiny, and just 360 calories. but earlier i snacked on some cheese and crackers, so i wasn't that hungry. it did not taste like general tso's anything, but it was tasty. i could probably make this on my own and have it taste 1000% better.
while taking a shower, i noticed pain on my right shin. it took me a second to realize it was from the fall earlier this morning. i must've bashed my shin into the bike frame when i crashed. i didn't notice any bruising, just glad i didn't break anything.