Is it safe?

It’s been over six months since my last dental appointment. Time for a clean, even if I have to pay for it myself.

The reason for this is Homeland Security is still checking to see I’m not a member of the Al Qaeda middle class white atheist division and are backchecking my credentials before I get a Social Security number. Without that my dental insurance doesn’t kick in.

Nevertheless two pints of tea a day were leaving me with tooth strains that in California signal ‘homeless slob’ and I’m conscious that you only get one set of adult knashers in a lifetime. So I looked in the paper, found a trustworthy dentist, and booked an appointment.

I hate going to the dentist. It’s like vaccinations or giving blood, essential but highly unpleasant. A British dentist, who I believe eventually was struck off, took out all my milk molars in one operation and I still have occasional nightmares about a sweet smelling rubber mask coming down on my face and waking up spitting blood and having to learn to chew with my incisors.

Add into that Larry Olivier’s performance in Marathon Man and if they’d asked me “Is it safe?” I’d have been out there so fast you’d have seen the red shift.

Since then prudence has demanded I learn to live with dentists and I’ve had some great ones. An Aussie who was cheerfully grim (“Chew ice with that lower molar and I’ll see you back here in tears”) and a mad Brazilian who promised such a good clean my girlfriend would kiss her fingers.

But they pale into comparison with the practice that did me today. Not only was the lass who did the hard work an absolute gem with great taste in classical music* but it turns out the head dentist was an ex public school boy (Stowe – damn good rugby team) and understood the limits of British dentistry.

So now I have a lovely clean set of teeth and I had an appointment that didn’t leave me putting fingernail marks in the armrests. A full review is here and I’ll be back once it’s determined I’m not a threat to national security.

*Bach’s methodical and predictable music is perfect for controlling panic.

Of cats and men

A quiet start to the weekend. The rest of the household was away so it was just me and Kitty* in the house. It was all in all rather relaxing.

Kitty has gradually got comfortable with me nowadays. In the beginning she would just hide under the sofa but gradually she’s become accustomed to me and now complains noisily if she doesn’t get five minutes of magic fingers backrubs once a day.

I say she, but actually Kitty’s a bloke cat, albeit missing the requisite nadgers. His owner/slave, for we are all slaves to cats, E thought he was a bitch (in the biological sense of the word) at first and was a little put out to discover he was a tom so had him fixed and raised him as a female cat.

This makes Kitty a tad gender confused, and pisses off her vet a lot when E refers to Kitty with the feminine pronoun. Still and all she’s a lovely cat, with beautiful tiger stripe markings and an intelligent temperament.

I’ve said it before but dogs are dumb and loyal while cats are smart but independent. I’m convinced there’s an evolutionary argument for this. Early on in the domestication cycle mankind started hunting cooperatively with dogs so loyalty became a key survival trait and keeping them fed was a priority.

But cats became (semi) domesticated simply because they were easy to tolerate and kill vermin. You didn’t train them, they hung around because houses were largely warm and dry and vermin flocked to them. It wasn’t until a few hundred years ago that people even considered cat food – that was what mice and rats were for.

In my youth I spend the odd winter week or two on a friend’s farm helping out. P’s farm, or rather smallholding, showed this difference very well. The dogs slept in the house and were devoted to, and dependant on, the family - with the exception of their golden retriever who would pop down to the pub every evening because the landlord took a shine to her and put out some beer in a bowl each night.

The cats by contrast lived in the barn and were semi-feral. We had to collect the hen’s eggs as soon as possible in the morning otherwise they’d crack and eat them. Try and pick one up and you’d be straight down to casualty to get your fingers stitched together.

Kitty retains her feral heritage but is trainable. She’s noted that any claw swipe brings about a 24 hour cessation of stroking privileges. Now all I need to do is train her to get on the sofa rather than skulking around my feet.

But there’s always the feeling that if someone invented the paw operated tin opener mankind would lose the cat completely and supermarkets would suffer catlifting rates that would make today’s losses to humans look like a golden age.

But they are seductive little devils, who get under our skin. XKCD has it right on this.

* Photo caption - "Make sure you get my best side."

Quiet night out

Friday night is DYL night at the moment.

DYL stands for Destroy Your Liver, basically it’s a bunch of people from Yelp meeting in a bar and drinking, chatting, laughing and indulging in some light flirting.

It’s not a bad way to spend an evening all in all. Meet some interesting people, visit some new bars and a good time is usually had by all. Well, no fights as far as I know and a couple of couples have got together at them.

Tonight’s was sparsely attended and with a sex imbalance that reached 100 per cent very quickly. I called it a night early and went home to bed; I was very tired.

The reason for this tiredness was that I’d had a breakfast briefing for work with a big PC vendor. The actual briefing was set to begin at 8am. Eight sodding am – it’s just not civilised. Usually I laugh at such timing but felt the need to get out there more so went.

As it turned out it went fairly well, good content even if it didn’t start until 8.30am. That might not sound too bad but I’m not a morning person and an extra 30 minutes in bed can make the difference between civil and sarky. Thankfully I’d stopped in Starbucks and was reasonably civil.

Microsoft once tried to arrange a briefing for me at a conference for 8am on a Sunday morning. I told them that was fine, so long as they didn’t mind my first two questions being “Where’s the bloody tea?” and “Who the hell are you anyway?” The meeting was rescheduled.

Brits abroad

While I’ve had some meetings with Brits over here I’ve kept them pretty minimal since mixing with the locals is the best way to get to know the culture.

However one of the people I know on Yelp got in touch, a Brit who’s been here for a while, and suggested a drink and a natter. Turns out he’s met very few Brits over here and wanted to find out the news from home.

So we met at my local and had a pint of London Pride or four while chewing the fat and playing pool.

Now I thought I had it tough moving over here. He moved over to New York initially and landed in the city on September 9^th 2001. Not exactly the most auspicious start to a career move.

After a spell in Texas he moved to San Francisco and likes it. He clued me into the tax system and how it works (or doesn’t), gave some good info on where to pick up a few delicacies from home and some very useful insights into writing for an American audience.

In return I brought him up to speed on Gordon Brown’s long fall from grace, property prices in London and what exactly is wrong with British sport.

All in all a very good night, and we’ll be doing it again, if his wife lets him.

Merde, il pleut

One of the signs of becoming a San Franciscan manifested itself tonight.

I was wandering back home after a hard day at the office (it’s the summer, so lots of silly pitches and not enough news) and as darkness fell I felt something wet on my face. It was raining.

You’d think after a life in the UK this wouldn’t come as a shock, but after six weeks in the city I’ve become used to not having to worry about rain. Sure when the fog's in you get the occasional dampness on your cheek, but not rain, honest to god droplets of water out of the sky.

I was so excited I went into the house and got the others to take a look – sad but true.

I’m reliably informed that I’ll see rain a plenty in January, and maybe February if I’m lucky, but for the rest of the year San Francisco is a rain free zone. It’s a pity, because we need it, the whole state is in drought at the moment.

Not that you’d notice it. J was appalled when she visited, so see the pavements being cleaned with high pressure hoses. It’s the kind of behaviour that would cause riots if it was practiced on the streets of Melbourne.

True, the city has started to put up advertisements asking people to water their gardens in the morning, not during the hottest part of the day and to turn off the taps when brushing their teeth. So far the response has been less than encouraging.

Slacker

In any city you have to take the rough with the smooth, with this many people crammed together somebody’s going to overhear everyone else.

So when I surfaced from the night’s slumbers at 7.30am to the sound of drumming the first thought was slight irritation, which soon metasized into extreme annoyance.

The first thought was “Someone’s got a new drumkit,” which is irritating at the best of times. Hint: If a mate has really pissed you off buy his kids a drum kit.

But maybe in one of the apartments opposite there’s some budding musician inspired by Ringo Starr (or even the Drummers of Burundi) working on his or her dream of one day making it into a band. Besides I thought, you've only lost an hour's kip and you can make an early start on the day.

But the really annoyance came when they stopped. This slacker only practiced for a touch over 10 minutes. You need at least half an hour in a practice session, preferably an hour, to get better. If I’m going to lose an hour of sleep in the morning I want it to be for a good reason, not just for a dilettante to make some noise once in a while.

While I’m not about to go out and exercise my right to bear arms it made me a little tetchy. That said I’d sound pretty stupid leaning out the window and shouting “Get back on those drums you little slacker.”

Winner

Sunday was Formula One day. I'd missed the last one (in which Lewis cut through the opposition like a knife through butter) as J was in town but dragged my hungover head out of bed and headed down.

Was feeling a little bit homesick so called R, my usual Grand Prix partner and caught up. His wife and kids were fine but he told me to hang up and watch the race as I was about to miss a good bit.

It was a good race, but R had a point; it was made all the better by Massa losing a well deserved victory. That might sound harsh but we love to see Ferrari take a beating.

The post-race raffle was a laugh. D's girlfriend managed to win one of the bottles of wine he'd donated. I won a photo of Kubica I didn't really like so we swapped.

Also found a bunch of South Africans there and it seems biltong is available over here. My stomach is already growling in anticipation.