Michael Jackson

I got a Twitter yesterday on my way home from picking up the kids that said, "R.I.P. Michael Jackson."

I thought, now that's weird... As I don't know the person who "tweeted" this message personally (I only follow), I can only imagine that she meant THE Michael Jackson, but I didn't know for sure. I found out later that, in fact, she meant THE Michael Jackson since he passed away yesterday afternoon.

I know he's been out of the entertainment spotlight for years - hasn't released a new album in years. In fact, I don't remember when he released his last album it's been so long. For all intents and purposes, he should have been irrelevant as artists who don't continue producing music and touring do. Yes, he never left the papparazzi's eyes because of his legal and financial issues, but that's not why he wasn't irrelevant. Michael Jackson was never irrelevant because made SUCH a huge impact in his early career both as a musician and an entertainer. He doesn't have Beatles power, but he's darn close as a solo entertainer.

How many tunes of his have been remade (Alient Ant Farm - "Smooth Criminal"), parodied (Weird Al Yankovic - "Eat It") or sampled in current music (Rihanna - "Don't Stop the Music")? Tons, and those I just listed are just the ones that come to mind immediately to me. How many musicians were influenced by him? Tons - just read the tributes to him that artists are making today. I wonder if Janet Jackson would have had a shot at her music career without him. The cult following he had... insanity. I heard stories on the radio this morning of people camping out in vans near his homes depending on where he was staying. That's INSANE! When I heard of his comeback tour, it didn't surprise me one bit that every single date was sold out in 2 hours. Heck, I don't think that any of those dates were State-side either! The man is a world icon. I asked friends in Australia last night if they'd heard about Michael Jackson's death. They said he made the front page. Again, not surprised. Twitter and Facebook crashed last night while spreading the news of his death because this isn't just USA news. This is world news.

No one else could have integrated horror film voice Vincent Price into a song and top the pop charts with it. As if topping the pop charts wasn't enough, Michael Jackson THEN took that top tune and cemented its place in history it with a music video that had awesome choreographed dance scenes and signature dance moves (the "Moonwalk") while telling a story. No one could do that like Michael Jackson. And no one will ever be able to wear a sparkling white glove and Moonwalk like Michael Jackson.

I've been listening to radio most of this morning, and they are all playing his music as a tribute to him. And I am amazed at how many tunes I know and enjoy. "Thriller" is my favorite tune of his, and it is my #1 favorite music video. I was hoping that he'd come back from this tour a changed and inspired man to make more music and entertain us. But instead, he left the world prematurely.

Thank you, Michael Jackson, for changing pop music and its secondary medium, the music video.

Darkness falls across the land
The midnite hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighbourhood

And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpses shell

The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzy ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller

-Michael Jackson "Thriller"

BBQ Baby Back Ribs

I love baby back ribs. I don't get them often enough, and I don't feel like I have the skill set to make them myself. I keep trying ribs at various restaurants' ribs and without fail, I'm horribly disappointed. I vow every time I'll never try another restaurants' ribs, and then I do and kick myself for it. I've been to the Corner Stable - Baltimorons rave about this place - and I thought their ribs were too sweet. They were tender, but I don't want dessert as my main meal!!

The only restaurant whose ribs I'll eat is called The Charred Rib which has THE best ribs I've ever had. If I want ribs, I resigned myself that I just have to go to The Charred Rib. Their ribs are fall-off-the-bone-tender (I can eat them with a fork, no problem) and moist with a sauce that is not too sweet or too smokey or too spicy. Their sauce is a perfect combination of the three, a very difficult combination to find, IMHO.

Well, we can't always afford the time to go to The Charred Rib, so Steve and I thought that maybe we should try our own. A few years ago, I tried an Alton Brown recipe while we were still living in the townhouse... epic fail. They were dry and tasteless. I threw them out on the spot and went to bed hungry they were so bad. I had to have done something wrong because the reviews for the recipe were all very positive. That was the first and only time I'd tried making ribs, and basically decided that the only way I was going to get ribs was by going to The Charred Rib, which basically meant almost never.

Fast forward a few years, and now we have kids so we have even LESS time to go to The Charred Rib. What's worse, Steve and I have been both jonesing for some ribs. This time, was Steve's turn to try his hand at ribs. He did some research, and tried a mesquite rub we had in the spice cabinet and used the cooking technique in an Emeril recipe. The results were tasted last night.

The mesquite rub = fail. The flavor didn't penetrate the ribs at all, and what flavor was on the outside tasted nothing like how it smells. In fact, it tasted horrible. I will be throwing this out of our spice arsenal.

The Hunts BBQ sauce = win. This was a dartboard purchase, and I'm happy to report that I was happy with it. What does a dartboard purchase mean? It means that I just shut my eyes and reach for a random BBQ sauce on the grocery shelf. Why? Because I've not been able to find the Jim Beam bourbon BBQ sauce I really like in years..... But I think this Hunts version is pretty good and will stick with it until I taste another one that I like.

The cooking technique = better than my attempt by far. They were tender, but not really moist and by no means were they "fall off the bone" like The Charred Rib's are.

We still threw out the batch of ribs, but we are not totally discouraged like last time. Since it's my turn to try my hand at ribs (again), I have some lessons learned to work with.

1. Pork requires a marinade no matter what. Except for bacon, every variety of pork I've ever eaten seems to be flavorless and dry unless it's marinated in advance. One of Emeril's recipes suggests putting a rub on the ribs, letting them sit for a day, and then marinating them in beer for another day. I think this technique has potential.

2. The rub will NOT be that horrible mesquite. Every rib rub I've ever seen includes some form of brown sugar, so I will look for something like that. Again, Emeril's one recipe looked intriguing.

3. The ribs were pre-cooked in the oven at a nice low 275 temp, were set to sit overnight, and then grilled. Even though the temp was low, I'm wondering if we cooked them too long in the oven which dried them out some. I've also wondered if there is some other technique that I should consider to make them fall-off-the-bone tender (boil?? slow cooker??). The pre-cook then grill technique is definitely headed in the right direction, though.

4. I will buy a half rack of ribs (if possible) instead of a full rack to waste less until we get our flavors and cooking technique down!

I'm so jonesing for some Charred Rib ribs now... ::sigh::

Can't autocross cars that turn

Ever since I got into the Miata from the STi, I've dropped in PAX from being in the Top 80 to being in the 150s.

I thought, maybe it's just that it's a Miata, and I'm scared of no anti-lock and can't deal with rear wheel drive. I decided to do a test... I approached John Willemin, and he was gracious enough to let me abuse his STX-prepped WRX during the Pro Solo this past weekend.

Apparently, I can't drive that either. So that confirms it.... I can't drive a car that turns.

Despite that, though, I had a total BALL driving his car. There was no boost lag (like in my wagon in stock trim), and it turns (unlike my wagon and the STi). A Subaru that turns?? WEIRD. LOL

Was it dumb of me to drive a new-to-me car at the Pro Solo? Yeah, probably, since a Pro Solo adds another element to the race because of the start format. But that's ok. I wasn't any more comfortable driving the Miata so I figured, what's the diff?

John took his first set of runs, and got a rerun for a bad time. Then it was possible he was going to get a second rerun, but he was off course. When we finally got back to grid, we had to find a way to get a cone out from under his car, and get ready for me to run in a very short amount of time as the Grid workers were gunning for us to be ready now now now. In the process of getting rushed out of grid, I failed put the correct numbers on the car to reflect that I was driving. Despite a clean first run, I didn't get a time because the numbers were wrong.

I got a clean right side time, and then promptly coned my other 2 runs. After morning runs, John was 7th ("I was SEVENTH!") and I was 9th out of 12 in the class. I'm thinking, 9th with a dirty run being counted? I can make a dent in the standings if I can clean up the left side runs.

In the afternoon, John ran some great runs, and pulled himself into 4th, the final trophy spot. We made sure we had the right numbers on the car for my runs this time. Although I cleaned up my left side run, I didn't improve my right side time, red lit a run (.491... arrrg!!!), and coned another one. I had slid down a spot to 10th.

During my hour long drive home, while I slept, and during my drive back, I really thought about what I was doing wrong in my driving. I concluded that I don't have a spine. When I finish my runs, I'm not shaking from adrenaline, thinking I just scared myself. Yeah, that's not happening, and that means I'm scared to push the car.

But I shouldn't be scared! This isn't the Miata!! In the Miata, I'm scared to push the car because pushing the car guarantees I'll spin the car because I haven't learned how to "catch" it (via light throttle inputs and fast steering) if it starts to spin. I'm also scared the Miata won't stop because of the lack of anti-lock.

Instead, a WRX has antilock brakes and AWD. I understand that if I'm about to spin, put the pedal to the floor and likely the car will pull itself out of it. If I need to stop, stomp the brake pedal to the floor and it will stop. Thus, there is no reason to be scared to push a WRX; it does not have the same tendencies as the Miata!!!

Having figured that out, I resolved to scare myself while driving.... to push the car... to find a spine.

John's Sunday morning runs were fantastic. He pulled out some awesome times, and placed second in the class. CONGRATS to John!!

Meanwhile, I talked about the course to trusted people, and tried to find my confidence in others. Unfortunately, I don't think that worked; if I don't believe in myself, it doesn't matter what others think. I knew I was still scared.

So I drank some liquid courage - Red Bull - to try and clear my head of the exhausted fog I was in and give me some extra adrenaline. Actually, that was very calculated on my part. I know that Red Bull gives me the jitters, and I was hoping those jitters would translate into my driving i.e. make me take risks that I normally wouldn't.

It was finally my turn to drive. After confirming (once again) that we had the correct numbers on the car, I got to the line, I staged the car and... in standard Pro Solo fashion, National's timing system bombed.

OMG you have to be kidding me.

It was so bad that I was told to pull the car out of stage. I turned off the engine, pulled out my iPhone, and started listening to high energy playlist on my iPod to try and keep my adrenaline up. Talk about icing the kicker.

Finally, National fixed it's crap system, and I got to take my first run (left side). I took off over a second. I was happy about that, since that meant I took more risks. But I needed to take off at least another second to be within the class' average time for the left course.

My right side time saw a little improvement, too, but not enough. Two runs left, and that's all she wrote. I red lit my last left side run, and spun on my last right side run while trying to push hard through a section.

I was disappointed in my last two runs, but I am happy that I made a conscious effort to take more risks. I never actually reached that "shaking from the adrenaline after a run" mode, though, but I'd improved my times a little. And proving my hypothesis that I can't autocross a car that turns, I'd spun the car, too.

Unfortunately for me, my improvement wasn't enough, and I found myself having dropped another spot to 11th at the end of the event. Disappointed because I expected to do better, even though I'd never driven the car before that event.

I guess the point-and-shoot nature of the STi really suited my driving style... less driving inputs and more focus on driving the line. Now I have to focus on both, and I guess I don't have the mental bandwidth to do it. Top it off with being scared of spinning and not stopping, and I have quite formula for autocross failure.

Anyone have a spine I can borrow?

National Pro Solo in DC

This past weekend, WDCR-SCCA hosted the National Pro Solo at FedEx Field. I signed up to drive, but Steve didn't. This made for an incredibly long weekend for both of us since I was helping to organize the event (in addition to competing) and Steve was watching the kids.

Since Steve decided not to drive, I had approached John Willemin to see if he would be interested in a codriver. I've never driven an STX prepared WRX, and so I was thrilled when John agreed.

Friday, Steve did me a huge favor and took the kids to daycare. That gave me the time to go to the grocery store, and stocked the house for the weekend. Then I prepared some dinner options so that Steve would only have to come home and reheat in case I didn't get home for dinner in time. Then I went to Sam's Club to buy 10 cases of water and trashbags for the event.

I stopped to trade cars with John since he wouldn't be getting out of work until late. This allowed me to get practice starts in and take the car through Tech for him, and so that he wouldn't have to rush to the site. He arrived with enough time to get some practice starts in. The car seemed to hook up pretty well; it's not as good as the STi on rcomps, but boy it was fun! Meanwhile, Kevin and I loaded the water into the trailer from the Outback, and partook in the welcome dinner (best welcome dinner at a national event, so we hear.)

I left shortly thereafter to try and get home to help put the kids to bed. When I arrived, my mother-in-law was there. I didn't realize she was going to come over, so that was a nice surprise to see that Steve was going to have help no matter what. We put the kids to bed, I showered, and wasn't long before I was in bed myself.

Saturday, I got up at 5am, left the house at 5:15, and was onsite at 6:15. I sent home the overnight security guard, and began my course walks. Boy... the visuals on the left hand course were WEIRD in the crossover. WEIRD. It was like they tried to put an element WITHIN the crossover. I got used to it, but I'm not sure I liked it.

By 7:15, I had to start being a Worker Chief, and fulfill all of those responsibilities. At 8:45, I was to report to Impound/Tech to check workers in. Why couldn't I check them in from our trailer? It's closer to course and more centrally located.... Well, whatever, it's not MY event, so I did as I was told. About 5 minutes later, the skies opened up, and there I was, asking the same question... why couldn't I check them in from INSIDE OUR TRAILER??? I'd have been DRY but no, now I was standing there, watching the ink run down my checkin sheet and getting soaked by the second. Needless to say, that got changed for the rest of the event.

And now for the mantra:
It's not a DC Pro Solo until it rains.

I don't know what it is about the Pro Solo when we host it, but it rains almost every year. So now that we got THAT out of the way....

And now for the next mantra:
It's not a Pro Solo (doesn't matter which location) until we have timing delays.

National's Pro Solo equipment is notorious for failing, rain or shine, but it must really HATE the rain. It's common for the event to be behind because of timing failures, and rain-based failures just compound the problem. So now that we got THAT out of the way....

Safety stops the event dead in its tracks. Lightening was spotted. Everybody OFF the course! Safety dictates that the event must shut down for half an hour from the last sighting of lightening.

Now that we're over an hour behind schedule... there were MORE timing problems. The timing problems got so bad that we didn't finish morning runs until 4pm. That's INSANE. We still had afternoon runs to go! Thankfully, those runs were dry, but the last car didn't finish running until 8:45pm. That's just ridiculous.

As for my runs, well, I think I'll talk about that in another post.

I got home at about 9pm myself, got a quick recap from Steve about his day with the kids, took a shower, gave the kids kisses while they were sleeping, and was in bed by 9:30pm. I was beat.

I slept in on Sunday... got up at 6am. ::roll eyes:: I was at FedEx by 7:15, watched a small ice-based incident (there is no such thing as too much ice at an autocross!) and runs started at 8. Not 5 minutes later, the skies opened up. Again. This time, though, I was already in the trailer. Muahaha!

I got a text from Steve during the morning saying that the kids had let him sleep in until 8 and one that said "From the Law of Unintended Repitition: Nice Booger!" ROTFLMAO

During the last heat of morning runs, Kelly's car sounded like a box of rocks. It was blowing blue smoke, too. A bunch of guys pushed it up the hill into impound. Popped the hood, and then Kelly, Kristina and I just stood there and scratched our heads. Literally. Marshall, Ian and Jeff Jacobs came over to help. Ian pulled the dip stick, smoke came out of it and the oil fill access, and asked when the oil was last changed. Less than 3k miles, at the dealership. Kelly is religious about her oil changes.

From what Ian could tell, there was almost no oil in it. He got a container of oil and started filling... and filling... and filling... 3 quarts later, it finally registers on the dip stick. OMG. It wasn't leaking oil anywhere so WTF?! The only thing we can guess at this point is the grease monkey who did the oil change didn't actually ADD enough oil. After adding oil, Kelly started the engine and although it sounded a WHOLE lot better, it still had a knock. Likely a rod at this point, the guys proclaimed. That means a new engine...

Kelly, to my enormous amazement, was not panicking. She had AAA Gold (which includes 100 miles of towing), and she was within 100 miles of her warranty. She had the car towed to MINI of Sterling, and the service manager is looking into it....I'd have been FREAKED OUT (and pissed).

Morning runs finished at 1pm, and the Challenge Rounds started at 2. I went out to work on course for the Challenge ROunds, and watched a great competition. Lots of locals made the challenges, so that was really cool, too.

Right as the Challenge Rounds ended, I got a text. "I hope you're coming home soon." Steve had had enough. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't clean up, but I had to go be Mommy. I drove home as fast as I could. I got to feed the kids dinner, give DJ a bath, cook a chicken to eat over the course of this week, and then clean up. I got a shower in, and then I got to sit down on the couch.

It was a long weekend, but I love the Pro. It's maddeningly fun!

Cars

The last few weeks have been full of car drama. Most notably, the STi blew a CEL (check engine light), started underperforming, and then started making a really nasty screeching sound when coming off of boost. It got parked in the driveway and the Outback got a warm spot in the garage. This meant that the Outback would brought into daily driver service.

Since I was now driving the Outback, I decided that I had better check the rubbing sound that gets faster as the wheels turn faster. The last thing we need is to have a wheel bearing going and have an accident because of it.

I took it to Hampton Automotive at the end of the work day so that Gary could have it for the next day. Gary - bless his heart - drove it home that night so that he could hear the sound. I got a phone call later in the day:
"You didn't leave me much gas..."
"I planned to get some after you were done with it."
"I wasn't going to make it home on that little in the tank. So I put a couple bucks in it."
"Home??"
"Yeah! How do you expect me to diagnose it?"
"I expected that you'd drive it around the block, not drive it home!"

Lesson learned - never give your mechanic your car with nearly nothing in the gas tank. You never know what he might do to diagnose it!! ::embarrassed:: LOL

Gary said it wasn't a wheel bearing, it wasn't rotors rubbing weird, though he had them machined, and it wasn't brakes. The only thing it could be is inside the axel and he said it's not a safety issue. Just drive the car and be done with it. Sir, yes, sir!

"Oh and bring it back sooner than 7000 miles to have its oil changed."
"It's only been 4000 miles..."
"No, it's been 7000.... that's 4000 on top of the 3000 from when you were supposed to bring it in."
"I thought that was when it was last done..." (pause) "You're right." ::facepalm::

Again, appropriately chastized for being a moron. You'd think I'd know better by now.

So a week after all this, the Outback blows a CEL. !!! NOOOOOO!!! But it was running fine just getting horrible gas mileage. Must be an O2 sensor.

That's when we ordered the code reader. It arrived shortly thereafter. The Outback had a slow reading O2 sensor. Steve cleared the CEL and not only has it not come back since but mpgs is back to normal. Then he read the STi.

The codes on the STi (yes, there were two) indicated two possible issues:
1. It didn't like the oil... this could be anything having to do with oil.
2. It could be a blown turbo.

We crossed our fingers, and Steve changed the oil/filter last night. Much to Steve's horror, the wrong filter had been put in the car. As a result, the oil was black and nasty. No wonder the engine hated it. With the correct filter and fresh oil, both Steve and I took it on separate drives and boy did that feel better; even shifting into 5th gear is smooth again. So in a couple hundred miles, Steve is going to change the oil and filter again, just to make sure all the junk is out. I want to say that the dealership changed the oil last, but I don't remember anymore. Wouldn't surprise me if they got it wrong, though... they've gotten it wrong in the past more than once on multiple cars. We've found puddles of oil on our garage floor one too many times after a dealership oil change.

Speaking of dealerships screwing up: one of my friends is likely to need a new engine because of it... more on that in another post about this past weekend's National Pro Solo in DC.

We are SOOO thankful that the STi is ok. We were scared to have to dump a horrible amount of money into it... Yaaay! 3 working Subarus!! Now we just have to replace the diff in the Miata.... it never ends, does it??

Social Awareness for children

John Rosemond is a family psychologist who writes a column in the Washington Times. I am not sure if it's a regular column as I am not a regular reader, and I'm too lazy to go research it. ;-) Anyway, a family member sent me a recent article of his about how children should not be allowed to express their feelings freely.

He has some valid points in this article, contending that children need to learn how to control their feelings early to be sensitized to social norms as early as possible. His example:

Take love, for example. If it is inappropriate for an adult to blurt out "I love you!" whenever the feeling strikes, then I submit it is inappropriate for a child of a certain age and in certain situations to do so as well. In both cases, the spontaneous expression of feeling may cause the individual who is the object of said emotion to feel very uncomfortable.

I agree with this in principle; a child does need to learn how to control their feelings. Mr. Rosemond labels that control as becoming "civilized" and that's fine... he can label it what he wants. I personally don't like that term for it as I think the word "civilized" describes the control over our basic instincts as mammals e.g. not killing each other for food. On the other hand, I think what Mr. Rosemond is describing is the next step up in behavior modification from controlling our basic instincts. Since this is my blog, I'll label emotional control as "social awareness".

Then Mr. Rosemond continues with this anectdote and subsequent comment:

As I write this, in an airport waiting area, a mother is following her toddler as he runs up and down the rows of occupied seats, yelling incoherently, causing a general disturbance. Mom is smiling, as if she thinks this is cute. No doubt she would agree with my critic. Her child wants to run and yell in a public area; therefore, he should be allowed to run and yell (and she should run grinning after him, doubling the disturbance).

I'm certain the Stone Age mother would have removed her child from the area, insisted that he calm down and taught him to sit quietly with her. And everyone, including her child, would have benefited from her repressive, draconian attitude.

Again, in principle, I agree with him. A parent should not let their child be a nuisance to the world because the child can't control itself. However, I think Mr. Rosemond's argument = Fail on a couple of points.

1. A toddler is not mature enough to effectively control their emotions.

Heck, adults can't get it right, so why should children, especially a toddler? That said, a toddler is mature enough to *start* learning how to control their emotions. So expecting a toddler to calm down and be quiet upon an initial command is reasonable. Expecting a toddler to continue to follow the "calm down and be quiet" command over a sustained period of time, such as waiting in an airport waiting room for more than, say, 20 minutes, and I think even that's long for a toddler, is setting up the child for failure. Unless the toddler is the son of God, the only outcome to that situation is an even larger public disturbance because the toddler will melt down from the sheer inability to meet the expectation set upon it. This is no fault of the child, but of the parent who set the child up for failure.

Yes, children need to learn how to deal with failure, too. However, I contend that there are other vehicles for teaching this such as sports. The situation in the airport is an inappropriate medium for teaching a child about failure.

2. A toddler needs to learn to identify what (s)he is feeling before they can learn to control it.

At no point in his article does Mr. Rosemond address this at all, and I think this is what frustrates me the most about his article. My thoughts:

To tell the child to calm down and be quiet only teaches the child cause and effect: if I do this, then Mommy/Daddy tell me to sit down and be quiet. This "draconian attitude" fails to address what the child is feeling so that the child 1. learns what the feeling is and 2. learn how to deal with the feeling! This is an opportunity to teach the child self awareness with respect to their feelings, a key component in raising a well adjusted child (in my not-so-humble-opinion).

This "draconian attitude" also fails to start teaching the child how to reason. As I mentioned earlier, the scenario Mr. Rosemond describes as acceptable only teaches cause and effect. I recognize that a toddler can't truly reason, but it's never to early to try to start teaching reasoning. Again, the "draconian attitude" fails to take advantage of another teaching opportunity.

3. Allowing a toddler to run up and down the rows of seats yelling incoherently gives the toddler an opportunity to expend energy.

On the surface, this has virtually nothing to do directly with social awareness, yet it does. Those people who own/train dogs have a mantra: a tired dog is a good dog, meaning the dog will stay out of mischief because likely it'll be sleeping! The principle applies to children, too: a tired child (note - not an over-tired child!) is far more likely to be able to follow your instructions to be calm and quiet than a child with an overabundant amount of energy.

In this case, a toddler with an overabundant amount of energy on an airplane will be frustrated with its "captivity" no matter what the parent does to distract it. That frustration will be expressed, no matter how draconian the parent tries be to make the toddler control its emotions, and that expression of frustation will disturb the other passengers on the plane. It's an inevitable outcome unless the toddler is the son of God.

It is my contention to let the toddler run around in the airport to get out some energy if the end results will be that the toddler will be quiet(er) on the airplane! Only the parent knows how their child will likely react to situations based on their energy level so if letting their child run around is better, then so be it!

I am, by no means, the perfect parent, and never will be, though I will continue to strive daily to reach that unattainble goal. But I think I've had enough psychotherapy in my relatively short lifetime to see that the "draconian attitude" that Mr. Rosemond describes should be utilized in today's parenting is not going to result in a socially adjusted child, but a socially and emotionally repressed child. For someone who is a Family Psychologist, I would expect Mr. Rosemond to be more aware of this! Maybe he is, and he purposely left them out of his article to create controvery which would create discussion and therefore readership i.e. a mild publicity stunt.

If that's the case, then congratulations, it worked.

Tinsel E - 18 weeks, 1 day

Wow. This new wire hurts. It feels like I've gotten punched in the teeth. And the worst part is that different teeth hurt at different times in addition to my whole mouth hurting in general. Yawning and "stretching" my jaw makes my teeth hurt. Changing the form of my mouth to drink something hurts. Eating hurts, of course. The interesting (?) thing is that the pain started immediately whereas when the brackets got put on, I didn't feel any pain until lunchtime. I know the minute she started clamping that wire in that I was in trouble. Ugh.

Tinsel E - 18 weeks

Today I had my 18 week appointment with the orthodontist. I knew I was due for a "wire change" but I really didn't have any idea what I was in for.

The assistant took the wires off, and let me go brush/floss with my temporary freedom. Oh you don't have any clue how NICE it is to floss normally if you've never had braces. This was a total TREAT. And just to prove how nice of a treat it was, my gums promptly bled from the lack of attention they've gotten.

When I went back to the chair, the orthodontist checked my progress. She cleaned off the calcium deposits around my bottom brackets and on the backs of my bottom front teeth.

Then the assistant put a new wire in my mouth. The first wire I received when the braces were first installed was a rounded wire, thin and light, but no edges to it. The new wire I now have, if you laid it flat on a table, it would look like a thin flat rectangle. Apparently, the first wire moved my teeth in alignment horizontally i.e. teeth that were overlapping with others are now even with each other. The new wire aligns my teeth vertically (makes the root and ligaments move). I didn't think you could do that, but clearly, what do I know.

The assistant put the new wire on my bottom teeth first and I thought, "Yeah, ok, that's tighter than the first wire." During my 10 week checkup, the assistant tightened the wire between the two bottom canines, and there was definitely pressure there for a few days. Now I'm feeling that same pressure again, but across the whole bottom jaw, with added pressure on the teeth between the canines. Also, there was pressure when she would "close the door" to the bracket that I thought would bother me later, which it's not (now that it is "later").

Then the assistant put the wire on my top teeth. She hadn't even clamped it all down and my eyes got wide. Oh yeah, this one hurts, particularly my back molars on the right hand side. But my front teeth hurt, too! Man, those were the straight teeth!! Guess not when it comes to an overbite!

The assistant told me that with this wire, I should expect to see some spaces form between my teeth from the movement, and not to worry. She also said that I should expect my bite to change a lot in the next year, as the wires will be moving things in places I don't necessarily expect, and so bites will feel weird. Great.

Needless to say, this wire hurts. It's not as bad (yet) as the first day I got braces - that was compounded by all the canker sores - but this is not just pressure. This is pain, and it hurts to eat anything that isn't super soft.

Three and a half months down. Eleven and a half months to go...