"Cause I'm a Dentist..."

The one good thing about going to the dentist is the after effects of it. You get a better smile, your teeth don't ache, and it prolongs the use of lovely dentures. Of course at a price. The one bad thing about going to the dentist is getting the work done. That could be a billion dollar industry right there - dentistry without the pain and without the drilling sounds. Brilliant. Until then though millions of people are lining up to get a needle injected in the mouth and try some form of momentary meditation to distract them from the horrible, high pitched, screeching noise. I'm one of them.

Now as I've gotten older, the needle isn't the worst part. Partly because I think dentists are finally starting to learn that if the patient doesn't see it, there's less pain. My dentist is great like that. He never lets me see it. He'll have the needle in his hand, but down by his side and he'll say to me, "Now you'll feel just a pinch," and out of the corner of my eye I can see his shoulder and arm move. I brace myself and before I can even take a deep breath in (this is called psyching yourself out), he's got something in my mouth. And he even has me situated in the chair that I don't see this spike of terror being plunged into my face, I see the TV that's embedded in the ceiling above me. Since I've been given the remote, I even start to flip through the channels. Hmmm, poker. Ooh that's a good hand, it will for sure beat out the other guy's. (note - I wish I could sound smart right here and spew out a fancy name for a hand but you just get Sasha-speak instead.) And, viola, it's happened! The needle is done and all I feel is a weird tingle creeping through one side of my nose and up to my eye. Half of my face is now completely frozen. My face looks hilarious when I try to talk... it somehow reminds me of the picture to the right.

It's mainly the drilling sounds that get me and the fear I have that they somehow didn't put enough freezing in my mouth. Suddenly I'm going to feel everything they're doing and it's going to send me through the roof. Hey, fears have to come from somewhere... Luckily that time I didn't get catapulted from my seat with pain, I just suppose me twitching every time they touched a certain area wasn't normal. Solution - just add a few more needles and she'll be fine. It's times like that when you're a kid are traumatizing.

My New Web Album

Alright, just testing out a link to this photo album.

From Grandparents ...

Okay, so this is the actual picture with the album link below.

Hmmm... Try this:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sashaspics

That's better! I think. I don't know, more testing will have to be done as soon as I get more pictures into an album. :-) But this will be great as I get pictures posted while we travel. I can just post the link when I have updated new photos to prompt you to check it out. Easy!

Also, Alex set up Skype on his personal laptop (which is super slow) and we tested the video calling this morning. It's pretty cool. Well, in theory anyways. It just ended up as one picture frame because it froze. But on a faster computer it will be a lot better. So he will be downloading it onto his work laptop while we're away and we can use that.

Dinner time. So, like, I'll talk to you later, like, ok?

Our Anniversary

It was Alex & I's two year anniversary yesterday and I got spoiled.

A huge, beautiful bouquet of flowers came to my work as a wonderful surprise. The flowers were about half the size of me! And I don't even know where to start with the different kinds... the only one I know is Lilies, and they aren't even in bloom yet. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

Then Alex picked me up from work and we came back to his place to meet the mortgage specialist to sign our mortgage. (We have a new home!! Yippee! So excited.) I know it doesn't seem like a romantic thing to do, but we spun it as symbolic, and a cool way to ring in the specailness of the night. I mean, it's like we bought a house for our two year anniversary. :-)

Then Alex surprised me and took me to a restaurant I've been wanting to try for a while. Kobe Japanese Steak and Seafood House. It had a beautiful, wooden interior and was a split level eating/drinkin area. The entrance level was where we sat and had a drink before heading upstairs. That's a neat idea because it lets people lounge as long as they want in comfy chairs and couches, then decide to dine when they're ready. We sat down and ordered a couple of drinks, then went upstairs to eat pretty much right away. The way they have it set up is that the chef comes out when the table is full and starts cooking right in front of you. The chef we had was from Taiwan and he was entertaining. Knife wielding, canned jokes that were actually funny, and a terriyaki squirt bottle gone wrong all made the night super enjoyable. The steak was unbelievable! I've never had that melt-in-your-mouth, delicious steak before. We both had the terriyaki combination with steak and chicken, and if I were to go back, I would only order the steak - and lots of it! My Entertainment Card came in very handy as well. Superb showmanship like that always seems better when you know you're getting a good deal too. It was an amazing two year celebration.

Real Estate Rollercoaster

So last night was an emotionally tense one. Let's recap, shall we?

The tenants only let the realtor show the place on Wednesday's at 6pm. Which means the inspectors can only come at that time too. Now, when we signed the offer letter on Sunday (submitted it Monday and it was accepted Tuesday), Steve had put that we would remove the 'subject to' lines by midnight Wednesday. This in effect means that our offer is then concrete and the place is ours. This gave us no time to review the inspection report, or even have another good look and a round of discussion. The night had so many little things go wrong, that it left a bad taste in our mouths. Then, at about 7pm, Steve says to us that we need to have the bank see the inspection, along with all our documents, and have approved financing before the 'subject to' lines are lifted (by midnight).

This was impossible.

Basically it came down to either we close on the offer (take out the 'subject to' lines) and risk that the bank will actually lend us the amount of money we need. That's a huge half-a-million dollar debt over our heads that we would be looking at if anything went wrong. What a nightmare. Plus we were told that there was another couple who was looking at the place last night who had an offer in their hands, waiting for ours to expire. That is a lot of pressure. Either we risk a whole lot of money and possibly screw ourselves big-time, or we lose our offer on the townhome, opening it up for others to snatch, and thereby losing it.

I mean, how bad did we want this place? It actually doesn't allow pets, and I am never giving up Sukii, so we decided that she was small and quiet enough that no one would even know she was there. It doesn't allow BBQs of any kind on the patio, but we were going to have one anyway. The fact sheet put out on the property by the realtor had false information: it said pets were allowed, and there is no "Clubhouse". The building right beside the end unit (ours) is full of young people shouting and gathering in groups outside most nights, hence very noisy. The tenants are also a pain in the ass, as they seem very set in their ways and raise a stink seemingly about anything. One good thing is that we don't have to honour their year long lease if we don't want to, and evict them with two months notice. That would be fun kicking them out. I can just picture a lawsuit coming our way if we don't play this by the book with them.

Those are a lot of compromises that we had to think on. So it finally came down to crunch time and Alex made the call to Steve. We couldn't do it. The timeline was too close, and we couldn't risk so much money on something that just didn't seem right. If only we had an extension until tomorrow to clear things up with the bank. Then another crazy thing happened. Extension and wish granted. We could sleep and clear our minds... at least for the night. :-)