Ricky Gets His Teeth Fixed

 

I took Ricky to the coast clinic yesterday.   I don't know how, but they worked him in.  This is unheard of elsewhere so I appreciate it so much.

I was told I might have to wait overnight for him, on Thursday, when they'd said to come Friday.  I must have at least remembered that for a short time because Thursday I loaded two blankets and a pillow in the back of my car.   But I'd forgotten by early Friday morning, and didn't take some extra clothes or more than a bag of pumpkin seeds to eat.

When they told me again at checkin with him, I nearly fainted to think of it.  This was the Hood to Coast relay weekend, where teams of runners start at Mt. Hood and run to Seaside, which is just a few miles south of Astoria, where I was with Ricky.  There was nothing open as for lodging.   The campground there was also full.   I didn't know the area, or where I could safely sleep in my car, with a bathroom at hand.

I'd been awakened here not by my alarm but by thunder and pounding rain.  Lightning storms went through certain area.  It was nice we got a bit of rain.  The lightning was spectacular, as I prepared to head to the coast.   It was ahead of me as I drove, off in the distance, the lightning.  But gone by the time I headed west up into the coast range.

I arrived just before 9:00 a.m., as I'd been instructed to do.   

I then went to a beach parking lot and nodded off slumped against the passenger seat of my car.  When I woke, I went to another parking lot, and began scrolling for campgrounds within 30 miles or so, without much luck.   I determined then I'd drive back to the rest area and sleep there, should they be unable to do him.  At least there'd be a nice bathroom right there and people do sleep there in their cars at night.

But at 2:00 P.M. the clinic called and said he was ready to go.  8 extractions, antibiotic shot, steroid shot.  I was thrilled beyond words.

The worst traffic I encountered on the way home was before getting off the coast highway.  The coast was crammed in people.    Before I reached Portland, I checked google maps which informed me it would be quicker to veer off highway 26 and not go through Portland, but head south on highway 47 to McMinnville and then down 99W to Albany, which I did.

Fridays going south on I5 from Portland can be a nightmare of congestion.

I was dead tired when I got home, did the cat chores here, fixed up Ricky in his holding cage and went to bed.   I missed out on nightglow at the Art and Air Festival, which was last night, but that's life.  Sometimes difficult days are worth it.  Yesterday was worth it.  Ricky got his teeth fixed.