Brews you can use

So, last Thursday the ol’ wisdom teeth started acting up and I finally went to have them out that Friday. I was put under, so “ow, needle!”…”I go sleep now”…”Mr. Mikkelson, you’re done, the recovery room is this way”. After a few minutes laying down, I thought “hey, this is only a few whiskeys level of drunkenness” and sat up and started walking around. One of the doctor’s assistants asked if I wanted to wait out front. I said “sure”, then my lip drooped from all the novocaine, and I felt a little dribble of blood come out. I knew how I would feel sitting in the waiting room next to a large woozy, blood-drooling guy with a mouth full of gauze, and thought better of it, and went back to lay down. Then Jess and the kids came and picked me up, got me some meds, I started on the painkillers, and all was good (if a bit unclear at times).

I thought I was recovering pretty quickly, and went back to work on Tuesday, complete with a couple gently-devoured bagels in the morning. Perhaps that was a bit premature. Today, I had a nice not-so-gently-devoured Gyro for a late lunch and wound up losing quite a bit of it in a hole that shouldn’t be there. Fsck. Dry socket?
So I’ve been worrying about that crap all day, instead of looking forward to a nice kid-free weekend with Jess.

At least the serious pain hasn’t set in. It’s mostly the fear of what may come if I can’t get back to the oral surgeon in time, and how much longer it’ll be until I can eat proper solid food without worry (there goes the idea of a nice dinner out ).

To distract myself from this, and keep me away from the painkillers for a little while longer, I did a little bit of bike stuff. I had bought a nice “just for fun” bike (a Kona Humuhumunukunukua’pua’a deluxe) I off craigslist last week, and dropped it off Monday at County Cycles for a little work (bar swap, chain tension, brake tuneup). We picked it up this morning, along with some new mountain-y tires for the Humu, and some less mountain-y tires and a rack for Jess’s mountain bike. So, I changed tires all this evening rather than freaking about dentistry (yipe!). It was good.

I’m pretty excited about the Humu. It’s a scaled up version of a beach cruiser, but with a very MTB-like frame and components. I swapped out the BMX-y riser bar for a more traditional riser, and the flame-patterned cruiser tires with similar-sized Continental Mountain Kings (earworm alert!). So, now it’s a respectable single speed mountain bike. After all the mountain bikes I’ve owned (ok, two) and turned into utilitarian commuters, I’ve told myself that this one will actually see some dirt sometime.

Or failing that, some snow, as a winter commuter. It’ll be good for that.

Now for some painkillers and the fitful, itchy sleep they bring…. Yay!

Tonight, we saw some of the first session of the Minnesota Fixed Gear Classic at the NSC Velodrome. What a blast! Kids permitting (it was a late night for all) we may catch some of tomorrow’s races, too, or maybe a Thursday night one sometime this summer. I could definitely see going to these semi-regularly, now that I know how darn cool it is we have a Velodrome

It was also a chance to see Roberto Chiappa in action. 42 mph, yikes!

These races were intended to re-invigorate track cycling in Minnesota. They definitely have a good start at doing that. A lot of the people I talked to or overheard in the audience were, like us, first-time attendees and enjoying what they see. It was even exciting enough to hold the kids’ interest for a few events, although they quickly decided to run their own running and “roll down the hill” races behind the bleachers.