Jet Lag City and no, I'm not Australian!

Jet lag city!!!! It took 3 days to even start to feel normal. Both of us just seemed to drop off to sleep randomly. It comes over in waves, luckily not while driving, but I feel I lost whole chunks of time. If anyone knows of a jet lag prevention, I’d love to know it.

I delayed my guitar lesson until the Thursday and it went well. It was clear I had practiced while I was away, but at the end of the hour session, Andre said I was glazing over. He was talking about syncopated notes at the time though.

The garden has become even more green in parts, but also beige in others as the sun has been pretty hot while we’d been away. The hedges surrounding the front of the house are completely covered in bees all buzzing away frantically.

We had our first dentist appointment, where they do a kind of registration. This includes full dig around and x-rays. We met the main dentist who turned out to be from Germany and moved here when he married his American wife. He said he hates LA and wants to move out into the country. After taking written details, he introduced me to the dental technician who would be taking x rays of my teeth. William the tech was a lovely young man, very effeminate with tattoos everywhere. He couldn’t have been nicer and really made me feel at ease. I had the 5 x-rays to the top of my mouth and 5 on the bottom. I was told not to gag, which I kept doing as the contraption box thing that he was putting into my mouth was a huge rectangular box. After this happening a few times, he told me a technique of how to stop gagging. Apparently, you have to breath through your nose. It actually worked! I had to stop myself from giggling hysterically. Enough said!

I next was taken to meet with the Hygienist and sat in the usual chair. While I was waiting for her to organise something I looked at the poster on the wall right neo my face, which had details and pictures of gingivitis and perioditis, both of which I feel I had. The poster showed a needle inserted into the base of the gum and teeth and the measurement of entry determined how bad it was, ie 3mm is gingivitis and 4mm onwards was perioditis.

So, the hygienist came back in and she did indeed test for gum disease by sticking pouted metal rod into my gums . I was a wuse and asked for numbing gel. Mark was a man and went without, but he regretted it later😳😆

After being scared half to death by the lecture on the possibility of loosing our teeth (Mark had a worse mm than me), we both signed up to extensive clean-ups and laser treatment to the gums. Luckily we were told we have good insurance, so our final meeting was with the finance lady who showed us what we would need to pay for and what the insurance company paid for…..

Wait for it….

The whole procedure would cost $ 800…. Yes, there isn’t an extra zero. We would be paying for ½…so that’s a good policy. I’m amazed that more people just don’t go to the dentist, but maybe that’s it. The well off go and the poor don’t.

So, Id seen on the trip home in the airplane magazine, an article on acupuncture and how it was very good for swelling especially after flights. Well my ankles were non-existent – I think that’s called Cankles.

So I researched online and found a Chinese acupuncturist near me. The building was a little dilapidated when I got there and that should have been the moment when I turned around and got back in the car, but no, I told myself to be brave and meet my fears…….

I was shown into a very small room by the tiny receptionist who seemed to barely understand anything I said and just nodded her head smiling.

I took off my trousers and laid on the bed as instructed. While I lay there, I turned and saw a poster on the acupuncture points shown on various parts of the body. Just in my eyeline as I lay there was the scrotum point (i.e. legs akimbo) with the point for the acupuncture needle – as if!!! And whatever would that be for – I hate to ask?

So, the receptionist came back in and she was the acupuncturist too. She brought out the long thin needles and I thought ‘why am I doing this’. She pressed her thumb into a variety of different parts from my knee down to my ankle and each time she said in broken English ‘does it hurt’. As I winced and said yes, she would flick the spot again and push the needle in. After that ordeal was over, I thought that the rest of the session would just be me laying there letting the needles do the work, but Oh no. The lady then pulls her electric unit forward with loads of wires hanging off it. She clipped each needle with a wire. I tried to ask her what this process was, as the last and only time I’d had acupuncture it was like this. She nodded and smiled and carried on.

After all the needles were connected to my right leg, she put the machine on. It was excruciating and I jumped. She again asked’ it hurt?’. No shit it hurt, but in my Britishness, I said, ‘yes a bit’. She turned it down and then started on the left leg, which was equally painful when she turned that on….you’d have thought she would have used the same level wouldn’t you.

After ½ hour, she came to take them out and I then had a painful knuckle massage from a small Chinese man who also couldn’t speak English. After all this I was put under infrared and hot towels – so hot I thought my legs were burning.

Now I know I sound like a wuse, but when she asked if I wanted to have the 2nd appointment of three, I almost ran out of the door….. next time I will do a little more research. And as to my cankles, theye were fine and settled back. I will NOT be doing that again!

Finally started to feel back to normal and cleaned the whole house top to bottom., as well as working on the new Choir songs and making house name plaques for Debbie and Andrew and Maeve and Chris.

Mark and I went to see Rocketman at the cinema which we loved. Thought we’d try a different cinema again, in Woodland Hills this time, thinking this was a little more upmarket. It was the same popcorn smell and still no ice cream counter- how disappointing!! The American audiences are always entertaining in themselves, making comments throughout and laughing loudly. They even clapped at the end. It’s a true group experience which I really liked.

That Sunday we travelled 45 minutes west on the 101 to Oxnard to investigate. It is a beautiful marina filled with amazing yachts, with a lovely farmers market and a really wide golden beach, where loads of people were walking their dogs despite there being many signs about keeping dogs on a leash. I have learnt that no one appears to take any notice of those signs.

We stopped in Waterside restaurant where a Brian May haired lady guitarist and her dyed red headed old mum on a high stool were playing the most amazing blues. The dada came up to playing a harmonica. They had lovely harmonies and we all sang along with Sweet home Chicago and Mustang Sally.

As usual we were asked if we were Australian.

The meetup groups offered in this week were:

‘Calabasas Depression’ meet up group- mental illness support

‘Fireside Chats – Intentional Socials for Mindful Women’

And ‘We’ve got the Runs (Running and Beer Drinking Club)’

I saw on Facebook that the US is now talking about demanding social media account details on application of Visas- oh dear- busted!!!

This was the week that Trump was visiting London. I absolutely loved the media coverage on it, as did the Media here especially CNN and MSNBC which said that we had the best sense of humour. It was also said here that there was little protest, but I think that was because theye were kept away.

One of the news reporters said…. ‘The UK is now seen as less important on the world stage due to Brexit, so now needs to forge the relations with their large Uncle over the sea’ .... well that puts us in our place firmly doesn’t it?

I am at the same time proud about the Queen and the UK, but also appalled that Trump was lapping it up and that it fed his already overblown ego!

On my way into Aqua, there was a new sign up about the No Diarrhoea one. It said ‘Please ensure you have a costume on as this is a unisex area’. I wonder what happened while I was away to need a sign to remind people not to be naked! Veena was in a better mood, but maybe that’s because the class size was considerably smaller than normal. The water was freezing and everyone was complaining. The heater was broken we were told. Class was good, but I really felt I hadn’t done anything for a month, as well as eating and drinking what I liked- way hey!!!

I loved catching up with Google Box and The Last Leg - its so good to be able to laugh at all the awful news, as it makes it seem better and not so desperate.

On line I saw a clip where Trump once said that he should have dated Diana and she would have still been alive as he knew the speed in Paris tunnels- that man is unbelievable!

Tuesday’s WW was inevitable - 4lb gain. I was pretty surprised by that actually as I had really abandoned all WW ideals.

It was good to be back at pottery and I was pleased to see my Humming Bird pot successfully bisque. Unfortunately, as I always say, it was an hour to get there and 1 1/2 to get home. Still only two more to go and I will go closer to home I think.

I will miss Kitty I think, but haven’t made any great friends there really. Ive had good chats, though Kitty announced that we weren’t allowed to talk about anything controversial and certainly not politics and it was important that our phones need to be turned off. It was a very quiet session, but Stan did tell me all about the black widow spiders which are all in the plants in the garden – oh no, another critter to worry about. He described the web formation and I swear I saw them everywhere when I got home.

At the end of the week I went back to the Hygienist for my very expensive scale and polish and laser treatment.

Ive always hated this process as I have really sensible teeth. She numbed my gums again and because this was an in depth clean, she had allocated 90 minutes, which included injections. I wish I’d had Valium as I really, really hate injections – what a week, along with the acupuncture?

I had several injections in my upper and lower mouth. She would only do the right side of my mouth initially as it would be too dangerous to do the whole mouth. I really felt my mouth was been scraped away. She kept having to put more injections in. I absolutely hated it and was miffed that I would have to do it all again for the left side. I actually contemplated just doing one side! While all this was going on, she was lovely and chatted about her trip to Italy coming up and also about her views between British and American dentistry. Apparently, the Brits generally have good teeth, have less cavities than the Americans. Americans are obsessed with the look of their teeth, demanding whiter and whiter teeth along with capping to make them all perfect.

She said I have really good teeth (if a little crooked), but my gums are receding unfortunately. We have a family joke about this. When on holiday decades ago, we had looked in a phrase book for medical phrases that might come up and one of these was ‘my gums are bleeding’ . So we use that whenever we are trying to find a foreign phrase. …..this is the only time it is relevant t😁😁

OMG the heat here now is amazing. You get a hiatus until 11am (June gloom it is known as, Im told), as there is a haze which makes it warm but cool. Then the clouds go and it’s incredibly hot- up to 38 degrees minimum. Lulu keeps getting in and out of her paddling pool and she loves swimming with me in the main pool. She actually swims lengths along side me with her bright orange life jacket on.

On to the next excitement as I got the house ready for Poppy and Sheila.