Partial Whats?

• Sunday, Early To Bed
• 33 Dollar Monday
• Could Have Been More

Basically, the current inhabitants of the apartment on the second floor on the corner across from Lafitt's bar have been bringing the large speakers, which must come with the place, out onto the balcony and cranking music which is even louder than the stuff that comes out of a couple of the pedicabs that are sound equipped.

This was Halloween night, and this turned a Monday into more of a weekend night environment, but it also meant that, I guess no residents complained about the music that went well past midnight and was of the Beyonce quality.

There was a time, around 12:45 AM, when I looked down the street and could see one of the guys on the balcony, unobstructed for the moment by tourists or mule drawn carriages, who saw me, apparently noticing the guitar, perhaps for the first time, and who turned and towards someone else, whereupon the music's volume came down noticeably, yet not enough to make busking very feasible.
The 33 bucks that I made in about 3 hours was hard won, involving a few people who came to within 3 feet of me and squatted down in order to listen; and those who were fortunate enough for me, to have come along when the guy in the balcony was in the process of popping a Beyonce disc out of their sound system, and then probably looking around for the Lil' Wayne one.

• More Discs
• Dental Visit

There is some mystery enshrouding the goings on at the Daughters of Charity dental clinic, where my teeth were examined, and where I had gotten a less bleak outlook than I had from a clinic a couple years ago that had advocated pulling all of my teeth out; starting from scratch as if were, and outfitting me with dentures.

At that time, I didn't feel old enough to have to make that commitment, and, along with trying to cling to my remaining teeth as if to youth itself, I went away and have procrastinated until today, about resuming the process to do something about my teeth.

This young black lady dentist, after impressing me with her mastery of the jargon used in her field to describe tooth conditions, told me that I could save quite a few of my teeth, but that these involved root canals and caps and crowns, etc.

What I believe happened next was, I was brought to the receptionist area and a total was arrived at, based upon the dentist's conclusions, as to the amount of money that would be charged for the indicated procedures. This amounted to several thousand dollars.

Then, the receptionist weighed my medicare card, or whatever the thing is which was given to me at some point during my initiation into the world of government assisted living, against that amount.
Then, in a practiced voice, told me about the limitations of the card, and went ahead and scheduled me for an appointment, to have done enough dental work to fish the limit of the medicare coverage, for the time being, which I have been blessed with.

Tim, my caseworker, told me that he was surprised indeed to have found any clinic where dental work could be done and billed to a medicare recipient.

The card covers something like 500 dollars (of the 7 thousand or so) at this particular point in time. After being exhausted, it will, at some time in the future become enriched with further funds, but that is a timetable that I know nothing about.

My concern is that the small amount of dental work will leave me temporarily in a worse situation than I am in now. Like, if they pull a tooth on the bottom, then the tooth on the top will have nothing to bite down upon.

Unless they can make partial dentures in sets of 2 or 3 teeth, to replace the ones pulled, I can't imagine a small amount of dental work bringing about an improvement in my ability to tear up a turkey leg with my bare teeth.

It is Tuesday night, the night after Halloween, and my gut tells me that I will be passing up about 18 bucks by not going out. By staying in and listening to game 6 of the Cubs/Indians World Series of baseball, and listening to the 80 minutes of music that I have burned onto a disc, perhaps soaking in a tub of lavender and sea salt, at the same time.

I burned a couple Bach Brandenburg Concertos, some Grateful Dead songs that I have recently put into rotation, prompted by my having a harmonica in the key of A, which I haven't heard in years done by the Grateful Dead and which I will be listening to in part in order to reestablish a link to the way I am playing them and the way that I once knew them...
I put a Madonna song on there, a Miles Davis one, and a Miley Cyrus song. Yes, a Miley Cyrus song.