I had my teeth cleaned yesterday – along with the charting of my gum health tooth by tooth. You sit there and one of the hygienists calls out a series of numbers: 3, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3 and so forth while another writes them down. It deals with the amount of gum that has pulled away from your teeth. Actually, I think it is a code by which secret messages are sent.

Perhaps the hygienist is a Dandelion agent who is passing along vital info about the defenses planned for the next invasion. Or maybe there is no secret agent stuff; maybe they are just doing a version of Navajo code talking regarding the patient. Not that they would because they are nice ladies. Still, it might be tempting to making a comment about “shark mouth” or “snake fangs” or whatever.

Sometimes even I have to shake my head at the things my mind spends time on . . .

I didn’t post yesterday – not because I was traumatized by a dentist visit – but because they have Sit and Read paperbacks in the waiting room. It is a program sponsored by the library: you start reading, take the book home and bring it back to a participating waiting room. So yesterday I read a book titled The Spire about a golden boy, his mentor and a 16-year-old murder case.

Richard North Patterson was the author and I chose his book over one that dealt with a world catastrophe every 4,500 years that could be averted by finding the gold capstone to a big Egyptian pyramid. This device would reflect the massive solar beam that could zap the earth. However, the blurb on the back indicated the book was all about the politics and adventures of finding the capstone. I don’t think there was any description of a past zapping or a pre-zap before The Big One.

I was just a few pages into The Spire when I just knew who the bad guy was  and looked at the back to verify my determination. Then I went back and read the ENTIRE book. This drives some people absolutely crazy. “Oh, you CAN’T look at the end. It is immoral, cheating, not allowed . . .  whatever.”

Yeah, well, at least I read the book then instead of hurrying through to see if I’m right or not. Well, unless the quality of writing makes the book a real barfer, and then I just toss it aside. I am not one who keeps reading because it “might get better”. (And, by the way, I read two paragraphs in the destruction book and it was a  barfer.)

I think I discern a mood trend here and maybe I’ll set out the warning flares around me.