"It was a swell day, Thursday..."

(NOTE: yet another Friday where I'm bypassing my "Fried Fridays" segment only because Thursday was an unusual day, as you'll soon read...)

I keep apologizing to family and friends the past couple of weeks, really, that I don't have much news as I'm thoroughly consumed with the house project. For now, is an endless sea of painting. Coming along, though, even with the challenges of altering pale blues, yellows, greens (and the challenging dark brown paneling!) to a nice, clean white.



And painting is what it is...a lot of standing, a steady technique to keep paint off of me and the floor and on the walls where it belongs. Yesterday I'd done as much as my knees would handle and arms would reach, so I began to clean-up and put things away.

You get thirsty doing all that, and I had poured a diet coke into a large cup with a straw as it's easier to walk over and use the straw instead of involving my hands and their guaranteed blobs of paint randomly splattered about 'em.

I had various items drying outside, so as I took items to the car to go home, including setting the drink remnants on the car's roof, I'd bring things in on the return trip. After 2 or 3 round-trips, I grabbed the cup, and was on my way.

I was listening to more analyses on NPR radio and Neal Conan's "Talk of the World" yesterday, and occasionally picking up the cup and sipping the last of the coke. Lots of traffic out, so I resigned myself to take it easy and not be in a rush. Got down to the last of the liquid, so I took the straw out and swigged the last mouthful.

I figured a piece of a twig had fallen into the coke when it was on top of the car which was under a big tree, as 'something' had lodged between my gum and cheek in my lower right cheek area. At the same time I reached in to grab it, I simultaneously felt heat and pain and quickly realized that was no twig...unless twigs are banded in yellow and black.

Yep, the ol' sting-on-the-inside-of-the-lip trick, which I knew immediately was going to be an issue as I was still 15 minutes from home. I did know for sure I had some Benadryl, which would be the first thing I went for when I got home.

At the height of the swelling, a bit after I tried to take this picture, it was quite reminiscent of trying to talk after a root canal...including the numbness, drooling, and inability to talk other than a tobacco chewing bum on a nine-day drunk.

For those that better understand diagrams, I made this for you:


Didn't help that in dealing with all this that my computer decided it could no longer 'see' my Canon EOS camera and I couldn't download photos in any way, shape or form...and only after much poring over information and manuals and whatever I could think of, I had the computer go back to a day-old restore point, since I had recently taken Norton Symantec off my computer, which can be a tricky thing insofar as results.

Good ol' restore points. All worked like a charm. Went to bed around 6:30p and slept like a baby for the first time in weeks. Numbness still there as I write, and the tissue inside the cheek is tender and puffy, but I think it's best to avoid drinks on car tops for a while.

Enjoy the weekend, all y'all!