Dec 1

Advent is off to an unlikely start, with a round of brutal toothache. So, no Scottish Dancing for St Andrews Day, and straight to the dentist this morning for the permanent filling.

So, we’re relaxing over Nepalese White Tea. It comes from the around the world Advent Calendar. David’s Tea had options, and we jumped at this one. It’s full of teas from around the world, and seemed like a good way to dodge the usual ‘Too many herbal teas in one week’ problem.

It’s a lovely light white tea. Just what the dentist didn’t remember to order.

Here’s a poem about teeth to get the Advent season started. It’s the poem we didn’t expect, for the day we didn’t expect. On the plus side, we’re no longer all tooth. That has to be good, right?

Teeth

Kevin McFadden

For knowledge, says the Old Sage, add; for wisdom,
subtract. My head in a surgeon’s chair, checking Lao Tsu’s math as these teeth I barely knew I had (mumbled of as wisdom) introducedthemselves—rude party guests—right as they hadto go, their pinched goodbye-hello. Like learning
you’ve been speaking your whole life in prose, or my late eighth-grade astonishment that I—confirmed a Gentile in almost all respects—had hung so long among the circumcised.Hard to know what you have, I’ll have you know.Harder to know what you haven’t. Knowledge! The nerve!Hushed up like a gulp behind the tongue,shrewdly shooting roots down at an age my gums were smug from rolling words around, when my morals (like my molars) provedbasically interchangeable. WiseI wasn’t, but I wanted it so painfully then.
Now I’ve had it—you have it, doc. You know the drill, or whatever you’ve got. Take it away . . .