Thursday, June 12, 2025

Daddy Long Legs and Dentists

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1744:

Edgar’s Friends: This morning, the large Daddy Long Legs upstairs, above the toilet, was still there. I’m thinking it very well could be the one I dubbed as Big Daddy when it was in the next room. I saw no sign of the smaller one that had web under that bathroom’s counter—and the wrapped up insect was gone as well. The teeny-tiny one in the downstairs bathroom was still there, hanging in between magazine rack and wall.

I was pleased to hear from my daughter that the anti-inflammatory that the people at ER gave her to supplement the advil she was taking did seem to start to bring down the fever and make her throat less sore. She will be glad to get home and sleep in her own bed (although I can’t imagine the flight home will be much fun.)

The dental cleaning yesterday went smoothly, but I was not surprised that after taking x-rays that the dentist recommended replacing 3 of my old crowns. This gradual replacement of crowns has been going on for the past 5 years. To be expected given the replaced crowns had been put on decades or more ago and slowly the teeth underneath start to get tiny cavities. If these are addressed, then the tooth can’t be saved and the next step is an implant, which has happened to me once.

I reminded myself that my grandmother had a full set of dentures by this age, and my parents had “bridges” which were was what had to happen if a tooth was taken out before implants. Our dentist does the crowns in one sitting, while you wait, so I will do all three at once. They are 3 teeth together, so this makes sense. Keeping fingers crossed that when they crowns are removed, none of the teeth are so far gone that I do need an implant. But if so, they can start that process at the same time. The wonders of modern dental technology…expensive…but worth it.

As for the rest of the day, when I got home from dentist, I cleaned, started laundry, and did my first walk, then I had an unscheduled phone call. After lunch I had my phone date with a good writing friend. We had so much to catch up on that will talk again next week. Then a second walk, and a little reading, and then dinner. A couple of nights ago we went back to give Department Q another try, still grim, but we may stick with it, but last night we started with an old episode of Bones, and once again ended the evening with The Closer and Mad About You keep the mood light—a necessity given what is going on in the real world.

Today, my usual Thursday schedule, with a noon zoom meeting and a tentative phone call. Otherwise, walks, and maybe even some writing.

These misty mornings, cloud-filled days, with only brief glimpses of sun, have kept the canyon green longer than usual. Now that I am often doing a 40 minute walk in the mornings, I got a photography of Rose Canyon (the canyon we can see from our house), with the broad swatch of yellow wildflowers. You can see the train tracks going through near the top of the other side of the canyon. For a brief time we lived on that side of the canyon, with the train rumbling right below us.

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