How can this even BE???

mr. flea took the Dillo to the dentist today. You may recall he'd had multiple cavities filled in January of this year. Well, now he apparently needs 4 caps, and one is so bad they might have to just pull the tooth and put in a spacer until the permanent tooth comes in.

We brush the child's teeth. They took x-rays in January and took care of everything that showed up at all. And yet in the ensuing 6 months, he got cavities so bad he now needs caps and might lose a tooth? What the hell?

A very mixed day.

I went to the Historic Preservation Commission hearing tonight, and I had yto go first which was hard and scary, and our metal roof got denied as expected. But I stayed for much of the rest of the meeting, which was FASCINATING (our democracy in action!) and as is usual I found much to agree with on all sides (except the weepy sorority board member who was worried that externally applied window muntins would cause sorority girls to Die In A Fire.) And our builder and his wife came by at 8pm and we had a good long talk and they were rabidly on our side, more on our side than I was, and it is nice to be supported even if you don't fully agree. So we'll look at energy-star rated architectural shingles and creative ways to vent the roof, and see what we can do.

And in good news, it turns out we qualify for a (I think federal) program to allow mortgage refinances without PMI for people in just our situation - the value of the house dropping considerably since we purchased, but not in any danger of defaulting or anything. So we can refinance after all, for free (well, the bank paying), just as we'd been planning.

And use the money saved in the first year to pay for dental work on the Dillo. With that plus the fact that architectural shingles are cheaper than metal, we may have saved enough money today alone to pay for the dental work.