The Jury is Still Out

I went to the dentist at 2 p.m. yesterday for a small filling.  While I was there, I told the assistant that the tooth that needed a crown had really been hurting ever since my cleaning last week.  She thought that it might be aggravated from last week’s visit, but once I talked to the dentist, I decided that I couldn’t wait much longer to get the work done.  After the dentist numbed my mouth for the filling, the assistant and I started looking at future dates for the crown.  

Soon after my mouth became numb, the assistant came back and said that there was actually an opening today if I wanted to start the process for the crown.  I decided not to delay it any longer and made the appointment.  In the end, I spent three hours in the dentist’s chair yesterday.  I was sore when I walked out, but glad that I made the choice.  The area around the temporary crown was still hurting today, but that was to be expected.  I hope that the permanent crown solves the issues, but at least I know that I did my best to save the tooth.  That’s all I can do for now.  

Father Bill

A year ago Blessed Trinity added a new priest to the church.  His name was Father Bill and he had an interesting backstory.  He had not only become a priest later in life, but had also been married and had a child twenty years ago.  I had no judgement on that.  I was glad that he found his calling and pursued it even though he originally thought his life was leading him elsewhere.  I just never know what type of priest someone is until I have gotten to know them a little bit better, heard their homilies and watched how they interacted with parishioners.  Within a few weeks, I knew that he was going to be a priest that I would really relate to and was so happy that the diocese assigned him to our church.

Father Bill’s homily yesterday reminded me of why I have really come to enjoy him as our home priest as he not only talked about fatherhood and the role of a father in a child’s life, but also about fear.  He told us that fear was an important part of life, but not if it took over your life.  He quoted scripture and reminded us that there was no reason to let fear take over as we had Jesus and the Bible to comfort us in times of distress.  With so many unknowns in our life right now, it was exactly what I needed to hear and I appreciated his homily very much.  Thankfully, it won’t be the last homily that we hear from him and for that I am really grateful.  

Father’s Day

With the overwhelming news that we had received earlier in the week and Doug’s change in medication, I wasn’t really sure what Father’s Day would look like this year.  Meg had told me that Gabrielle took an early flight so that we could celebrate with Doug if we wanted to, which I was very glad to hear.  Doug told Meg and I to plan what we did, so Meg suggested going to Disney Springs.  Once we found out that we could go to Beak and Barrel in Magic Kingdom we changed our minds and made a reservation there. Meg said that they did not have much more than appetizers, so we planned dinner at the park as well and I picked The Plaza Restaurant.  We had never been and it looked like a great menu for us.

Before Doug and I went to mass this morning, he opened his gifts from Cal and I.  Cal had sent him a book on Larry Bird that had gotten great reviews and I gave him a vintage classical music vinyl with plenty of snacks to last him through the week.  Brett had given him a bottle of bourbon earlier in the summer which he opened last night and Cameron had given him his gift early as well, a Peach Bowl Championship football hat.  Mass was very touching this morning focusing on fathers and their roles in a child’s life.  We left for Orlando as soon as it was over.

Meg had a gift for Doug to open when we arrived.  She had given him a water bottle with an infuser to put cucumbers, lemons or other fruits in it to flavor his water.  I loved it as Doug had increased the amount of water that he had drank lately and enjoyed natural flavors in it.  We headed to Magic Kingdom next thinking that we would walk around before going to dinner.  

We were surprised to see that the monorail was filled with more people leaving the park than arriving.  I was glad as that would make our afternoon a lot more fun.  Our first stop was the popcorn stand outside of Cinderella’s Castle.  I was thrilled that they still had Sam the Eagle patriot popcorn buckets and bought one right away.   We then walked down Main Street looking at the merchandise before heading to The Plaza.  It was smaller than we realized, but very nice and we all enjoyed our meals.  It was also wonderful to be out of the heat for a while.  After dinner, we walked to the Jungle Cruise, but the line was too long for us.  We enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean instead.  We had just enough time to ride The Haunted Mansion before heading to the Beak and Barrel. We absolutely loved the pirate themed bar.  Our bartender was excellent and the decorations were perfect.  There was even a singing parrot behind the bar who led the waiters in a round of “Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Pirate’s Life for Me.”  Our waiter was the loudest and most entertaining.  We were there long enough to have a snack and try a couple of drinks. It was the perfect end to a wonderful Father’s Day!

World Cup

The 2026 World Cup started this past week and soccer has been on our television ever since Monday night.  I am not surprised as Doug, Cal, Cameron, and Nick have been talking about nothing else since June began. With the games being played in the US it will be a lot easier for everyone to watch them and there’s been a lot more hype about them in the media. 

To make it fun for everyone, we started a family pool, which really helped the enthusiasm for the group stage even with the casual fans in our family. The pool is more complicated than our traditional ones as we wanted to make it fair for everyone. Cal decided we should each get four teams from the beginning, and Nick suggested that we have a point system which wasn’t weighted as heavily as in our March Madness pool. The way we set this one up, someone’s team could win the World Cup, but they could still lose our pool if another person had two teams in the final four. I wasn’t sure how to make the selections fair at first, but after listening to the BigPicture podcast, I learned how to choose names with Scrabble tiles. My parents are not in the pool so I let my dad pick the tiles and even videotaped him so everyone knew it was fair. Lastly, I bought a two sided bracket to hang on our wall to keep track of it all.

The game so far have been extremely exciting. I chose Portugal and instantly regretted it when they tied a much lesser team. Even so, it has been a lot of fun and besides the US, I am heavily rooting for England, especially since Nick adamantly told Meg not to pick them in the first round and they have looked really good so far.  Hopefully Meg comes out on top as she has never won the Heinisch family pool. No matter who wins, it is going to be a lot of fun keeping track of it all and keeping in touch with everyone with the standings.

Together Again

Gabrielle flew down today to spend the weekend with Meg.  She had just ended a challenging relationship and was ready for a break from the situation.  Meg was thrilled to host her and made plans for a fun three days together.  I was happy for both of them as I was sure that this weekend was just what they both needed. 

Tonight, Paula and I received this picture from the girls.  They were enjoying Cosmos while watching Love Island.  Meg texted later to let me know that she had taken her hair down for the picture and couldn’t stop laughing at how it looked.  I didn’t care about anyone’s hair, I was just glad to see how much fun they were having.  Instant flashbacks to other pictures that the girls had taken over the years came to mind.  I am so thankful for Meg and my friendship with Paula and Gabrielle.  There was a lot of testosterone in our home while Meg was growing up.  It was nice to have a place to go or friends to hang out with that were all girls all of the time.  

Bad News from the Dentist

I had my annual check up today and unfortunately, got bad news from the dentist. The tooth that was hurting, would need a crown. I guess I wasn’t surprised, but we didn’t get dental insurance to pay for a crown this year. Even if we had, it wouldn’t have saved us much money.  I don’t think that the cost bothered me as much of the fact that I am so tired of all the issues I have with my teeth.

While I was there, the dentist also told me that the tooth above it would need a crown at some point in the near future because the two fillings in it did not match. To say that I was disappointed was an understatement. I take really good care of my teeth, but they break and chip easily. I wish it wasn’t the case, but some type of genetics must be involved as my mom and dad have both had issues with their own teeth. Hopefully, my children do not inherit this trait as it has made for a lot of mouth pain and a lot of expensive visits to the dentist. I guess for now I’ll just be happy that there weren’t more issues.

Survivor Wednesday

When Survivor season 50 ended, Doug asked me what we were going to do on Wednesday nights. It had become our ritual to just take the entire evening and make a fun night of watching Survivor. I hadn’t really thought about it, but he was right. I would really miss our Wednesday night, mid-week Survivor watch party.

Doug solved the problem for us when he suggested that we watch old episodes of Survivor on Wednesdays and asked me to pick the season. I called Cal right away to see what he thought. He and Maggie had been watching old Survivor seasons all spring and had talked about the different seasons multiple times. He gave me the list of his favorites through season eight and instantly I knew which one to start with - Survivor season six, boys versus girls. It was an all-time classic, and I did not remember very much about it except for one of my favorite survivor players, Rob C was on it.

From the moment we started it tonight, we were hooked. We watched three episodes and already couldn’t wait for next Wednesday to see what happened next. The show was filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and the tribes were split into boys versus girls from the very beginning. The contestants did not know this and it made for some very interesting comments and rivalries. I do not remember who wins, but Doug has already pegged Rob C as one of his favorite Survivor players of all time. I hope that I can handle all the innuendo’s, sexually explicit comments, and pettiness that has become a huge part of the season.

It wasn’t just the comments that were different about early Survivor.  Players actually had to survive in the midst of some pretty challenging conditions. I miss that part of the game.  Building a shelter, starting a fire, and finding food is no longer the mainstay of the series. Now it’s more about arguing, conniving and showing your vulnerable self. It must be appealing to the majority of our audiences, but Doug and I definitely like watching the contestants trying to survive on their own better. Cal even said after watching these, he doesn’t know if he could ever watch new age Survivor again. I can totally see why.