While I was up in Minnesota, I watched a lot more television than I usually do--between dentist appointments. I have a few observations.

First of all, daytime TV right now makes soap operas look awesomely appealing and I gave up soaps years ago. I never thought there would be so much idiocy on daytime television, but considering how stupid nighttime shows are, I guess I should have known.

Second, I really miss MLB Network when I visit my parents. They just have basic cable, which means I lose my baseball lifeline.

Third, HGTV. I have some subpoints here.

3a. Dear HGTV, showing a kitchen makeover show is evil. EVIL! Now I want to redo my kitchen and there's nothing wrong with it. My house was just built in 2008.

3b. There are some really shallow/ridiculous people in the world. I watched House Hunters and this Los Angeles couple was house hunting. The girl, and even though she's old enough to be married, her maturity level was more girl than woman. She wanted to live in Manhattan Beach. Period. 

The couple had a million dollars to spend (what does HE do for a living to have that much money at his age???) and saw a gorgeous house just outside of Manhattan Beach that was move-in ready, it was even decorated the way she wanted, but she didn't like it because it wasn't right inside her city of choice.

The next house they saw was in Manhattan Beach. It was much more expensive than the first house and it was a fixer upper! It needed a ton of work. Of course, this girl loved it solely because of its location.

Guess which house they picked? Yep, the million dollar fixer upper because (the husband said) he wants a "happy wife." I'm thinking wow, really? Even the girl's mother said she was spoiled on the show. ::shaking my head::

She wasn't the only one who made me think WTF, but she was the worst.

3c. I got hooked on house flipping shows on HGTV while I was in MN, too. I'm not sure how this happened. It makes flipping look easy, but I know it's not. I managed to discard that thought pretty easily, but I can't help thinking about home improvement now.

I spent the last two weeks up in Minnesota, and since my parents don't have internet, that meant being out of touch online. My vacation wasn't quite as fun as I might have hoped. My first day back, I went to see my dentist because I don't have on in Atlanta yet.

I mentioned that I'd been having a little discomfort and the X-rays showed a cavity. An old filling had parted from the tooth far enough to let bacteria in. Because I already had a lot of filling, this mean I needed a crown. Okay. well, that isn't much fun, but it could be worse. I've had a crown before and it wasn't the worst thing ever.

And, my dentist said, this decay looks awfully close to the nerve in the tooth. If it penetrated we might need to do something else.

Silly me, I didn't understand what "something else" was. I found out.

Yes, after she got the old filling out and got rid of the decay, the nerve was affected. She couldn't finish the crown until I had a...Root Canal! ::gasp:: ::sob::

It wasn't as painful as I'd heard, but the endodondist (I think I spelled that right) said that it was a ticking time bomb. I guess then that it's a good thing that I got it taken care of while I was home. I have a dentist there that I trust and she referred me to the root canal specialist.

While the experience wasn't all that painful, it did mean that I had five different dental-related appointments and that meant I didn't get much of anything else accomplished while I was home. And having fun? No. :-/

To say I have an eclectic range of interests would be understating things. Sometimes even I'm surprised by what I get involved with--container shipping, anyone?

One of the things I did that I can't quite believe was that I signed up for a drum making workshop a number of years back.

I did have some attraction to the workshop otherwise I wouldn't have paid to do it, but I didn't think I would become entranced by the process. I did. The hours of the class flew by. I worked with the frame, I put the deer hide around it and fastened it in place with strips.

And it was fun! Oh, so much fun. I'm not a person who does crafts. I don't have the patience for it and the results are never quite good enough, but this drum turned out perfectly!

A friend of mine went to the workshop with me and she said I was intent on my drum. And I was. I would have loved to have taken the workshop over and over and over yet again. But I didn't; I only went once because what am I going to do with lots and lots of drums? Also, I had no desire to get into the business of selling drums, so it didn't make sense to go again.

I've decided my ability to get interested in unusual things is good. As a writer, I have characters and books that require me to research a wide variety of topics. Not all of them are scintillating, but if I can be held rapt by container ships, I know I can make it through almost any topic.

I'm not a big bird person, but I keep getting addicted to these various bird cams around. A couple of years ago, it was Condor Cam at the San Diego zoo. This year, it's been an eagle cam.

It started out innocently enough. One of the guys I work with told me about the eagle cam at Berry College in Rome, GA. It wasn't too long after that when the eaglet was born. This nest didn't have the second egg hatch. There's a note next to the cam that it hadn't been viable. But watching this one little chick (known lovingly as B3) grow up has been so cool.

When he was first born, he was this little pale gray fuzzball. Then his down grew in a little darker and now, at 5 weeks old (I think), he (or she) is starting to get real feathers in.

It didn't take long before I was hearing about other eagle cams, including one in Minnesota run by the Department of Natural Resources that had three eaglets hatch at the end of March/beginning of April. (MN DNR Eagle Cam)

So of course, being Minnesota, it starts snowing on April third when the chicks are all still so little. Mama sat over her babies for 2 days, just enduring the wind, snow, and cold while she kept he eaglets warm.

They're adorable! I watched her feed all three who were centered in the only part of the next not covered with snow. The oval that mama kept warm with her body. I'm scared for the littlest of the eaglets. He's so tiny and his two siblings are bigger and grabbing the food. I'm also worried about his reaction to the cold. He was born just like a day or so before the snow started.

The thing, though, that touched me is how the mother just endured everything for her chicks. She probably would have been less cold if she could move around, but she didn't. She took care of her babies first.