On late Thursday morning I had to ride in the rain to my
dentist’s office. My bike was grinding and knocking horribly as I pedaled and
sometimes would stick after I stopped at a light.
Dr. He saw
me pretty much right away but once again wanted me to get treated in the open
room that staff members pass through to get to the back door. He sighed when I
told him I wouldn’t sit there but he quickly found another empty dental room.
When I told
him that my denture was loose he said he’d have to make another impression. He
stuck a couple of different sized metal mesh frames into my mouth to find the
one that fit. One of them must not have been cleaned properly from a time
before because after he pulled it out I had to remove a few small pieces of
stuff from my mouth, one of which looked like a tiny fragment of someone else’s
tooth.
The
impression experience was as disgusting and cold as the time before, and
afterwards I had a hell of a time getting the waxy white stuff out of my beard.
I didn’t know that there needed to be another mould made of my teeth but next
time I do know in advance I will definitely shave beforehand.
He told me
to come back in a couple of hours but that would mean going home and almost
coming right back, which seemed like a waste, so I asked for the latest
possible appointment. The receptionist gave me 16:00, so I went home and then
went over to Bike Pirates to inquire about building a bike. I learned that
first of all they needed to find out if there were any hooks free in the back
for project bikes. The guy I talked to checked and found that there was no free
space at the time. The volunteer who does most of the cooking though said that
she was going to call some of the people that haven’t worked on their velos for
a while to find out if they could clear some space. I wondered though why I couldn’t just buy a frame and keep it at
home. I was told that it was because they don’t charge for the frame until
after the cycle has been built. They used to let builders pay beforehand but so
many people abandoned their projects that the co-op would be stuck with money
that they didn’t feel they had a legitimate right to. I said I’d come back
after my dentist’s appointment.
I went home
and made a salad for lunch, and then I took a short siesta before heading back
up to Smile City. When I got there it looked like Dr.He had been waiting around
just for me. He had added a special extension to the gum coloured part of my
denture. He said it was a clasp that would hold it in, explaining that the
denture came loose before because my teeth have no undercut, but that is fairly
common. I inserted it but it wasn’t fitting smoothly so he had to grind parts
of it away several times until it felt relatively comfortable. It felt a lot
bigger in my mouth than it did before he’d added the clasp.
I went
straight to Bike Pirates where I found that they still don’t have any free
space for more projects. One of the volunteers took me downstairs to look at
frames but they had no tall ones at all at that time and he told me that they
come in very rarely. It was suggested that I try Bike Sauce at Broadview and
Gerrard, which has a similar set-up to that of Bike Pirates. If I found a frame
there I wouldn’t have to keep it at Bike Pirates but could rather just bring it
in whenever I wanted to work on it. I still don’t see why one couldn’t do the
same if I found a frame at Bike Pirates.
Since I
wouldn’t be getting a frame right away I needed to fix the bike I was using so
I put my name on the list. It took about half an hour before a stand was free.
It turned out that the main problem was that my chain was not sitting properly
on my derailer. My volunteer also helped me install a new cable for my left side gears but that took me up to
closing time so I couldn’t fix the right side, which meant the chain wouldn’t
climb to the biggest sprocket ring until I come back to work on it some more.
I made
guacamole with cilantro and ate it with plantain chips for dinner.
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