Living in Southern California, and in Los Angeles in particular, like many folks, we live in an apartment.  For the most part, we love our apartment (except in the heat of the summer when we don’t have AC).  We’re in a nice, quiet location.  The apartment itself is a good size and a decent floor plan.

But…

(and you knew there had to be a “but”)

Sometimes our landlords can drive us crazy.  You see, they live upstairs, and her crazy (yes, truly and honestly) 95+ year old mother lives nextdoor.  The weekly calls to remind me to clean up after my dog when I already do clean up after my dog (mind you, I don’t clean up after the other 20 or so dogs that come through our yard) are really getting old – almost as old as the old calls about how our computers used to make so much noise they were waking the crazy lady nextdoor.  Uh, yeah, okay.

Basically, we’re the only ones in the unit that rent.  Subsequently, we’re also the only one that pays the mortgage, since we’re the only one that generates some income.  But that’s neither here nor there.  Sadly, we’re also the only ones in the unit that aren’t allowed to do ANYTHING.

We can’t install an AC unit in the bedroom or hang shades to help block the western sun that effects half our apartment and brings our indoor temps to 90 degrees even with the shitty AC.  We can’t get a new stove/oven that actually works the way it should.  We can’t grow a few potted herbs or a tomato plant outside.  We can’t paint the walls (tough shit on that one…after three years of living here they’d have to repaint anyway – so I told him I was doing it and did it).  We can’t use our second bedroom after 9:00pm as the crazy old lady complains.  We can’t watch TV too loud, or play music too loud.  We can’t have a washer and dryer – nor will they allow us to use their unit in the garage.

Needless to say, after six years, it’s getting old.  But because of the crazy old lady and all the crap they put us through in the early years, our rent is quite cheap for the market.  So we stay.  We stay and hope that the crazy lady finally passes (as I’m sure her daughter and son-in-law, our landlords do as well), so we can maybe look into buying the place, having been told that they want to sell once she’s gone.  We stay knowing that we’re saving money each month and can save more to buy a home.  We stay hoping the current housing crisis continues (as do many, many Los Angelinos who hope to someday buy a home).

We stay because I hate moving with a passion.

But basically, apartment living kind of sucks.  No matter how nice the area is and how affordable the rent can be.

Which of course sadly means more fires.  Last night you could hear (and feel) those dry, hot winds blowing all sorts of debris around.

Right now there’s a pretty raving fire out in the Stevenson Ranch area.  That’s not all too far away (but no where near as close as any of the recent Griffith Park fires), so once the winds kick up again, we’ll probably start getting some ash and smoke.  Funny thing, last night I made the comment that someone started a fire at a nearby home.  I’m thinking now that I was wrong with that, and it was an actual brush fire instead.

The good news is that our rainy season isn’t that far off.  I believe it typically starts that last couple weeks in October.  So hopefully that will help with things.  Then again, we’re forcasted to be back in the 90’s on Tues and Weds.  I can’t say that I ever predicted that southern Californian weather would be anything like this.  Such a weird and interesting experience to say the least.

I’m sure I say this over and over again each and every time I have to go to the dentist for a cleaning.  Today though, it wasn’t a cleaning, it was time to replace an old cavity.  Needless to say, it’s the driling that kind of scares me to death.

You see, when I was a little kid, we had a horrible, horrible dentist.  Anytime he worked on my teeth, he never gave me enough Novocain.  Needless to say, I could feel the drilling. ALL the drilling. I’d cry. I’d scream and he would tell my grandmother that I was just being a brat that there’s no way I could feel anything.  For the record, he was wrong.

So now as an adult, I have a bit of a complex.  I don’t avoid the dentist.  I do go to my regularly schedule appointments and I sit through whatever horrible things they plan to do to me (mostly cleanings – horrifying, I know).  But…and here it is…I kind of freak out a bit.  I hold my breath, I tense up, I white knuckle the arms of the chair and my eyes will uncontrollably tear (like with cutting onions – not quite crying).

My dentist and his team though, they’re great.  They have it in their file that I want more Novocaine that I’d ever actually need (they oblige) and that they need to do things one step at a time so I can take breathing breaks all the while walking me through the entire process.

It’s funny though.  As an adult I know it’s a silly fear.  I know that I’m no longer a child and whatever dentist I go to will listen to me and work with me.  I know it won’t hurt and even if I did, they’d immediately stop whatever they were doing and fix it.  It’s just one of those silly things we worry about leftover from childhood.

I guess that’s why no matter how many times my husband or friends suggest I switch to getting gas prior to treatment I won’t (and they’ve offered at my current office).  That just seems like such an extreme when I know deep down that all will be well.  I’ll just stick to taking a Xanax prior to going – LOL.  And well, in the end, I just know that I’m not the biggest fan of dentists in general, but I love my dentist and would recommend him to anyone looking for a dentist.

So how ’bout you…any fear of the dentist?  What about some other fear left over from childhood?