For root canal yet.

I know, I know. If you actually go to the dentist, rather than simply ignoring your teeth until they decay and rot away in your mouth, it means that you not a total coward.

That's what my nice dentist says.

But I don't believe a word of it. Not even the "ands" and the "thes."

I am so terrified that I wait for years just for a cleaning, and of course, that does cause problems, and that leads to discomfort (we never use the word pain), and finally, to the dreaded phone call, the dreaded walk over to the office, the "forgetting" which building it is,  and not having her number programmed in my phone (Why could I? We talk so seldom), and being in a panic because I'm late, even though I know I'll have to sit in the dreaded waiting room when I get there.

Just love the sound of the drill, don't you?

And then the delightful news that I'll have to have . . .

Oh, No: Root Canal!

The Day of the Dentist I was trying to stay calm. I kept reminding myself that I had had root canal before and it isn't bad. It isn't.

That Novocaine is a wonderful thing. It is.

That I had to be brave. I wasn't . . .

My appointment for the root canal wasn't until the afternoon (bad move) and in the morning I had planned to go to the gym, in the hopes that those much touted endorphins would kick in. I didn't. They didn't.

Instead, I got a series of anxiety-producing phone calls, from my mother's aide saying that her check had bounced, and from my new personal banker who hadn't given me the temporary checks I needed for the new and improved account (Hey! I'm important to them!) thereby causing the situation with the check. While we were straightening this out, I got distracted and forgot I had left an egg boiling on the stove.

Have you ever seen an exploded egg?

It is not, I assure you, a pretty sight. . .

Well, sorta.

Hostess Brands, maker of Twinkies and assorted other highly addictive, no nutritional value nonfoods, filed for bankruptcy last week, throwing some of us into a not-so-mild panic.

Bye, Bye Sugar High

What? No Twinkies? Not to mention Sno Balls, Ding Dongs, Suzie Qs, or Ho Hos. And worst of all for me, who doesn't really like any of the aforementioned goodies, the disappearance of those divine Hostess cupcakes with the squiggly white thing on top and the creamy stuff on the inside.

I say "stuff" not for lack of writerly precision but because I have no idea, and suspect no one else does either, what that stuff is. It sure ain't cream. And it doesn't seem to be marshmallow. A thorough readying of the ingredients might clear it up, but who reads the ingredients on Hostess products. Masochists, surely.

You know that these empty caloried sugar-saturated snacks can't be good for you, but when you get a jones this bad it might as well be for something that can't get you an all-expense-paid vacation — behind bars. These treats may be fattening, but they're not illegal. Yet. It's rumored that Mayor Bloomberg is working on it.

Meanwhile, could one little cupcake possibly do any harm? Possibly. Go ahead and eat the damn thing anyway.

My inspiring quote for the day says:

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." 
—Aristotle

So if that great Greek philosopher were faced with a Twinkie, and if he had been educated in modern theories of nutrition, what would he do? Entertain the thought of eating it then pass it off some unsuspecting slave? Or just eat the damn thing. We'll never know.

I do know that I haven't had a Hostess Cupcake for years, and yet the thought of them never existing in the world is too much to bear.

For so many reasons. . .

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Those women from Absolutely Fabulous are back, and if they can't corrupt you, you're incorruptible.
No one is incorruptible.

Least of all Eddy and "Pats," AKA Patsy Stone, full name: Eurydice Collette Clytemnestra Dido Bathsheba Rabelais Patricia Cocteau Stone.

Her mother, besides being a bit of a literary poseur, was a free spirit who, immediately after giving birth to Pats in a parlor filled with like-minded souls and the aroma of opium, demanded that they take "this thing" away — and bring her another luhvah.

That little scene from an earlier episode may explain why Patsy is so selfish and amoral (ya think?) but not why she's hysterically funny.

Could it be her outfits? Actually, they're quite stylish, and Joanna Lumley has the former Bond Girl figure to carry them off. Edina is the one who Goes Too Far with sausage-tight tanks and argyle tops with plaid Capri's. But Patsy's big blond hair, which has a life of its own, begs the question: "What does she keep up there?"

That's easy: drugs, of course. From Bond Girl to Bong Girl? You be the judge. Personally, I think that Sarah Palin's hairdresser is a secret fan of Ab Fab fan, although I doubt that the Queen of Alaska keeps pot in her pouf. A small firearm, maybe. But that's another story.

In the new episode of Absolutely Fabulous on BBC America, Patsy gets out of a tough situation (temporarily) by pulling a stash of those funny cigarettes off the top of her head, literally.

Meanwhile, Eddy must figure out how to get rid of the problem: a very large and nasty ex-con named Baron who is demanding 50 Buckets/Gorillas/Rios/Bags of Sand (that's 50,000 pounds in English) that Pats owes her for drugs. Big Bad Baron came to Chez Eddy, a delightful townhouse in London bought from the proceeds of two ex husbands who each thought the other was paying for the house, because the still naïve Saffie had befriended Baron while in prison. Don't ask.

Fashion Victim Meets Christian Missionary

Oh, ask. Saffie is the grownup of the trio, the polar opposite of her ex-hippie, self-indulgent, Fashion Victim (with the t-shirt to prove it) mother, who once told her that she dressed like a Christian missionary, and is often called Sweetie Darling because Eddie can't remember her name. Saffie, always the defender of the downtrodden, was sent up for unwittingly supplying forged passports to poor souls in danger of being deported.

We pick up the story as Saffie is released from prison and goes home to be feted with champagne by the aptly named Bubble, who gives new meaning to the word "absurdist," acting out a very silly recap of the Royal Wedding from the Archbishop of Candleford ("bore, bore, bore") to Pippa ("no knickers, Rear of the Year"). Saffie then gets the latest news: "There's a new disease out there called the Kardashians," and is visited by her former prison mate, who starts calling her "my little wifey." Uh oh. Even Sweetie Darling is better than that.

To get the money to pay off her debt, Patsy is dragged, literally, by Eddie into a government office where she has to give her name, which is hard enough, and her (gasp!) age, which is . . . .

Movies Are Louder Than Ever

If you're Generation X, Y, Z or any other letter, you will soon be experiencing loss of hearing, not to mention turbulence.

Baby boomers: Can you hear me? You're probably on your second hearing aid and wondering why the hell they haven't figured out how to keep out the ambient sounds.

But wait! Being a little deaf might not be all bad. In fact, you're at an advantage in this noisy and getting noisier world. Especially at the movies.

I am not the slightest bit deaf, a gift and a curse, the better to hear, painfully, how incredibly loud movies have become. I'm not talking about the new Tom Hanks film, which is mostly in the modest decibel range — and sweet: I cried at the trailer, and wept at the end of the film. But then, I cry at shaving cream commercials. Those nicks, those scrapes, oh the humanity.

What's really a crying shame is the colossally annoying noise levels, especially of the trailers for which I am a captive audience. I have to get there early to get a good seat, being vertically challenged and all. And is it just me, or do they pump up the sound the way they do commercials on TV? Whatever.

Good Lord, Watson, What Happened To Holmes?

Case (pun intended) in point: the new Sherlock Holmes adventure, inexplicably subtitled A Game of Shadows. Well, they had to call it something. But Game? Only if you consider Rollerball a game. And Shadows? What shadows? It was all in-your-face action, nothing the slightest subtle about it. Shadows are soft and silent, last time I looked.

I don't even complain about the violence anymore : I have become a master of watching horrific scenes through my fingers, lowering my hands as soon as the screaming has stopped.

What I couldn't stand was the *@#!!? N O I S E!!!

Devotees of Sherlock Holmes will find lots of other things here that get their knickers in a knot. Like what happened to Sherlock's intellectual side, and doesn't he ever sit still for a minute and think things through? And yes, he is a master of disguises. But every ten minutes? And as upholstery? (You had to be there.)

Okay, we no longer expect him to say, "Elementary, my dear Watson" (although I, personally, wouldn't mind if he did), but come on, he's the father of all deductive crime solvers, a precursor to Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Monk, Columbo even! — and this movie made your head spin: with the high voltage volume, not even those great detectives could hear themselves think. It felt to me like an action movie for teenage boys, and hey, if that's your thing, fine. But couldn't they turn down the noise just a little for the rest of us who are not teenage boys? Apparently not.

Even my husband, who likes the sound of power tools (sigh) thought it was too loud.  I don't mean to pick on the Sherlock Holmes movie. Well, maybe I do . . .

Are you:

Serious? Silly? Snarky? Sentimental? Sarcastic? Stylish?
Too tired to lick a stamp?

When it comes to Holiday Greetings (the politically correct term although not nearly alliterative enough for a title), I am almost All of the Above.

I careen each year, if it is possible to have an annual careening, between the light and the lovely, hitting everything in between. Each card says something about me.
Uh-oh.

Oh well. Here goes. Some favorite cards I've sent in the past 20 years, beginning with the put-upon pupppy.

There have been other animals, some quite cheery.

Nothing like a little shopping to spread love and joy.

And scenes of New York to proclaim my love of this unreal city and let you know that Hey! I'm a cultured person already.

And that I have, in all modesty, the greatest Kab Karma ever recorded.

But who doesn't get a little sentimental during the holidays, and that calls for:

Vintage Xmas Cards

(How's that for an anachronism?)

BTW, I vigorously deny that the girls in these photos are me.

Now let's move on, shall we?

Kris Kringle Kards are great when they're this funny. . .