Where Are My Teeth?

Descended from Narwhals

As she injected the second dose of novocaine into my jaw -- is anyone suprised that I've built up a tolerance to anesthetics? -- my dentist and I pondered the question of why the blankety-blank we have nerves in our teeth in the first place. The sensation of hot or cold doesn't tell you anything your tongues and gum haven't already reported. "Oops, you just bit down on something hard" could be communicated without multiple nerve trunks running right up into the tooth proper. And "Ouch, you just broke something" is important to know, but, as she pointed out while changing drill bits, broken teeth don't knit or regenerate, so being reminded, "Hey! Your tooth is still broken, dumbass!" for as long as the stump stays in your head really isn't that useful either.

But if we were all descended from narwhals (from a common weirdly-tusked ancestor if you want to be picky) then the miserable design of human teeth would make sense. There are nerves in there because there used to be interesting and useful nerve endings on the outside of the bony structure that later evolved into a tooth, and the genes that control body-plan development just haven't gotten around to retracting the nerve all the way into the jaw.

And that makes sense because any proto-anything that was extending delicate nerve endings out in the direction of the nasty world would probably have done better if it encased most of the nerve's length in nice safe bony plating. (Later creatures evolved skin, which pretty much put paid to that notion, but you can't blame a a guy for trying.)

Or maybe there's just something about growing a piece of bone that requires threading nerves through it somewhere, say to help direct growth and remodeling to areas of additional stress, or because bones were once living tissue, and some gene complex somewhere believes that tissue has nerves running through it whether it needs them or not. That would be boring, though, so I'm looking for another hypothesis.

It's the humidity

All spring, summer and fall, it's been the same: Charlie's refrigerated formula does 33 seconds in the microwave for four ounces, 44 for six, and a minute for eight.

Until last week. Julie put eight ounces in the bottle, microwaved it for a minute, and brought it up to me. I gave it to Charlie, who, after a few sips, indicated, "No, thanks, that's really a bit too warm, AND I'M STILL VERY THIRSTY WHERE'S MY MILK!" (Testing with a finger proved the first half of his commentary correct; the second was of course true by definition.)

I thought it must have just been one of those mistakes you make with not-completely-chilled bottle of formula, but then the other day I nuked Charlie's milk just the same way, and darned if it wasn't too hot again.

The only thing I can think of is that with the coming of winter, the ambient air has gotten drier and stopped absorbing quite so many microwaves as it cycles through the nuke. We're talking a difference of something like 10-20 grams of water vapor per cubic meter (the oven itself it nowhere near that size, but I think the fan runs air through it), which could be just enough to tip the balance from comfortably warm to too darn hot. If so, it would be a remarkable example of physics in action.

There is no darkness

No, I'm not talking about stars in the night sky and Olbers' Paradox, or even the streetlight up near the end of the driveway.

In Charlie's room, the LED of the baby monitor casts a green glow on the dresser. The one that indicates the CD-player speakers are turned on throws a circle about two feet wide on the ceiling. The space heater has an orange light that he watches when he doesn't want to sleep. And the humidifier has three LEDs, orange to say that it's on, red for when the water runs out, and cool blue for when it's reached the level of humidity set on its dial.

In our room, another couple of humidifiers and the clock, and in our bathroom the green charging light of the toothbrush (and for as long as they last the glow of the devil duck and the phosphorescent frog perched on the ilght fixtures). In the hallway and the hall bathroom, a couple of electroluminescent night lights.

And by the time you get to the den you might as well be in Vegas, what with cable box, tivo, CD player and yet another humidifier declaring themselve ready for action.

You could strike the sun, the moon and all the stars, even the background glow of the town and the occasional flash of a meteor overhead, and our house would still be almost bright enough to read in at night. I wonder if Charlie will ever find himself in a truly dark room.

Supersize me

Skillet weighs 22 pounds.

That's 88 sticks of butter, three-quarters of a Charlie, and about twice the mass of an ordinary cat. But he looks perfectly normal to us. It's Thermos who looks small. And our neighbor's cat Tiny, who weighs maybe 8 or 9 pounds covered in dew, looks, well, tiny.

And if our notions of proper size have been screwed up, what about Charlie? If he grows up with the idea that a pet cat should be roughly his size, things could get way too interesting.

Dates to Remember

I'm sure there's no connection:

Last night was the end of Daylight Savings Time. It was also the first time since spring that the bathroom door has closed properly.

Humidifiers everywhere.