Dentists and Ice Hockey - It Was A Totally Wonderful Monday!

My dental appointment went quite well. No problems with my teeth, and the sore gum I've been fighting has no real reason to be swollen - probably a piece of stuck food from a week or so ago that caused the swelling and minor pain. My Tech took a quick x-ray of that part of my teeth to be sure, but there wasn't anything indicated on the x-ray, and it already feels much better today. So I have clean and lovely teeth once again. Next week is the orthodontist, and I should be rid of the braces by early summer, maybe even late Spring. Whoot! 

It's always nice to go to the Dentist and get a clean 
mouth and a great check-up. I've got a wonderful 
Dentist, and am quite grateful for his care over 
the decades I've been seeing him. 

I brought needles back from the shop (and subsequently found my box of needles ... of course - LOL), so I resumed work on the repair I'm doing. But I was too tired to be effective, and made mistakes that had to be pulled back out. I should have a bit more luck with it tonight, and will finish it out tomorrow before getting to work on another repair that I brought home because work time just doesn't seem to exist these days. 

All too often my time simply disappears. Apparently 
there is a branch of physics that is actually looking 
into the possibility that time is disappearing in the 
wider Universe. Who knew you could possibly prove 
such a thing? My mind is blown! 

Of course today is also a swimming day, which keeps me on my toes for my blog post. No time to waste in serious thought - just dive in, start typing and see what comes of it. In a lot of ways, that's refreshing. It means my blogs are, more often than not, straight from the heart (sometimes without my brain involved at all). I'll have to work on the latest computer work DH has asked me to do while at the shop computer, and hopefully I'll remember where I left off yesterday. I usually take notes, I'm hoping that's the case today - LOL. 

Kaprisov scored a "hat trick" (that's three goals 
for those who don't follow hockey), and so did 
Erickson Ek. A PHENOMENAL game and one 
which goes into the record books. 

Yesterday's hockey game was AMAZING. It was a mid-day game because it was a Monday holiday for a lot of people. My team was seriously behind at the end of the second period, by a score of 5 to 3, with Vancouver in the lead, and then the third period started and the Wild caught FIRE! We scored 7 goals in the third period. SEVEN. That's unheard of in ice hockey. We ended up winning the game with a score of 10-7. That game will go down into the record books and it might be a very long time before the various "first's" get eclipsed by another team. Go Wild! I wasn't watching it (and out cable signal kept going in and out), but I listened to it. DH watched the replay last night so that he could catch all of it instead of the bits and pieces he was able to catch at the shop. 

I'm off to the pool. Have an excellent Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.

Khepri Takes Flight - Tattoo Session #2

Yesterday was the day I've been waiting for - the day when Rodney and I would take the bones from the previous tattoo session (beautiful in their own right) and make everything come alive. The day started with him sitting down with the original drawing on his tablet and starting to suggest different shading, coloring and contouring. As we came to agreement and talked through things, I began to feel as if we were very much on the same wavelength - that he would do it right. A little color for the body of the scarab, black/grey tones with minimal white for definition for the rest of it. We dealt with the solar disk separately at the end of the day. 

Winged Scarab tattoo, right side, final 
version. I asked Rodney to use my phone 
to take a few quick shots. The glare 
is from the overhead lights. When he 
took his own photos, we went outside to 
avoid the extra glare. 

By a little after 11:00 am we got started. I turned on my audio book, warned my staff that I was unavailable, and turned inward. Meditating breathing techniques really helped me because I needed to avoid twitching or other movements. We ended up taking two very short breaks, but with that exception, we were totally immersed in the task on hand. We ended the actual session a little after 4:30 pm, so a total of 5 to 5-1/2 hours under the needle. 

Here's the left side. One of the first 
things people say is "Didn't it hurt?", 
or "OMG, that would be too painful 
for me." I have a high pain threshold, 
but yes, I totally admit that this 
session was uncomfortable. Still, 
I sat utterly still and let him work 
his magic. 

Am I happy? Hell yeah! I'm totally ecstatic! It's amazing. He brought the Khepri to life, and the shading in the solar disc with the Eye of Horus in the center is absolutely perfect. Now I get to wear scarves for a few days while the tattoo is protected with burn tape. Finally, on Monday morning I can finally shower away the crap that seeps out from tattoos while the skin adjusts to the ink.  

The solar disk with the Eye of Horus was 
the final thing we did. I admit I was about
at the end of my tether when we inked this. I
warned Rodney that I'd had about enough. 
He didn't hurry it though, and the shading
 of the rising sun in the background of
the Eye of Horus is absolutely perfect. 

One funny thing. Mackenzie, the tattoo artist who works across the room from Rodney's station had a young lady scheduled to add to her sleeve. It turned out to be the same young woman who had been getting a "candy" skull (think Day of the Dead) on her arm's upper sleeve when I was last in. We were becoming "tattoo buddies" - LOL. Although her image wasn't as intense as mine, it also took most of the day for it to be inked. This time her image was an empty bottle with an entrapped scorpion inside it. She had it added to her interior lower arm. I'm not sure what it signified, but it was a great image and Mackenzie did a wonderful job. 

I was fine with a small amount of color, and Rodney 
had also researched beetles and had several reference 
photos to look at. I just wanted a bit of color for 
highlight and definition. I'm really a fan of B/W and 
grey scale tattoos, not all that fond of color. 
I got what I wanted. Minimal color and an 
image that just comes alive! 

I've put five photos in to share. Of course, my skin is really red and irritated under the ink, so everything will be a little lighter once the irritation has faded and the wound has healed. But you'll still get a really good idea of what it looks like. The next stage won't happen for a year or more. I want to add hieroglyphics below the Khepri, and maybe a smaller image below the characters. That's still in the research and development part. I've got the main element complete now, and I'm super happy. 

Just to remind you what it looked like before 
he added life to the Khepri. Here's the 
picture I took when I removed the
burn take after Tattoo Session #1. It was 
beautiful then, but now it's stunning! 

Rodney asked me to make an appointment to come over for photographs. He wants to bring his digital camera for that, not just his phone camera. He does art photography and wants to do a full run-through of the tattoo after it's healed. No problem with that, I'll be happy to do it later in the Fall. 

So, it's Thursday and I have to work, and tomorrow will be spent doing all of the things I couldn't do on Wednesday. I have a busy couple of days ahead. I hope your day is fantastic and all things go well for you. Positive thoughts go out to Aearwen's son who had hip replacement surgery yesterday. That's a hard surgery to recover from, and it's very painful, but it was absolutely necessary and he's still a young man who should bounce back fairly quickly. A few extra positive thoughts from my readers would certainly be appreciated. Have a wonderful day and please, be kind and stay safe. I'll be back tomorrow.