Chez le dentiste in Morocco.
composite dentaire (kom poh zeet dahn tair)
: a type of dental filling made up of composite materials
Audio File hear these French words via Wav or MP3
Un composite dentaire. J'ai perdu un composite dentaire.
A filling. I lost a filling.
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A Day in a French Life… by Kristin Espinasse
I was flossing my teeth the other day when the minty thread caught… and something disengaged. An ever so slight ting! had my eyes following sound down into the sink….
I bent over to study the object. Was it a composite? Forlorn, I reached for the jagged form (no bigger than a peppercorn).
Was it a tooth or a filling? The thought had me faint, heart reeling.
Staring at the little lost limb (or so it might have been!) I wondered about age, loss, and whether or not to give a toss?
Hair, belly, teeth, and all that striving to keep them neat! Brush after every meal! Careful what you eat!
I looked into the palm of my hand where all those lifelines meet… There sat the toothy thing, menacing like middle age, haunting like hormonal heat.
:: Toothy Expressions ::
croquer la vie à pleines dents = to fully live life
avoir les dents longues = to have long teeth = to be ambitious
faire ses dents = to cut teeth (new teeth emerging from the gums)
œil pour œil, dent pour dent = an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
avoir une dent contre quelqu'un = to hold a grudge against someone
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Well, Kristi — now you have an opportunity to go back to Morocco to fix this little problem… 🙂
P.S. Have you waken up the two boys already — or is it too early in the day…?
Kristi, Who’s little dog is that in the picture at the very bottom? C’est tres minion! Robin
Dentist -now that’s a word I don’t like in any language – I can identify with your despair at seeing part of a filling in the wash basin= it immediately conjures up images in the mind like – injection- pain-ugh!
Thanks for the words Kristin. I shall try to put them into use.
Dianne xx
With numerals from 5-60 and 100, -aine is used to form (feminine) nouns denoting approximate quantities.
Ex. Passé la trentaine, on commence à se soigner mieux. (After thirty [In their thirties], people begin to take better care of themselves.
* Note that la douzaine (dozen) and la quinzaine (two week period, fortnight) denote specific quantities.
Forms in -génaire are used as adjectives or nouns expressing the decades of a human life; quadragénaire, quinquagénaire, sexagénaire, septuagénaire, octogénaire, nonagénaire.
Ex. Il a l’air si jeune qu’on croit difficilement qu’il est setuagénaire.
He looks so young that you have difficulty believing that he is in hes seventies.
* Note that centenaire may, and millénaire must, have nonhuman reference.
Kristin, you are so funny and clever.
Yes, the older we get the more we see parts breaking, falling and changing. I guess the answer is MORE GLUE!!
Question: Do you brush your dogs/cats teeth?
I LOVE the provided “toothy expressions” but I’m not sure I like to hear “croq” (croak) in: CROQuer la vie à pleines dents = to fully live life.
Thanks for making me laugh.
“the jagged form (no bigger than a peppercorn).”
I’ve picked this one but every line’s a gem.
I have pasted the piece into my documents to read from time to time when I’m feeling low. With a suitable acknowledgment of course.
I’m reminded of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll.
I love the doorway photo too. So typically french, even down to the miniature guard dog.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Salut Kristin,
Dr Pulsum’s our dentist in town
His drill makes the scariest sound
And, I still can recall
The motto on his wall . . . .
Drill’em, Fill’em, and Bill’em!
À bientôt,
My mother always said “Have a baby, lose a tooth”, an old Yankee saying perhaps?
xoNancy L.
Yes indeed, middle age does creep up on one. Need some pictures des chiens!
Just wait till it really is a chipped tooth and not just a “composite”! Then you will be in a whole different genre!!
Kristi, I just wish I didn’t know what you are talking about or feeling lol!
I am so right there with you on this whole invation of the body snatcher age.
I hope your day is bright.
Just a filling I hope! I love the petit chien in the photo.
Ack!!
Well, TODAY I’m 40 and feeling your sentiments! I know, it’s young, it’s a glass half full, not half empty…but still I pause for a moment.
Aloha Kristin … EXCELLENT WRITING TODAY .. EXCELLENT! Mahalo for sharing. Bill Facker
Aloha Bill and friends. Thank you for these wonderful words! What a way to close the day.
Jennifer: Joyeux Anniversaire!!! We appreciate your words, those of us who’ve been there 🙂 The glass does get fuller and fuller each year (and I’m not just talking about the “hour glass” 🙂
Sophie and fellow animal lovers, I owe you some Braise and Smokey photos!
Herm, wonderful frankness of your dentist! Tell it like it is!
Mike, Karen, thank you for music to a writer’s ears. If only you knew how many deletes, start overs, and “no, that sounds dumb and contrived” it took to write so few lines. But it is all worth it now. Merci beaucoup!
Robin, the dog lives in Seguret. I’ve seen him (or her?) there over the last few years.
Jens, last but not least, the boys slept till half past noon! Tomorrow morning they’ll be up before 9, more about that another time….
Salut Kristin,
The dog in the doorway was so cute, I had to write this poem:
A cute and charming pup
Peeks out to see what’s up
Could be he’s just checking
For a friend that he’s expecting
Maybe he thinks it would be fun
To frolic outside in the sun
To get a breath of fresh air
While the wind blows through his hair
However, strangers should be wise
Best not believe their eyes
They could be in for a surprise
It’s a viscous guard dog in disguise
À bientôt,
A sparkling risk and a gutsy poetic phrase — “haunting like hormonal heat” — right on, Kristi! Comme toujours, Fred
Herm, right on! But I think you meant to say “vicious”, not “viscous”, dog in the last line.
My dentist says, “Only brush and floss the teeth you want to keep.
My son’s orthodontist says, “Ignore your teeth – they’ll go away.”
I lost a filing once, at age 8, when I was chewing bubble gum. I don’t chew it any more.
You’re right Marianne, Thanks
Love your story Kristen and I can empathize. I lost a crown with my first bite of food on the plane flying home from France a year ago & was so glad it was at the end of the trip instead of the beginning. Yes, we need pictures of Smokey & Braise–it’s been a long time. Herm, I love your doggy poem.
tant pis
au sujet
de tes dents
cherie
ce n’est pas enfin
la fin de ta vie
mais tu m’amuse
enormement
avec telle jolie poesie
Hello Kristin,
Your “composite dentaire” is “un plombage blanc” à base de résines = ‘a white filling’.
I hope the exposed “trou” (‘hole’) didn’t give you “une rage de dents”… raging or not, toothaches are so unpleasant! I guess you arranged a “Rendez-vous chez le Dentiste” (‘dentist appointment’), did you? – which reminds me that mine is on the 2nd August – only a general check-up routine, but … Arrrrgh!
Then I looked again at the top photo and felt, somehow, in a much better frame of mind. After all, what I am complaining about?
Back to this poor little “objet inanimé” lost in “le creux de ta main” (the palm of your hand).
I do sympathise with you, as I found myself in similar situations. The worse was when, 5 years ago, a ‘peppercorn toothy thing’ got dislodged while crunching on a hard & sticky delicacy offered to me by Mamiko, a dear Japanese friend of mine I hadn’t seen for 20 odd years. “Le plombage” gave up, and fell off, and so did the top part of the molar tooth!
Imagine Mamiko’s distress!
My dentist couldn’t crown anything so he saved the remaining ‘base’ and built up a “thing” on the top of it (did he call it a core?) made of resin matching the colour of my teeth – still in place today!
I had several fillings when I was a child, so, got several “dents plombées” and never particularly liked dentists! In those days, fillings were of the grey type and contained mercury. I still remember the odd sensation when the mercury amalgam was pushed down and squeezed inside a tooth! Dentists don’t do “grey fillings” any more, because of health risks… They were replaced by ‘white fillings’ made of resins. Life expectancy of a white filling varies between 3 and 12 years (so says my dentist).
I love the ‘toothy’ expressions. Oh! and what about “Je n’ai rien à me mettre sous la dent”…?
-> ne rien avoir à se mettre sous la dent”
= to have nothing to eat
and, in a different context:
= to have nothing to read
Wow. That’s a nice piece of literature. How did you come up with such rhyme? Well, I rushed to my sedation dentist (Phoenix area) the moment I found out that I lost my crown in a lunch.
– Fred Collinsworth