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A once in a lifetime event? Well, now, that may be a bit of a stretch. You know. Hyperbole.

Then again, maybe not. For me, at least. You see, quite recently a very fine and competent dental establishment in the Emerald City that specializes in periodontics refunded the entire costs of a procedure to me. That’s right. They returned our money, which had been paid upfront.

Now, they did so because a procedure didn’t succeed. It was due to what I call the “bumper sticker syndrome”. You know, “stuff” happens. The good folks who did the procedure did absolutely nothing that was incorrect.

The end result is that now I don’t have any kind of tooth in an upper space in my mouth. But no pain now, either.

The “spin” I put on this is, at my age, it’s not a negative aesthetic I’m going to have to live with for a long time. How’s that for the “glass is half full” viewpoint? Works for me.

Moving now from a tooth to the “tongue”. That is, our way of speaking. Our Mother Tongue, this English language most of us, more or less, speak, is, in some ways, constantly in a state of flux. You know, certain expressions come, some go.

Take, for instance, “kickoff.” As a compound word, it indicates an action in a football game, such as is done to begin the game, the second half, or following a touchdown or a field goal, and so forth.

Some scribes, however, have latched onto it now to describe or indicate the beginning of just about anything. A diversity of events now begin with a kickoff.

Why, some sports writers even use “kickoff “ to indicate the start of a basketball game. Seems logical to me that “tipoff” would be more appropriate. Just saying. . .

Enough of this. Too much, probably. May you, and those dear to you, all have a good weekend.

May the coming week be one of peace for each of us. May it be so.