Greetings from the Most Toothless State in the Union

I'm in West Virginia, the state where a surprisingly large number of people were willing to admit they didn't vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. I'd also like to point out this statistical ranking that shows that West Virginia is the most toothless state in the nation. The great state of the Mountaineers was first (or last) with almost 43 percent of its citizens over the age of 65 without natural teeth missing. My own state of Georgia may have ranked ninth, but they're as far from West Virginia's percentage as they are in the other direction from the decidedly toothsome Connecticut that ranked 52.

K and I took E swimming at the hotel tonight. I really hope the tooth rotting thing isn't a feature of the local water. I've never had a cavity or any other oral health issue in my life other than Temporomandibular joint disorder which is more birth defect than the result of poor oral hygiene. It could have been prevented with braces, but even with the dentist's warnings, my mother chose to correct her and my sister's entirely aesthetic problems with braces instead of my alignment problem.

I still feel bitter about this every time I can't open my jaw in the morning or get stabbing pains from chewing a crusty bread. My mom's and sister's teeth are quite beautiful, though.

On a brighter note, it rained again today, and again it rained only when it didn't matter. It was overcast, but dry while we walked around downtown Asheville and bought custom-screen printed T-shirts and gourmet chocolates. It didn't start raining until lunch while we were safely ensconced in our little nook of the restaurant noshing on pizza. It continued raining for a while as we drove north, but I don't mind driving in the rain and I'm not driving a convertible either.

Going back to the T-shirts and chocolate, there was a guy setting up T-shirts at one of the outdoor kiosks at the Grove Arcade and I noticed that some of them were pretty interesting. Turns out that he and his wife create the artwork for the shirts and then silkscreen the shirts themselves. I got E a "Save some for me" shirt with a globe on it, and wanted to get this really cool bush baby (the animal, not the president) shirt, but they didn't have his size. I'm going to order it from their website later. It was too cool to pass up. I've also picked out a design for my sister because it reminds me of us growing up.

Chocolate Fetish was an interesting chocolatier about a block for the Arcade and they apparently make some damn tasty chocolate. I got the sea salt caramels (really good with the milk chocolate because the salt balances the sweetness, but the dark chocolate wasn't sweet enough so it just tasted like salty chocolate and caramel. The butter crunches were pretty good too. We avoided the truffles because K hates them and they can be a bit rich for my tastes at times, but K and her mom picked up some turtles and coconut chocolates that were tasty as well.

My only real disappointment of the day was that Asheville Pizza and Brewing was down to two house beers today. That really sucks. Instead of getting to try a bunch of beers in little 3 oz. samplers, I had to drink two full pints and only get to taste two different beers. Lame.