Good almost Friday morning, AKA Thursday.
It’s hard to recall a time when I actively wished for my teeth to fall out.
These days, I’m more focused on keeping my teeth in tact for the long haul, trying to avoid things like root canals, extractions, and (heaven forbid) dentures. I do all the things they recommend – regular brushing (but not too hard), flossing, rinsing, etc.
Apparently, I’m fighting an uphill battle. According to an unscientific Google search, the average 21 year old American starts their adult life with 28 teeth, but of those lucky enough to make it to their mid-70s, a whopping 26 percent have done so without their teeth in tact.
According to the CDC, tooth loss among older people has decreased over time, thanks to better nutrition, hygiene, and access to dental care. The likelihood of tooth loss is directly connected to income and education levels, as well as lifestyle choices (most notably smoking).
I have over the course of my adult life had a few dreams about losing my teeth. If you put stock in dream interpretation – and I’m not completely sold on the idea – this could be either a bad thing (a symptom of anxiety or stress or an indication of loss of control in one’s life) or a good thing (an indication of new beginnings).
Generally speaking, I’m very connected to my teeth. I’ve never had a cavity (knock wood) and hope never to experience one.
When I was a kid, though, I REALLY wanted to lose my teeth, because doing so would result in a visit from the tooth fairy, who would come bearing gifts (usually silver dollars, though when I reached the last few baby teeth, I recall finding folded up bills under my pillow).
This was a really fun ritual, while it lasted. Why don’t we do more of that? Unexpected gifts under the pillow would make waking up to face the day so much more pleasant.
But I digress.
Once I grew up, I kind of forgot about the tooth fairy. I didn’t have kids of my own and so never engaged in that particular ritual. Puppies lose their teeth, but they often swallow them and finding them coming out the other end doesn’t really have much magic.
Then I saw today is National Tooth Fairy Day, one of TWO such days in the calendar year. (The other is Feb. 28), which made me wonder: Where did this mythological creature, so important that she (they?) get not one day of recognition, but two, spring from?
The tooth fairy has roots in a number of cultures and traditions, dating as far back as the 17th century Vikings, who paid kids for their lost teeth and then carried them as good luck talismans into battle. Also, it’s not always a tooth “fairy”. In France and in a number of Spanish-speaking countries, it’s a tooth mouse (or maybe rat?), known alternately as La Petite Souris or Ratoncito Perez.
Why a mouse/rat, you ask? Well, it turns out that rodents continue to grow their teeth throughout their entire lives, which is why they’re constantly gnawing on things – it helps them keep their tooth growth in check. If they don’t do this, their teeth can grow into their brains – yes, you read that right – or form a spiral that would make it impossible for them to eat. Either way, they’d die.
A rat’s incisors can grow up to 1 millimeter per day if left to their own devices. So, combatting that is apparently a near full time job. Almost makes you feel sorry for rats. Almost.
There are some non-tooth fairy and/or rodent related tooth traditions, like burying your teeth – in some cases in a specific place connected to parents’ hopes for the future employment of their offspring – throwing them into the sky, or putting them on the roof.
It’s going to be good tooth-throwing or burying weather, if that’s your cup of tea. Skies will be partly cloudy and temperatures will peak comfortably in the mid-70s.
In the headlines…
Minnesota governor Tim Walz accepted the Democratic party’s vice-presidential nomination by emphasizing his rural bonafides and background as a teacher and coach in a more sweeping speech than the unassuming midwesterner has given before.
“You might not know it, but I haven’t given a lot of big speeches like this,” Walz said as he closed out yesterday’s Democratic convention in Chicago. “But I have given a lot of pep talks.”
Walz spoke about his upbringing in Nebraska, his 24 years of service in the Army National Guard and his career as a social studies teacher who doubled as his school’s football coach. The audience waved “Coach Walz” signs through much of the speech.
The organizers of the DNC who have been working hard to depict Walz as a paragon of friendly masculinity, brought out the really big guns: 15 of the former high school football players who knew him as “coach.” (They didn’t speak, but did take the stage).
An emotional Gus Walz, 17, cried as his father formally accepted the VP nomination. Walz, with his mother Gwen and sister Hope, had tears streaming down his face and appeared to be sobbing with pride as his mother and sister silently wept beside him.
Also last night at the DNC, television legend Oprah Winfrey received a standing ovation after delivering a rousing speech and former President Bill Clinton poked fun at former President Donald Trump.
“Let us choose truth, let us choose honour, let us choose joy,” Winfrey told a cheering crowd as she made her surprise appearance on the convention stage. “Because that is the best of America.”
Winfrey, who identified herself as an independent, made it clear she thinks Vice President Kamala Harris is the clear winner over Trump in the “decency and respect” department.
“Let’s cut to the chase: The stakes are too high and I’m too old to gild the lily,” Clinton said in his 12th convention address, which he peppered with references to his advancing age. “I actually turned 78 two days ago. And I’m still not quite as old as Donald Trump.”
The former president cautioned exuberant delegates at the DNC not to be complacent in 2024 because politics is “a brutal, tough business.”
It was a remarkably somber moment inside the arena as Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg spoke of their son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a hostage in Gaza for more than 10 months — 320 days, as the tape on their shirts said.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi went after Trump during her prime-time platform DNC speech, warning voters his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is enough evidence he poses an outsized threat to American democracy. But didn’t mention his name.
Trump has apparently been stewing on Hochul’s DNC speech, calling her “the nastiest speaker on Monday evening… as it pertains to your favorite President, me.” He added: “Her total hatred, and statements made about me, had no bounds.”
After two days of policy-focused addresses with modest crowds, Trump returned to form with an outdoor speech in North Carolina, where he insisted that he wouldn’t end personal attacks on Harris and continued to sow doubts about the integrity of the election.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries brought his trademark Brooklyn rhymes to the DNC as he boosted Harris and vowed to take back the House for Democrats in November. He also told Trump: “Bro, we broke up with you for a reason.”
Queens Rep. Grace Meng was unceremoniously bumped from the prime-time speaker line-up on the first night of the DNC because the proceedings went long. She was the only Asian-American on the schedule and some are offended she didn’t speak.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s flirtation with Trump is intensifying as the independent candidate searches for ways to stay in the election, with speculation growing that he might endorse the former president.
Multiple Kennedy insiders spoke last night to discuss campaign developments. ABC News reported that Kennedy could drop out of the race by the end of the week and is considering backing Trump, but no decision has been made just yet.
Kennedy is expected to suspend his campaign tomorrow in Arizona. There are current talks between Trump’s team and Kennedy’s orbit for the independent candidate to endorse the former president and appear at Trump’s Phoenix area rally that same night
President Joe Biden and Harris spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday about efforts to secure a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas and broader efforts to lower tensions in the region.
Federal Reserve officials held off on cutting interest rates at their July meeting, but minutes from that gathering showed that they were clearly poised to lower them at their meeting in September, just weeks before the presidential election.
“The vast majority” of officials thought that “if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting,” according to notes from the meeting released
The U.S. economy added far fewer jobs in 2023 and early 2024 than previously reported, a sign that cracks in the labor market are more severe — and began forming earlier — than initially believed.
The Labor Department said monthly payroll figures overstated job growth by roughly 818,000 in the 12 months that ended in March.
A number of Wall Street investment firms obtained details about the report — which showed a large downward revision to job growth in 2023 and early 2024 — at least 15 minutes before the information was posted on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.
U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a longtime Democrat representing New Jersey’s 9th District died at the age of 87, his family announced in a social media post.
“It is with deep sadness that we announce that Bill Pascrell Jr., our beloved husband, father, and grandfather, passed away this morning,” a post shared on the congressman’s X account late yesterday morning read in part.
The New York attorney general’s office late last night urged a state appellate court to uphold a more than $450 million civil fraud judgment against Trump, arguing that the punishment was needed to protect “the integrity of the marketplace.”
In a legal filing, the attorney general, Letitia James, defended a judge’s February ruling that had conspired to inflate the value of his properties to receive favorable loans and other financial benefits.
“Mr. Trump indisputably participated in the fraud,” James’s office wrote in response to an appeal filed last month by Mr. Trump, adding that he, his adult sons and his company had “used a variety of deceptive strategies.”
The state Department of Health said it had confirmed cases of Eastern equine encephalitis in horses in seven more upstate counties this week, days after confirming that a horse in the town of Newburgh had died of the virus last week.
The United Arab Emirates’ government paid as much as $5,000 for Joel Eisdorfer, then a senior City Hall adviser to Mayor Eric Adams, to visit the Middle Eastern country for a summit in February, newly released documents show.
Amid mounting pressure to address complaints about a megashelter for migrants in Clinton Hill, Adams made an appearance at a dinner party of concerned residents.
Adams said Democrats should be the party of public safety and that Harris is the perfect messenger to take the issue from Republicans.
Adams suffered a verbal gaffe at the DNC. When attempting a characteristically swagger-filled response to a reporter’s question about the federal corruption probe swirling around him, Adams appeared to accidentally slip into X-rated territory.
A lower percentage of New York City public school students achieved proficiency on state reading tests after the city began an overhaul of reading instruction last school year, according to data released yesterday.
Fewer than half of New York City public school students showed proficiency on reading exams this year, a decline from the previous year that may reflect how hard it is to change teaching approaches as the district embarks on a major reading overhaul.
Fat Joe has every door in New York open to him now, as he has officially received a Key to the City. Mayor Adams presented the honor to the rapper in the Brooklyn neighborhood where he grew up.
A New York City Parks Department worker has been indicted for the deadly hate crime shooting of a Venezuelan migrant, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced.
Joshua Leifer, a Jewish American journalist and critic of Zionism, said that a Brooklyn bookstore canceled his public conversation with a progressive Zionist rabbi because the store would “not permit a Zionist on the premises.”
The writer was angry and mystified by this reversal of course — the event was to be a conversation, not a monologue; he was not going to address the audience by himself.
Then bookshop, powerHouse Books, blamed a staff member for cancelling the launch of a new book exploring American Jewish identity just an hour before the scheduled event, and telling the author that they “would not permit a Zionist on the premises.”
It’s free to attend the U.S. Open this week.
The MTA is pulling out all the stops for the Dalai Lama’s visit this morning to the UBS Arena, located just east of New York City.
The Dalai Lama, a world spiritual leader who typically draws big crowds anywhere he goes, quietly spent this summer recovering from knee replacement surgery at a suburban home outside Syracuse without much of anyone knowing.
Albany County Executive Daniel P. McCoy issued a statement saying that he is “committed to continuing my career in public service with Albany County” and will not pursue the job of chief executive officer at Albany International Airport.
McCoy invoked his job title — and what he cast as his authority over airport operations — when he missed a flight to Chicago. He tried to pressure American Airlines employees to reopen the jet door so he and his deputy county executive could board.
A former Niskayuna man faces a charge of felony aggravated harassment as a hate crime for reportedly calling outgoing Town Supervisor Jaime Puccioni racial slurs and making threats of federal arrest in a voicemail message left with her secretary.
The record riches the Belmont Stakes generated at Saratoga Race Course did not extend to city coffers, according to Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi.
Taylor Swift said she was devastated by the cancellation of her Eras Tour concerts in Vienna due to a terrorist plot that had filled her “with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming.”
In an Instagram post celebrating the end of the European leg of her tour, Swift offered her first public comments about the three derailed shows, which were called off after officials in Austria said they had arrested two men accused of plotting a terrorist attack.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
