What A Week I'm Having

Sorry, folks, I've been so out of pocket, so I haven't been keeping up with everyone like I should have. But I WILL catch up, I promise.

So far this week, I went to the dentist, where she confirmed that I would have to have a deep cleaning to address gum disease, i.e. cutting open the gums over three fun-filled days. Can't wait.

Then, three hours after this fun-filled dental cleaning, I drove to the airport. Have I mentioned I hate to travel? Well, I do. Off to LAX so I could go to Pasadena and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. True, the reason was cool (peer review for a very cool project called Juno to study Jupiter). Imagine the challenges in preparing such an experiment to not only withstand the local meteoroid and orbital debris environments but the meteoroid environments and the ring particle environment around Jupiter (Jupiter has rings), in addition to the strongest magnetosphere in the solar system, that around Jupiter. (The sun, Mercury, the Earth, Saturn and Neptune have magnetospheres as well, though only the Earth's is as strong or stronger than any but Jupiter's, including the sun's).

Unfortunately, I'm not at my best navigating new towns especially at night. I managed to get myself completely lost between LAX and Pasadena, driving through abandoned warehouse districts and other places I couldn't identify to find my way with printed directions (note to self: reading printed directions at night on a speeding highway, not a good plan). After a harried 2.5 hours, I managed to find my hotel. Oh, good. 1 am (Pacific Time) and I have that peer review for Juno later that morning.

Well, I managed to find the peer review in time (OK, Pasadena is beautiful in the daylight). Unfortunately, since I was leaving on LAX, they insisted I leave before the peer review was quite over (but I gave them my notes before I left) so I wouldn't be late. I got there more than two hours before the flight left, so that was sorta good (and didn't get lost). Came home at 1 am, exhausted, to find that, for reasons unknown, my mortgage company only sent me $300 or so of the nearly $3000 of insurance money I got for extra money I'd already put into home repairs and that they're holding the rest until the rest of the repairs are done. *Sigh*

Then, I got up for work today only to find that my cat had found a mesh bag in the garagesometime while I was gone and managed to strangle herself.

:( Poor Bete.

Now, we have no cat (and, if I think about it, I'll start to cry again. Bete was a gem. Who dies that way? And I still haven't told my teenage daughter because she's at her dad's house until tomorrow). I'm beginning to think I'm not qualified to have pets. Thank heavens my kids are healthy.

I'm hoping things start to look up.