This past month has been pretty rough. It seems that one crisis comes up right after another, and I barely have the time or energy to stay on top of things. First of all, my employer laid off a large group of people, including one of my coworkers. The result: low morale, and more work for me. Around the same time, I started getting pain and swelling in my jaw, and had to see a dentist, who was unable to figure out what was going on. Then, I got so sick, I had to go to the hospital, just before taking a badly-needed mini-vacation. I was able to proceed with the trip, but was sick half the time, and didn't really enjoy myself. Then, a pipe decided to start leaking in one of our walls, and I'm still in the process of arranging for contractors to come and fix it, along with a couple of other hope repairs. Back to the dentist for a cleaning, which turned out to be painful and bloody, with a possible diagnosis of gum problems, requiring another visit to the dentist in 2 weeks. We haven't even addressed my wisdom tooth problem yet! On top of everything, our beloved and healthy-seeming cat Oliver was diagnosed with a heart murmur, and my wife is freaking out that he has an enlarged heart or other life-shortening, medication-requiring condition. He has a cardiologist appointment next month, which will be pretty expensive. Hopefully, it will be a benign condition, but with my luck having pets with chronic, expensive medical conditions with lots of complications, I wouldn't be surprised if he has a major problem. Coming up, I need to make arrangements to visit my family for "fake Thanksgiving" and get the car maintained before we head up to LI. Not a happy camper lately!