Whenever I am optimistic and not expecting trouble, this state of oblivion usually gets cut short, badly, when it rains problems. On the other hand, if I expect bad things and worry, a lot less trouble finds its way to me. This sucks.

The most recent set of unpleasant surprises was a week ago, when the carefully crafted plans for getting Conny across the pacific suddenly fell apart. (At that point I had thought the nasties were out of the way, visum, school and so on all having being organized without major pain.)

One of her flights was delayed/cancelled, she couldn't make the connecting international flight and was stuck in Philadelphia. After a frantic bit of rearranging Barbara got her a flight to arrive Saturday, just before school started last Tuesday. The annoying part was that while the ex makes at least as much money as I do (or a tad more), she's always broke so I had to advance another big wad of cash for the kids new (and more expensive) flights. But she's here and enjoys it (so far).

The dental filling I lost on Friday didn't make me any happier either; I'm visiting a Professional Sadist later today. Work sucked plenty, too, with the administrative depts doing their very best to make organized discharge of our duties impossible. I don't recall how many different, broken, inconsistent, nonsensical timetabling schedules I was given over the last two weeks (=begin of the semester).

Another not so personal but nevertheless very bad surprise is that the wife of a good friend of mine is currently in a deep coma after developing some sort of encephalitis. Get well soon, W.!