Well, it has been an eventful two weeks. I had a great time at the Q dance on Friday (17th Feb) even though Kadie was sick. However the soreness I felt in my labia blew up into a big infected cyst. I was in a lot of discomfort until it burst on Monday morning (20th Feb), and I was able to get to my doctor later that day. He prescribed hot baths and a course of antibiotics, and thankfully that has made things much better.
I am now flying to Washington DC on the 24th March for another review panel, so that will be exciting. That is in addition to the other panel in April. In the mean time I have dyed my hair bright fuchsia. It was coppery coloured, but on Monday evening I was at home and bored, and so I broke out my purple hair dye.
It was Bonnie's birthday today, so I called and wished her the best. She is extremely busy, but is enjoying life. She mentioned Tiffany had survived a round of job cuts at Raytheon, and I mentioned Doug had lost his job at Deibold. Judy had drunk dialled us both last night as part of her Fat Tuesday celebrations. I have been a horrible friend, and I have not emailed Jules or Marilyn. I need to get onto that as soon as possible, as I miss them a lot.
I have been really busy in the lab, but not always in the ways I would like. For example, I finished the abstract for the San Francisco conference in September. However much of my day was spent dealing with a flood from a leaking sink and organizing the removal and disposal of some concentrated perchloric acid. This sadly involved a hazardous materials crew coming from Utah to perform a remote opening. It was a little less exciting than I had expected, particularly since it turned out that the bottle inside the rusted container was as new.
Currently I hardly ever seem to have spare minutes in the day. In fact I have been doing so much running around, I never even noticed until a few days afterwards that my one-year anniversary of surgery had passed. I neither raised my cup, nor took a moment of silence. This is in contrast to when I happily ticked off every week as I endured the heavy dilation schedule over the first six months. I'm certainly happier now that I was 12 months ago.
In my personal life, Kadie and I are doing ok. Quite often I will put my foot in my mouth and say something stupid though. On the other hand I try to make up for this by being as sweet and kind as possible. However, this makes me seem to have a terrible split personality between the “work me”, and the “non-work me”. I am helping her out on a few scholarship applications that she should have a good chance with, so hopefully I can start her in motion and let her continue with confidence under her own steam.