I should've listened to my intuition . . .

. . . when it told me it was bad idea to even get out of bed this morning.

My day went as follows:

6:waytooearlyinthemorning-- phone call from Dad. He's never called me at this hour. Actually, I don't think I've ever gotten a phone call that early in the morning. I was in the shower when he called, and didn't realize he had tried to reach me till 7, so I tried calling him back. Actually, I tried my dad's cell, my mom's cell, the house phone . . . for a total of ten failed attempts. I knew someone must have died. Randy finally calls me back to say "I was just calling to see if you knew where the 'grabber' was, but I found it."

The wondrous grabber. My mother uses it because she has stubby little legs and can't reach things in the cupboard. Bless her.

"OK, so that's it?" 

"Well, yeah. The cat died last night under our bed and I couldn't get to it." 

Uh-- GROSS. How morbid is this? The freaking cat crawls in the 8-inch crawl space between the wall and their waterbed to die in the middle of the night. And my parents listened to the whole thing. "Meow. . . meow. . . meow. . . meow. . . meow. . . meow. . . *silence.*" 

So, mom was emotional all day, that crazy-animal-loving-empty-nester who has nobody else to cuddle with or talk to. Poor, poor mother. 

7:30-- Walk down to the parking lot to leave for work. Two sketchy looking men are standing outside an equally sketchy van I've never seen in the lot before. They watch me from the moment I get out of the staircase as I walk across the parking lot, and get in my car. As soon as they see me get in, the hop in their van, and start following me. FOR MILES. I foresee robbery or rape in the near future. 

9:30-- Come out to my car from the office to drive to court. A river of liquid is under my car, but I ignore it cause Judge Iwasaki will throw me in jail if I'm late, and heaven knows I have no idea what to do about it anyway. 

10-- Court time comes and goes. They've triple booked every court time, and Iwasaki is in a particularly cranky mood. Court is backed up at least an hour at this point, and in the half hour I've been there, three people were taken to jail on Iwasaki's whim. I can't wait for my two hearings with him. 

11:30-- The brand new case I get finally has been called in. Judge freaks out and suddenly the case becomes a mess, and I am given a list of two dozen extra things I now have to get done in a week. 

Noon-- Driving back to the office, I suddenly notice my car's thermostat is nearing the "H." I pull over on the freeway for a few minutes, but it's not cooling down. So, I called Jordan, we try to figure out a solution that wouldn't require him finding a car and driving a half hour to come help me, but no one else in my life loves me enough to help a sistah out. 

1:45-- Jordan finally arrives to rescue his damsel in distress. We both won't be going back to work for the rest of the day. He spends the next several hours on the dirty ground of a Denny's, on the hottest day in weeks, fixing my P.O.S. car. (I severely under-sold my car's worthlessness. And how much I hate it.) 

So, yeah. Listen to your gut, people. 

On a positive note, the events of the day did show me through an odd, less than ideal way, how grateful I am for many things in my life. 

1. An amazing husband who drops everything to come help me. And who knows how to do everything. AND looks day-um sexy doing it. He can fix anything in the world, and he has a good attitude doing it to boot. I am so lucky to have him.

And now, in no particular order:

Jobs. First of all, without 'em, the hundreds of dollars we drop every week on the dang car of mine would be impossible to come by. Second of all, we both have jobs that allowed us to miss the rest of the day. Sure, getting caught up will suck for the rest of the week, but what woulda sucked more would be paying quadruple the price to have someone else do a crappy job fixing the car. You win some, you lose some.

Shade and air conditioning. Their presence, when there, was a blessing in this blasted heat.

Running water, ice cream, jokes, the internet, indoor plumbing, grocery stores, Netflix, cell phones, cheese, kisses & hugs, fresh produce, toilet paper, and eyeliner. Just because I'm pretty sure I'd die without them. Or maybe just be miserable. Or at least have a much less convenient life. 

I live a precious life, and I know it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.