In the middle of our dating years, the hubs and I adopted a small cat from the local pound. She had been there for a year. We took her home and named her Mabel. After about 24 hours, she became Maybolio. Poor thing.

When we lived in different cities, I kept the cat. When we found out that I was pregnant, I sent Mabel to live with my parents. Our Sunnyvale apartments forbid pets, and in the insane housing market of the late 90s, we didn't want to move.

In my parent's rural home, Mabel thrived. She bonded with my mom and when we returned to this area, my parents opted to keep Mabel. Mabel spent most of her time sleeping in my mom's desk drawer, or on the kitchen counter, basking in the sun. She loved living in the country.

For the last week or so, she'd seemed 'off.' My mom took her to the vet yesterday, and discovered that she was suffering from advanced kidney disease. Yesterday afternoon, she stayed with her as she was put to sleep. It was the right decision, but an emotional one.

While all this was going on, I was volunteering in my son's class. When I returned home, I found that Donna the dog had managed to slice open the back of her front leg, from elbow to wrist. Blood everywhere. With my youngest asleep on my shoulder, I returned her to the car, grabbed a beach towel and placed the dog on top of it in the car and drove straight to the vet.

I parked outside and violated 90,000 of my parenting laws by leaving the baby asleep in her carseat while I carried the bleeding, squirming dog into the reception area. I kept trying to get someone to take Donna so I could go get the baby, but it was crazy busy and every time I opened my mouth and stuck the leash out, the person rushed away. Aaaaah! I could see the van from the exam room window, and I spent a total of about five minutes inside, but I was in a full scale panic, none of it over the dog.

After a quick exam, Donna was led to the back to get sutures, and I sprinted to the car to find the baby sleeping peacefully. I'm NEVER doing that again. Gaaaaah! I did love that the vet said to my dog "Let's get you checked into your suite, and get you a margarita, sweetheart."

Donna's arm is now encased in gauze, and she's rather pissy about it. Luckily, the damage was large superficial. Also lucky was the rust colored shirt I was wearing yesterday.

As if that wasn't enough animal trauma, this morning, I blearily made coffee and listened as my youngest chirped a good morning greeting to the hamster. And then I noticed that the freakin' hamster was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. Uh...

The hamster cage sits on top of my 5' high desk. Apparently, the top hatch on the cage wasn't closed perfectly, and the hamster was able to ram it open, and then climbed (leaped?) down and spent the night roaming around.

THE HELL?

The hamster was unharmed, but if the dog hadn't been still half drugged, I shudder to think what scene we might have stumbled upon this morning.

Again, I say: The HELL?

Makes me think I should stock up on earthquake supplies.