I have power again :) My phone is charged. My laptop is alive. My guinea pigs are no longer chilly pigs. I was able to take a shower, oh em gee. And I got to go back to work, just in time for the weekend.

It's a good day.

I took my little guinea buddy Dante to the vet this morning to see about an odd growth on her back quarters. By the time we actually got to talk to the vet, this guinea pig very nearly needed treated for heart failure, too.

There we are, trying to check in at the front desk, this guinea pig in a cardboard Fed Ex box under my arm -- and in the background a Schnauzer, a Cocker Spaniel, and a Shi Tzu are all trying to outdo each other in the Vocal Olympics. My God. I have never heard anything as shrill and ear-skinningly annoying in all my life. It was so loud and high-pitched the receptionist was yelling in my face -- literally, a foot from my face, yelling -- and I still could barely hear her. And every dog-shriek is telling my little friend in the box "We want to eat you alive slowly."

Maybe now is the time to be glad I never fulfilled that childhood dream of becoming a veterinarian.