Good luck, bad luck

The good luck: I still haven't had to go back for jury duty. When I say good luck, I mean really good luck too, because they seem to be using the first part of the jury pool (jurors 1-36 have been called twice) and the last part of the jury pool (jurors 62-96 were to report today) but haven't touched the middle. Yay! I'm certain my mentioning it here will guarantee me a spot on Thursday or Friday.

The bad luck: And when I say bad luck, I mean really bad luck. My sweet, wonderful, precious cat Sebastian has cancer. He's the one I found the lump on a few weeks ago. He had surgery on Thursday to remove the lump -- surgery which ended up being complicated and involved and very risky. The vet knows he didn't get all of it, but he sent it off for testing, and the results came back yesterday ... carcinoma. I don't even know what else Neal (my vet) said because my head was swimming and the whole conversation after that is a big blur. Bobby was supposed to call today to talk to him, just to have a rational pair of ears hear what he said, but Bob got busy at work and forgot.

I don't know why I'm so much more upset about Sebastian than I have been about previous pet losses, and goodness knows I've had plenty over the past few years. Most of my cats are elderly, and Neal says this is just what happens when pets are well-cared for ... they live a really long time and often get cancer. Not much consolation though. I cried for about five hours last night.

And the best part of this story? Yesterday was my birthday. I'm pretty darn sure this qualifies, for me, as the worst birthday ever.