This day has been rough so far, and I’m hoping that it improves quickly.

Starting in the wee hours of the night, I dealt with feline frustration at having no food in their bowl. This was because Siobhan was scheduled for her dental cleaning this morning and was not allowed to eat any food after 8pm the prior night.

Well if Siobhan can’t eat, the boys can’t either, because I really don’t have a good way to separate them at the food area. So back and forth they wandered across my belly, trying desperately to get me to wake up and give them food at 2am. Then Siobhan started pulling at a plastic bag with her nails, creating that annoying crinkly plastic sound that is oh so enjoyable at 3:13am.

David finally crawled in bed around 4am, because he made the mistake of drinking a huge cup of iced coffee around 10pm and couldn’t get to sleep.

As we approached 6am, Lasher decided it was time to get more aggressive, so he walked back and forth up to my face and swatting his tail into my nose. I pushed him away over and over again, but realistically I was not going to get much sleep.

I woke up around 7:30am, showered, and got the carrier ready to take Siobhan out to a vet in North Highlands, which was recommended by Banfield, because their have a cardiologist on staff. Due to her heart issues, I needed to find a place that could use the appropriate anesthesia that would be easy on the heart. Originally, I had gone to UC Davis, but had a very negative experience there and decided not to go back.

So…we’re in the car heading north when Sio starts making the sounds she makes when she’s got to use the bathroom. I had prepared for this eventuality – she did this the last time she rode in the car, so I pulled over to the side, wiped up the carrier, and replaced the little towel with a fresh one.

Unfortunately, when I got back into the car, I discovered that none of the buttons on the driver door were functioning. I could not raise or lower the windows (the two back windows were down about 3 inches), could adjust either mirror, and could not lock or unlock the doors. Even as I pulled back onto the street, my driver door did not auto-lock like the others did. I even tried to use the window button on the door behind me, but the window would not move. A complete electrical failure of the door systems. This car is cursed.

Great. Just yesterday I had noticed that the outdoor temperature display in the car had gone on the fritz. It either displayed —, or -40F. Obviously, in the Sacramento summer it’s not -40F. Something was wrong, but I could have dealt with a faulty temperature gauge, not with a much larger electrical problem. I tried to run the a/c, but apparently it felt that if the temperature outside was -40F, regardless of whether I had the a/c button on, it needed to put out hot hair. Lovely.

Off we went to the vet and I dropped Sio off for her dental, which she desperately needed ($650 that I wouldn’t have had to pay if Banfield had a cardiologist), and made my way down to the Volvo dealer, having called them ahead of time to tell them I was on the way.

Thankfully, the dealer found a loaner vehicle for me, and I was able to get back home and back to work.

So a cat’s at the shop and my car’s at the shop. Let’s hope that both come back better than new .

Update as of 2:08pm: The doctor found some type of crack in Siobhan’s lower jaw, while she was under anesthesia, and he will be putting a wire around two teeth to pull them closer together to help fuse the crack. He has no idea what caused it or where it might have come from, but said it should be ok within 4-6 weeks.