So, we got home from work around nine last night, after a jam-packed day of phoning, faxing, and printing for me, and rebuilding a network for Fuzzy. Now that the dogs are staying outside during the day, we really need to be better about getting home at decent hours, because Zorro doesn't handle chilly weather well, and Cleo tends to bark her head off given anything remotely encouraging. Like, you know, wind, squirrels, light, dark, whatever.

When we got to the front door, there was a box sitting beside the lock box. “Did you order something?” I was asked. But I hadn't. Still, it wasn't ticking, so we brought it inside.

It was addressed to me, and accompanied by a card, “Happy Birthday, from Guess Who ;)”

And inside: A box of Godiva chocolates…all dark…my favorite.

*swoon*

It took me a minute to process this, and then I realized who my birthday elf must have been, because we'd had a brief ICQ chat that involved questions like, “What's your address, again?” and “What's your favorite kind of chocolate.” Hey, when I've worked 12 hour days on little sleep, I'm entitled to less-than-bright moments.

Chocolate, anyone?

On Monday, our work day ended in drama. There's a new upscale retail/condo development about a city-block from my office, and that afternoon it literally went up in smoke, ultimately becoming an eight-alarm fire. It was breezy that day, and as a result, burning embers were carried across the neighborhood.

From our office windows, we watched the flames from the main fire, and from a burning apartment complex across the street, and we watched clouds of brown and black and grey smoke turning a sunny afternoon into temporary twilight. And we debated leaving early, or staying to watch.

Eventually, embers landed on our building, and the guys from my office went up to hose everything down, just as we were told to bail. E. told me later, as we sat in traffic for an hour on the way to my home two miles away(he gave me a ride), that at one point, with the hose in use on the other side of the building, and a mass of burning stuff at his feet he resorted to dropping his pants and weilding a hose of a different sort, only after the fact realizing that he was in full view of the freeway below.

Of course, an hour later, we found this hilarious. Hell, it was probably hilarious there.

Halfway home, stuck in the slow crawl of people fleeing the affected neighborhood, and people being re-routed around the same neighborhood, we watched the SWAT team and still more firetrucks heading toward the main blaze, and as one we started giggling, for there, directly in front of us, was a car with the following license plate:
PYROFAN

Two days later, there's still a faint smoky smell in the office, but I'm not entirely sure it isn't just my over-active imagination.

Still, if all Mondays held such drama…well, they'd still be Mondays.