We've only been up for 3 hours and already Itzl is exhausted with alerting and working his ears off.
It started with fire engines racing down our street. Itzl and Xoco were up at that, jumping on me and tugging my hem to drag me to the door.
A house down the street burned. They got it out without any neighboring houses being damaged, but while they were working on it, there were more sirens. Itzl and Xoco raced into the house (they were outside pooping) to tell me all about it and tug me to the door to check on it.
An elderly neighbor had a heart attack from the first set of sirens.
As they drove off with one neighbor, another ambulance arrived. Itzl and Xoco didn't have to alert on this one as I saw it, but they did anyway. It's their job.
This one was for another neighbor suffering an anxiety attack over the two previous sirens.
By then, it was time to go to work. Xoco was tucked in to her electric blanket, her food and water dishes filled, and the TV on for white noise so she didn't freak at every external sound.
Itzl came to work with me.
On the journey, it felt - apocalyptic. At every intersection, there were flashing lights and emergency vehicles passing by. We had to pull over 4 times? 5? for emergency vehicles to pass us. It was too dark to see what they were all going to and what was happening. If there were more houses burning, they were not visible in the pre-dawn darkness.
By the time we got to work, Itzl was already drooping, but his work wasn't done yet.
At the intersection where we turn into the parking lot, he alerted on car alarms. I looked over into the parking lot across the street from us, and sure enough, there were 2 cars there with their lights flashing. I bet those alarms were loud because Itzl doesn't usually alert on car alarms any more.
And his work still wasn't done.
There was a door alarm going off inside the building. Itzl led me to it. I went to find Security (hate our incompetent, inept, ignorant, coffee sucking, cigarette-pulling - in a clearly marked No Smoking facility - law-breaking, napping on the job Security but that is a long an ranty rant for another day), and finally convinced him it was indeed his job to investigate the alarm and take care of it.
And now, my work day is about to begin.
And we're exhausted and ready to go home. It feels as if we've worked a long, grueling day already.
Look at Itzl's long-suffering look: