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Things kind of got worse today, with another set events conspiring to make life pretty damn difficult for Gradon — and for me, by extension.

I can’t say I wasn’t completely frustrated. And that I’m not still.

I can’t say I wasn’t using some… colourful language. And that I might not again.

I can’t say that I’m not anxious now about what the future will hold.

But I’m trying to be hopeful and focus on what we can do about things… not what we can’t do.

Because we’ve overcome a lot already. what with falling in love from 3,000 miles away, to the point where we know we are meant to be together… even when we’re not.

That’s pretty awesome, no matter what else we face in the process of making it happen.

BUT.

For all my fussing and worrying and crying and tiny fist-shaking today, I DID make a difference in the community.

As I was walking to work, I noticed a little snail parked smack in the middle of the sidewalk.

Now, I have a soft spot for snails.

Not just for enjoying them with butter and a wee fork, mind you, but making sure those little round Airstream-like creatures make it where they need to go.

And there he was, crying out (okay, he was actually pretty quiet, I guess) for rescue.

Usually I can tell from the direction the snail is facing which patch of grass I should deliver him to.

But this dude? He wasn’t making it easy.

He was trucking down the sidewalk, right in the middle, facing ahead like it was the ‘24 Olympics and Vangelis was going to strike up the synth at any moment.

I knew there was a very good chance that someone would come and squish him into a zillion little pieces of snail shell and some sad shadow of escargot if he kept on that path. But where to put him? Where was he intending to go? If I chose the wrong path, he’d have another day of traversing the hot, dry sidewalk… at the very least. At the most, he’d be smashed to smithereens.

So I picked him up, hoping for some signal. I figured he’d probably tuck his head and tail back in and wait for me to put him down again. That’s what snails do, after all.

But like the Steve McQueen of Gastropoda he DID NOT go back in his shell.

He DID NOT recede.

No, he dangled right out there, little snail head-thingies moving like windmills… and CLEARLY POINTED TO THE RIGHT.

To the right, where the better grass was. To the right, where a fat ass worm was rolling around in the morning dew. To the right, where he’d be safe from flip flop or work boot or stiletto heel.

So there I placed him gently, and as soon as he touched down, he curled up in his shell like an RVer rolling in for the night after a 10-hour sprint from Tempe.

Safe. Sound.

I remember thinking as I walked away — before all hell broke loose in my day — that I’m a lot like a snail.

Not just because I’m exceedingly slow.

Not just because I’m hard on the outside,but incredibly squishy within.

No, because I’ve understood something important since I was small: that you can make your home and find your peace almost anywhere if you are determined to make it work. Which we will, soon.

Well, as long as a giant fat robin doesn’t come and pick out our shell for breakfast.

Wait. Um.