There's probably a story in here somewhere

The household has been unsettled for a few weeks now--earthquakes, illness in man and beast, and a singular slowness of cash flow.
Today it all came together in a sort of crescendo of misery.  I've been up since three this morning with the corpse of my cat, waiting for the local pet crematory to open. In the past my best friend has attended to the "arrangements" for me but he is sick as a dog and hasn't slept for two days, so this one is on me.
To distract myself, I caught up on the latest episode of Drop Dead Diva. The storyline was about a bereaved fiancee named Kathy fighting with her soon-to-be mother-in-law over her fiance's ashes. what were the chances?
Sigh.
And it's August 9, which would have been my mother's 84th birthday and I was already missing her.  (My mother loved cats and when I came home to take care of her in her final illness, I brought my gray tabby Kichi,who adopted her and spent hours on her bed, available for petting or just companionship.)
Life sucks sometimes.
At least my pet wasn't a horse. Cremating a horse costs $1200.... except for something called a "mini."  I'm not sure I want to know what that is, but I'm going to ask anyway.
Sigh.