Today I'm thankful because:

1. Traffic was not an issue at all this morning, and that puts me in a much better mood by the time I arrive at work.

2. Z was able to find out how much the sellers of The House paid for it four years ago. This will help us at the negotiation table quite a bit.

3. Nobody got hurt during the scuffle outside of my office today (read below.)

4. We didn't have to go to the gym last night since Z went for a haircut after work and it wound up taking an hour.

5. I had a lovely phone conversation with my friend I used to work with in Tuscaloosa.

So around 11:00 this morning, or slightly before, someone went into the pawn shop located a block or two away from my office, and they stole something – or tried to, I'm not sure. Employees of the pawn shop chased the man all the way to our office building which is on top of a hill. People from my office started hearing shouts outside and two of our guys went outside to help wrangle the bad guy. They were pretty much just trying to keep him contained until the police could arrive. Well, I was unaware of all this, of course. My cube has a window out to the side of our building where no one ever goes. There's a steep embankment, and then a very busy street leading to I-65. The window's not on the side of the building where the door is, or the parking lot, so there is never anyone at my window. But all of a sudden I heard someone shout, "I'm gonna f*** you up, n*****!" I spin around in my chair to see a man jump off the embankment into the street. This is a busy one-way street leading to the interstate, but thankfully there must have been a red light for the traffic coming from downtown because there was no traffic. He fell in the street (it's a wonder he didn't break an ankle – it was like John Wilkes Booth leaping ungracefully to the stage) but got up and kept running. My department was huddled around the windows watching as 5 or 6 men were chasing him. It was madness! Then my phone rang and I had to leave the excitement, but I found out later that he ran onto the overpass across the interstate and – I suppose to keep the police from recognizing him from the description given – he threw his shirt and hat off the overpass onto the interstate (which I understand is a felony.) Then the police showed up and arrested him. Crazy. Last week there was a homeless man sleeping in the lawn next to our parking lot. You gotta love working in the city.