Giddy with Sleep and Relief

The phone rang not long ago, at about 4:30 a.m. I happened to have gotten up moments before to check on my son and shut the window upstairs; we're having wildfires in the county and had spent the day with the windows shut and the air purifiers on, but I had to cool the place down a little come nightfall. Anyway, when the phone suddenly rang, my first thought was that it would be a wrong number and I should ignore it. My second thought was that it could be a family member with bad news or a panic attack, so I answered it...and it was a new client calling from an aparently different time zone. We'd only dealt with each other via email until now, so I had no idea where she was based. I don't think she's on the east coast (it would've been 7:30 a.m. there), and I think she may be from another country. I would guess India, but I don't know the time difference between there and here, and I'm too tired to look it up. Anyway, I was so relieved that it wasn't a family member that I started laughing when the client identified herself. I finally told her it was 4:30 a.m. here; she apologized profusely and said she'd call back in about five hours. She did sound a tad puzzled about my laughter, though.

And now...back to sleep for a little while.