For the past few months, my life has seemed like an endless stream of sucky shit. But, things are looking up. The two biggest sucky things are as follows.

1. At the beginning of August, Teddy’s bloodwork came back with his kidney function numbers out of the normal range. I got him the prescription food and cut some things out of his diet. Mostly, I just worried that this was the beginning of a decline in his health. The vet wanted me to repeat the bloodwork after 6 weeks. The middle of September, I get a call from my vet who said she was about to make my day. His numbers were back in the normal range. I think what happened was that in the middle of July, I needed to get him a bag of dog food. They were out of his usual senior food. So, I got the regular adult food. He ate that food for 2 weeks before his bloodwork. I hypothesized to my vet that the regular adult food was too high in protein for Teddy’s 14-year-old kidneys to handle (regular food 60% protein, senior food 40% protein). She thought that was a distinct possibility. Regardless of the reason, his kidney function is normal again. Hallelujah!!!

2. About the time I got the good news about Teddy, some fucking, scum-of-the-earth, garbage person stole the catalytic converter from my car. The repair shop said it could take up to 3 months to get the part, which meant I would be out of a car for that long. Luckily, I can walk some places, and a friend was generous with letting me borrow her car as well as calling me when she was in the grocery store to see if I needed anything. Oh, and I’m still working from home. So, I settled in to a carless lifestyle for a couple of months. Well, the car-part gods were smiling upon me because the part came in on Monday with the repairs made that day (I was without a car for about 2.5 weeks). I have an appointment next Wednesday to get a protective shield installed over the new catalytic converter to try to prevent other garbage people from stealing the new one and an insurance claim in the works.

I’m feeling such relief that, for the time being at least, the universe has stopped shitting on me.