Went home today to help my dad move things around in the garage because he had to get some work done on the family vehicle(s), and hung out there with him while he worked on Eddie's girlfriend's car.

Couldn't help but think how little has changed in that garage, even since I was little. I mean, there's just shit everywhere, but in some kind of system that my Dad knows. I realized where I got my organizational habits from. If he asked me to find something, I wouldn't have a CLUE where to start. But he could probably direct me immediately to whatever it was that was needed, no matter how small and in what size container. Of course, he'd also get frustrated that I couldn't find it myself, thus ending up not saving him any time or effort in the end. Hmmmm...sounds a bit like me too. :)

On the way home, I stopped at the former Tuxedo Junction, which is now a Mobil. While I was pumping gas, I was looking around at the stores and businesses and marveled, as I do often when I'm home, at just how different everything was. Only two stores within eyeshot were the same as they were when I was younger, and at least 5-10 of them had signs in Spanish.

Somewhere along the way home, as my mind meandering nostalgically around random memories and thoughts, I realized the depth of what "10 years ago" is at this stage, and how different even MY life was 10 years ago. I was a junior at NU, interning at PFW, with a whole lot of stuff ahead of me (not that I don't have a whole lot ahead) and nary a clue as to all the things that WOULD happen to me in the next decade.

I can't say that cliche, "If you told me 10 years ago that I'd be ... I'd tell you you were crazy," but, I can say that it's amazing how something can seem so long ago, yet not long ago at all. I know that, yes, this particular 10-year period in most people's lives is a period of great changes, but still. It's pretty amazing to think of it all.

Makes me want to get back on writing that book. I just don't know where to start. There's so much. Maybe someday. Someday.

GREAT news!

Kazak, apparently, is fine. After he got the "bile acid" blood test on Saturday, they called Monday to tell me that his bile acid test came back OK. I said, "Well, what's next?" and the doctor suggested that we were at a crossroads of sorts. I still didn't really want to pay for an abdominal ultrasound if we could avoid it, and she understood and even said it would probably be overkill at this point.

I was about to ask if we could recheck the albumin and BUN levels -- the ones that were decreased in the original blood test -- and would that be cheaper, but she beat me to it, saying that the blood lab gives a discount if an animal needs to be checked again within two weeks.

So we took him in Monday, and I got a message today saying that his albumin and BUN levels, and the rest of the blood sample, were normal. So, it appears that whatever was bothering him is gone, and that it might have just been an infection.

That said, it just means the serious, immediate worry is solved -- no liver failure or liver cancer or anything like that, it appears.

Now, I want to talk to the doctor and see if we can remedy the only two things that "alarm" me at this stage:
1. His propensity to suddenly eat his own poop in the yard, along with anything else he can smell, pick up and eat out there.
2. The fact that he lost about 5-6 pounds since last year's checkup.

I still have a theory that maybe his metabolism or digestive system has aged to where the low-calorie dog food I feed him isn't giving him the proper nutrition anymore. It might be time to switch his diet off that lite diet and onto a senior diet or something. But we'll see, I guess.

Either way, this is a remarkable strain off my subconscious psyche right now, thankfully. I was really worried.