Calli, I am no pet expert but I do know cats are prone to asthma, and a barking cough sounds like it may be asthma. My old cat (who I won't name here in order to spare meara confusion ;-)) had it and her primary symptom was coughing in her sleep.

Which reminds me, sorry for the confusion meara. I have never kneaded and drooled over Cody's jackets. Perhaps I'll stop there.

Ugh shrift, that's frustrating. At the same time, it's only a single snapshot of your health, it doesn't mean the changes have amounted to nothing. It can take a while for the benefits to become visible even though they are there.

That sucks, shrift!

hmm, maybe oatmeal?

Which reminds me, I should make some oatmeal. I've been living on toast and frozen pumpkin muffins for the last few weeks, and that's just not good.

I'm going to complain about my fitness as well. I spent about ten or twelve weeks unable to run because my feet were giving me so much trouble. Finally in early November they seemed to be getting better, so I started running again, using Zombies, Run! (Which is great.) So here I am about a month into the program, and I'm not getting any faster. In fact, my average pace is going down.

To be fair, I feel a little better, and I'm doing a lot of hills, but it's damned frustrating that it's taking so long to get my conditioning back. I dislike getting old! (Although it's better than the alternative.)

How about never having anything intervene and just getting progressively slower over the course of a year, no matter what you tried? Yeah, that'd be me. I've mostly let it go and just roll with it, but the frustration still surfaces on occasion.

Guess who has a functional sewage line and it only was $75*? Yep! WOOHOO!

They said it was really hard getting through, but it wasn't a lot of roots. Just buildup. Which given they had to saw the cap off, who knows when it was last cleaned out? Certainly not in the past 5 years.

* and the annual cost of the home warranty. But even if I add that for just this year, it would have still cost more without, based on friends' experiences. Especially with the added stuck cap.

How about never having anything intervene and just getting progressively slower over the course of a year, no matter what you tried?

Argh. We're all crawling uphill, aren't we? And the hill just keeps getting steeper...

If I were better about my diet I might improve, I suspect. But I love my home-baked cookies and my wine.

shrift,

not for nothing, but labs have been known to make mistakes. I wonder if you could get your lab work done again.

I don't think you can get more low-fat diet water than La Croix, which is what I drink.

I wish I liked oatmeal. I keep trying it in different combinations, but it's just not something I want to eat voluntarily.

I guess I'll just have to cut out all the things I shouldn't be eating. That's gonna make Christmas with my family this year super hilarious.

I wonder if you could get your lab work done again.

I'm supposed to try to lose some weight and come back in a couple of months to run my numbers again, so I guess we'll see.

I wish I liked oatmeal.

I guess you get to miss out on this, then.

ION, The Onion's final print edition: [link]

Good point, Burrell. Leifur was making a noise that didn't sound like a barking cough. It actually sounded like he was saying, "woof." He hasn't displayed any other signs of asthma, but I'll keep an ear out for it.

Re: artisinal porridge. My steel cut oatmeal with cranberries, walnuts, and brown sugar seems so mundane now. Yummy, but mundane. On the upside, it didn't cost $7/bowl.

I do have a bag of Bob's Red Mill Oatmeal to use up, so I guess I can keep experimenting using some of those hipster recipes.