Yesterday was just one of those days.

It started off with messages about screwed-up payroll deductions, hassles about 401(k) withholds, followed shortly thereafter by surgery delayed by another surgeon, messing up my schedule for most of the morning. In the office, the new scanner didn’t work, the EMR still has bugs that I can’t sort out, and there is the usual extraordinary pile of charts and paperwork that seem to grow faster than my ability to process them. My to-do list, in spite of getting many things done, actually was longer at the end of the day than at the beginning. Sorting all of this out, or as much as was possible, kept me at the office ’till nearly 9 p.m. I was in a decidedly snarky mood from all of this when I arrived home.

Then, in just a few minutes, life was good again. You see, I took a big dose of puppy uppers.

Those of you, like me, who were addicted to the old classic Saturday Night Live episodes, will have some truly memorable ones. My list is long, but “Puppy Uppers and Doggy Downers”, with Gilda Radner and Laraine Newman, is a long-time favorite.

When I walked in the door, I was immediately greeted by two wonderful dogs. They knew nothing about my struggles with running a small-business or keeping ahead of the alligators of health care which routinely take large chunks of my gluteus maximus indiscriminately. They spent most of the day sleeping and eating, with breaks for chewing on rawhide and fighting over old bones. But their faces light up when I walk in the door, and seeing them is a major shot of endorphins. Jumping, licking, barking, pawing–the kind of enthusiasm you find nowhere else, makes everything else really okay.

Life is really pretty darn good.