It’s almost the weekend, that short span of hours that allows you to convince yourself that life isn’t a tedious and meaningless series of identical days that, one by terrible one, usher you closer and closer to the grave. TGIF! Here are some actually good things that happened this week.
1. A dog who was rescued from Hurricane Katrina is helping to foster kittens. A Chow–Golden Retriever Mix named Boots was saved from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina nearly a decade ago, and now he’s helping to give back by fostering kittens at the Arizona Humane Society. Each week his owners bring him to catsit, and the kittens love snuggling into Boots’s fur and falling asleep.
2. Weatherkid. A Chicago-area kid got the chance to act as weatherman for a day, and his forecast was better than anything we’ve seen since that Tonight Show peeing incident.
3. Teens do something other than sext. A group of high schoolers in Ohio decided to create some posters with friendly greetings like “Smile and be genuine” and “Honk if you love someone” to parade around during the morning commute and try to cheer residents up. One woman said she was having a terrible morning but was so moved by the display “that seeing them changed everything in a moment and she was reminded what was most important in her life.” Aww.
4. Terminally ill college student gets her dream. Lauren Hill was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor that presented symptoms that left her unable to play basketball, her favorite sport. Determined to live out her dreams of playing in a college game before it was too late, her school, Mt. Saint Joe’s, moved up the season opener and relocated it to a giant stadium so people could come to watch her play. Hill scored four points in four minutes of court time, and scored the first basket of the 2014–2015 basketball season — pretty amazing considering she can no longer shoot with her dominant hand or turn her head without getting dizzy.
5. World’s only panda triplets turn 100 days old. The only panda triplets to have survived are doing well and celebrated a major milestone this week. They’re also SO CUTE.
6. Astronauts prove space is just as fun as you imagine. A bunch of astronauts at the International Space Station decided to keep themselves entertained by putting a GoPro camera into a floating globe of water, and the results are pretty awesome.
7. Abandoned sea otter rescued. A 5-week-old sea otter who was abandoned by his mama was rescued in Central California and taken to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where he’s resting comfortably.
