Best of vibes Barb.

Also, I'd like to request whatever scraps of ~ma left for my beloved Bartleby. I'm taking him to a holistic vet tomorrow at 2pm eastern to try and find a solution for a chronic problem that has really vexed us both for the last year.

He seems only able to contract the interesting afflictions and this one is no different. 3 'normal' vets have shrugged and given him drugs that made it worse.

I'm sick over the idea of paying so much more money for yet another guess but I can't ignore this. He's everything to me and I won't let him suffer.

So please, any good wishes for a simple, easy, non-hurty healing solution would be greatly appreciated. (quickness and inexpensiveness wouldn't go amiss either)

Many, many thanks in advance.

Made it through my procedure. Now home sleeping off the happy juice. bonny, hope you and Bartleby receives some answers.

Yay for happy juice Barb. And I'm so glad that you are home. May there be no (or minimal) pain in your recovery.

The news is pretty good for the little guy, so ~ma released into the wild. Many thanks for the good thoughts.

Thankfully, the vet assured me that it's not as bad as I feared. In addition, apparently everything I've been doing so far (barring what the other vets have done) has been right. (that sigh you heard this afternoon was my shaky relief)

She gave me some very practical things to do and we'll see how they work out.

The primary diet change is taking all grain out of the equation. Which pretty much means going back to the BARF diet we started with years ago. The one bad part is looking at the brand new 30lb bag of food and multiple boxes of 'cookies' that are off the menu. I'm hoping the shelter dogs enjoy the really good stuff!

All in all, doable and non-threatening. Thank doG.

oops, nothing to see here...

Going dark while I trade places with Scola. Just doing my part to keep the Buffistas balanced from coast to coast.

I need a little pre-emptive job~ma. Specifically, I need "Yes, her resume is fantastic, let's interview her!" ~ma, to then be followed up by (I hope!) "Quick, hire her!" ~ma.

I'm reaching out, not for hairpats or brackets, but to ask for peace-of-heart ~ma for a young woman who has just experienced one of the most horrible experiences possible.

One of my dearest friends, Kim, was killed yesterday in a car accident. I'm reeling from the loss, but I'm also feeling incredibly gifted to have known her. She had an incredible energy and had an impact on so many more people than even she knew.

Her daughter, who is ostensibly fine with a minor injury, was driving the car in which Kim died. A has always been fragile on a lot of levels and had been living away from home in order to deal with some deep issues. Kim went up for a visit. I'm having a hard time imagining how A will cope.

I imagine it will take a long time before I stop looking for Kim strolling down the street with her market basket and a big smile on her face. A, will have the most complex memories imaginable. Please wish her peace.

In about 15 minutes I'll need some continuing-existance-of-department-ma. Big meeting with higher-ups, no idea what's going to happen.

Not fired. Potentially sold to our new industry partner. Huge sigh of relief.

I hope no one objects to my posting this here. Please say if it's a problem.

My wonderful friend Imogen, who I've known for many years, has a progressive muscular condition. She uses a wheelchair and needs a lot of help to access the world, but she does fantastic things with her life, and is currently studying art and photography at university. She has recently lost the ability to speak, as a result of something going wrong during emergency surgery. Our beloved National Health Service won't provide her with suitable speech synthesising equipment, because it's too expensive, even though she is completely lost without the ability to communicate. The NHS wanted to give her a card with the alphabet on that she could point at. Given that she has both a movement disorder and severe dyslexia, this isn't working out particularly well.

Imogen is therefore trying to raise £7000 (around $10,000) to buy communication device herself. She and her friends have raised an amazing £2000, but donations are now slowing down, and she's not sure where to turn. She has asked people to publicise her cause. I couldn't think of anywhere better to pubicise it than this, the board where one individual Fay makes PepsiCo apologise for their applications and people generally achieve incredible things.

Imogen's website is at [link] and her Facebook group is at [link] (when Facebook can be bothered to function properly).

Thanks for any publicising that people feel inclined to do, even just re-twittering ( [link] ) or similar. It's hugely appreciated.