Oh, Brenda. That sucks. Gah.

Brenda, I am so sorry to hear this. (((((Brenda)))))

Oh, no, Brenda. {{{Brenda and pooch}}}

Ack! Puppy! (((Brenda & puppers)))

I emailed soon to be COO and he is OK to meet Monday, so I am now home.

I want to go home soooo badly right now. My boss just called, and initially I thought it was to tell me to take off early, but no, it was a question on a bill number, and no mention of going home before 6:00.

I'm so tired and I've reached the end of the internets.

Oh, no!! {{brenda and Lucy}}

I had to take my cat to the vet this week for his shots and because he's losing fur on his tummy. The vet said the fur was def. self-inflicted (he's licking it off) either due to a food allergy or stress. I'm switching his food and if that doesn't do the trick, the vet recommended kitty valium.

My cat is so stressed that he needs kitty valium?? Good heavens.

Kitty needs something today to calm him down
And though he's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
He goes running for the shelter of a kitty's little helper
And it helps him on her way, gets him through his busy day

Giving Mickey virtual skritches to distract him from licking his belly.

Speaking of cats exposing their bellies, I love this video! It's so Al Bundyesque.

Hivemind query:

As those of you who read Bitches know, DH and I are about to come into a largish inheritance, all in the form of a single stock. Unless you count what's in my 403(b) plan, I've never owned stock before. And I don't count it--I picked out my funds when I got my first professional staff job at UW (union jobs have a pension fund) and do nothing more than glance at my quarterly statements.

So. It's my first stock. We just opened our first brokerage account in order to receive the transfer, which is apparently going to happen on Tuesday. FINALLY.

Really, now that I think of it, it's my first inheritance. My mom inherited everything from my dad, obviously, and none of my grandparents really left anything more than houses and land, back when those weren't worth so very much, so I haven't even seen my parents deal with an inheritance.

And I don't understand any of this stuff. Which makes me feel stupid and ignorant and embarrassed to ask questions, because someone with a frickin' B.S. in Economics from the frickin' Wharton School should understand money, and I don't. I skipped my finance and accounting classes and took my gentleman's B's, and even my econ, which I liked all right, is rusty. Marketing, which I actually enjoyed, is irrelevant here.

So. I've been floundering along in my ignorance, and have caused myself all kinds of angst by false assumptions. Like, I stupidly thought that if you told your broker to sell a stock, the stock-to-cash transfer would be not instantaneous, but pretty damn fast. Like, if we sold 1000 shares next Tuesday, I'd have cash in our accounts to pay off our debts by Friday. Turns out it can be up to two weeks. Who knew? Not me, that's for sure. And I still don't understand why it takes so long.

I need some kind of guidance on this. I tried to ask our broker, but he immediately went into questions about my investment philosophy and so on. Which is fine, and I can even talk about it with reasonable intelligence, because that's half money management, half macroeconomics--topics I understand. But I feel like someone who's just started a new job, and my boss is talking about the philosophy of the organization while I just want to know where to find the bathrooms and the cafeteria and how to get my email account set up.

Any suggestions for where to go with stupid, basic questions about how to be a stockholder and how to understand estate issues (such as why the two quarters' worth of dividends on our stock since DH's relative died have to go through probate--until TODAY both of us thought we'd have that bit of cash right away, but now apparently it could be anywhere from 3 months to a year...sigh)?

Like, if we sold 1000 shares next Tuesday, I'd have cash in our accounts to pay off our debts by Friday. Turns out it can be up to two weeks. Who knew? Not me, that's for sure. And I still don't understand why it takes so long.

That sounds like bank bullshit -- like how they don't clear deposited checks for weeks now if they don't feel like it. It should be fast.

This may be more basic and less nuts and bolts than you're looking for, but a lot of banks have general education type sites: [link]

But really, it sounds like these are things you should make your broker answer.