The bottom of the pet bowls get slimy from foody saliva, which dries on, and they smell. I can smell them, and a cat or a dog has a far better sense of smell than I do. Maybe dogs don't mind smelling old spitty food while they eat, but I wouldn't want to. And the cats don't eat well out of dirty dishes.

The water bowl gets slimy from saliva and from stagnant water and evaporation, even if we add fresh. Plastic can leach chemicals into food or water, so we've never used it. Steel is fine, our cats prefer glass or ceramic dishes. The water bowls get emptied, rinsed in extremely hot water, no soap, dried, and refilled with fresh water every day. Sometimes every two days. The cats free-feed kibble, and those dishes get emptied, scrubbed in very hot water, no soap, dried, and refilled every other day. They get wet food twice a day, and the dish gets removed when they've finished eating, washed in soapy water, rinsed in very hot water, and used clean every feeding.

The litterboxes get scooped more than once a day, too. They're living with me, they get their toilet flushed and their dishes washed as often as mine.

I like the thought of Gallifreyan symbols in a henna tattoo.

Pet bowls: my cat gets dry kibble in one bowl and water in the other. I have four bowls, so I can switch them out between dishwasher runs. He gets a new kibble bowl whenever I change flavors for him which is usually every couple of days or so. Lately not so much, as I nabbed a bigger-than-usual bag of his favorite tuna flavor and it outlasted the chicken flavor kibble. His water bowl gets rinsed out a couple of times a day (because he's a delicate flower who can't bear a manky bowl, or so he's informed me at great length and volume) and replaced every other day or so.

I have a nifty litter box where I just have to tip it and it self-scoops into a kinda handled trough, which gets dumped into the toilet and flushed. So I scoop it every time I use my bathroom, and clean it out thoroughly about once a month, when I finish going through a bag of litter. Since it gets scooped so often, scents don't really have a chance to linger. It's nice.

The litterboxes get scooped more than once a day, too. They're living with me, they get their toilet flushed and their dishes washed as often as mine.

Jeeves' gets scooped whenever I see it has been used. So it gets scooped two or three times a day. I think of how I react when I go into the restroom at work and see that a toilet hasn't been flushed. Bleah. Besides, Jeeves is super-finicky and will NOT use the box if there is even a fragment of poop in there.

Shir, if you want a Doctor Who themed design, try googling "Seal of Rassilon" - it's a design that would make for a nice henna tat, swirly and round.

Anne, is it at all practical to have two litter boxes? It might buy you some time on the litter-scooping front. Many cats prefer to pee and poop in different spots.

ugh. sore throat and fever. I hate a sore throat. I can deal with anything else, but sore throat makes me whiny.

and, although I am staying home today, due to my life fail with the account transfers, I will have to venture out to the bank today.

Poor {{{{{Vortex}}}}} ~ma for the sore throat not morphing into great badness.

Vortex, I hope you feel better!

bonny, could you send the information about the dog walking clinic? We are not good at it!

Also, here's a new bad habit Sass has adopted since the baby has started eating real-ish food. She's started jumping up on the dining room table. We'll finish feeding Kalee, we'll get her down from her chair and set her up somewhere else so we can clean up, only to find that Sass has decided that the plate on the table is fair game.

Oh, and we try to clean her food dish every day, since we give her epilepsy medicine w/ food and we're paranoid about the baby coming in contact with that.

Well, the good news is that I don't have to go out in the rain because the bank has already paid the check (so glad that I didn't try to do it on Saturday). The bad news is that they might freeze my account until the money can be transferred, which is Wednesday. I had the bad luck for all of this to happen on a weekend, whereas if the end of the month had been a bloody Tuesday, it could have been taken care of in a day.

A bit of interview~ma this afternoon would be greatly appreciated. (I haven't accepted the job offer yet -- partially because they've been having bureaucratic issues and haven't been able to officially offer me the job yet -- and I've got an interview this afternoon for a much better job in a place that I'd much rather live.)