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.)

Good luck, Hil!

Are you thinking of "Highway 61 Revisited"? Whole different road, though just as famous in its way since it's the route down into the delta south of the legendary bluesmen.

If you walk out the front door of Dylan's childhood home in Duluth, and drive four blocks to the southeast, you can take a right onto Highway 61 and follow it all the way to the delta.

Bowls: The cats free-feed kibble, and get a little bit of wet food 2-3x a day. They won't eat a lot all at once, so if I don't spread it out, it goes to waste. Every time I run the dishwasher, I put the food bowls in, and usually the water bowl too, especially in summer, because it's humid and I don't want invisible mold to grow. Neither of my cats is interested in people-food at all, even meat. I use ceramic bowls. When they're being washed, the cats eat off antique china saucers. Because I have lots of unmatched china saucers and plates.

Water: Mine like to drink from glasses. I keep glasses of water beside the bathroom sinks (removed when guests are here!) and sometimes Leo comes and tells me that one of them is empty! Plus a bowl of water near their food. Not too near, or they drop their food and toys in it. I change the water every day, sooner if it's dirty. They both seem to drink a good amount, plus they get wet food with water in it, so I think they're well hydrated.

I cannot bear the thought of scrubbing out cat pans. When they get bad, I toss them and buy new. I know; it's horrible. But I scrubbed out cat pans twice in the driveway and I can't stand it. I clean the pans out once a day, more often if something especially aromatic is deposited. I have a covered pan sitting in an old plastic washing-machine-overflow-protector-thing in the little storage area in the downstairs bathroom, and another pan in my office, in a large plastic storage bin that I cut a door-hole in. The cats have room in the bin and on the plastic thingy to walk a few steps and get some litter off their paws, then they exit onto a doormat that pulls most of the rest of the litter off. It keeps the litter-tracking to a minimum.

Calli, what kind of litter box do you have, and where did you get it? That sounds very handy!