{{{{lisah}}}}

Fay - so glad to hear you have alternate housing in a safer area, here's hoping it can be just a fallback for the Cat Daniel, since we all know how much they loooove being carted across town.

I somehow managed to sprain my neck over the weekend whilst deconstructing part of my carport. I went to the chiro today who, in a valiant effort to calm down the spasming, created a large bruise on my neck, just below my right ear, that totally looks like a huuuuuuge hickey. But hurts far more.

{{lisah}} Frank had a good, long life with a loving family.

((((lisah))))

Good luck with your dalmatian, Steph.

Max goes in for an MRI and (no pun intended) CAT scan tomorrow. He's been doing better, with increased appetite and, from time to time, acting like his old self.

"Cat in an MRI machine" sounds like a recipe for terror.

Heavy sedation for everyone involved, methinks.

Definitely for Max. He's relatively mellow, as cats go, but that's a pretty low bar.

Oh, erin. That sounds horrible. Does your neck feel any better today?

Oh my.

From news of the weird:

Schools' conventional "zero tolerance" policies prohibiting guns or weapons on campus not only apply (as they have recently) to drawings of guns and to a 2-inch-long toy charm in the shape of a gun, but, at an Ionia, Mich., school, to making the familiar, thumb-up hand representation of a gun, for which Mason Jammer, 6, was suspended in March. [Grand Rapids Press, 3-4-10]

Next thing you know, kids will be suspended for using GNU Unix, because "GNU" can be rearranged to form "gun."

Drawings of guns and tiny toy guns, that's ridiculous. Do they think they can wipe all recollection of "guns" from the kids' minds? But the thumb-up pointed-finger hand sign of a gun, I might actually agree with that, given more context. I've never seen that used when it wasn't a threat, and I have a real bad knee-jerk emotional reaction to it. I don't think little kids should learn that it's okay to make that threat.

I have to agree with Zen. It's one thing if a group of kids are playing a game and going bang-bang at each other. It's another when a pissed off kid knows enough to point at shoot at someone he's mad at, then he's communicating a threat and it needs to be addressed.