in the ongoing saga of "i feel guilt for my cat having digestive issues" i splurged and got mr barely-poops-at-all a container of frozen raw food. He LOVES it. I have never seen this finicky cat eat anything so fast. He finished his breakfast this morning faster than Nico (who rarely stops to chew food he's so keen on gettin it his bellah ASAP). So yeah, he loves the stuff. Problem? It's nasty! This stuff bleeds. Like, when the ice melted, it melted into blood. I almost hoarked myself. Now i'm freaking out about clean up - i know it's something most people deal with on a regular basis but i didn't handle raw meat even when i ate the stuff so i have no idea what to do with the spoon and food dish - do i just wash them like normal? What about spills, do i need a special sponge so i don't cross contaminate my countertops? Ye gods. What i do for this cat.

I actually got the proofs back at about 5 minutes 'til 1:00. I was STUNNED.

you need to talk about them more often on the interwebs.

I thought about that, but I'm not sure how much of a fee I can charge for punching authors in the head.

soup. out. my. nose.

erin, you can wash the spoon and food dish like normal. Dish detergent will kill any germs. Sponges are nasty. I use a washcloth (special stack of cheap washcloths bought for the purpose) to clean up those kinds of messes, and then throw the cloth in the washing machine with the towels - or throw it away if it's too gross even for me; that's why I get the cheapo ones!

Blood can carry bad things, but in and of itself it's not that bad. Old blood can smell horrific, but anything with a lot of protein will after a while, as I recall.

Speaking of gross things, I just cleaned out my fridge, in time for the trashman. I would like my thread-titled cookie now please. But alas, the SO left my girlscout cookies in the church sound booth yesterday. Woes.

I get a cookie too, but not as big as Liese's. I just cleaned out my obstructionist filing cabinet (this room doesn't work with that huge thing in it) and hid the remaining files we still use in a storage ottoman. I'd priced filing storage ottomans a while back and fainted. Then I found a website where they used a Target storage ottoman and a pair of $9 hanging file insert frames. I have more seating, and the filing cabinet is going away. Soon.

Steph and Zenkitty - The Editorial Enforcers (together they fight sloth!)

yup - been there, done that, had the white hairs to prove it (dye, like glitter, covers a world of sins).

Last week - after I'd sent three e-mails to people asking for input for our weekly e-newsletter, each with a note that I had to send it in noon on Tuesday - I had someone call me a little before 3:00 asking when I needed the info.

I get I giant cookie, because I just finished sending the last of the files for this godforsaken issue, and I am by god going home. Now. Before the snakes get out of the ceiling.

Some projects are cursed - anything that can possibly (and some things you think couldn't possibly) go wrong will.

You know, it may be possible that - after all these issues where you used the black box with white overlay and fake shadow it could be the printer had something that would automatically work with that and when you went to an actual checkbox, it couldn't deal. Or, as has been suggested, that some "helpful" person at the printer's went in and changed something.