Damn, smonster, I've been meaning to congratulate on the whole St Woot thing, so here's a happy YAY!!

DH had a bit of a health sacre today. Ever since he had the blood clot, they have been telling him he had to go see this specific hematologist. Since we belong to an HMO, it took, oh, forever to get a referral. He finally went today, and when he gets to the building, he notices it's an Oncology practice. Not reassuring.

It turns out the doc is a hematologist who specializes in cancer but treats all blood issues. The DH has a fairly common mutation called "Leiden Factor 5" (which toally sounds like a SciFi show from the '70s). It means he has to watch out for, you guessed it, blood clots. The only real issue is that he has to get a blood thinner shot before any long flight, and should wear compression stockings every time he flies. Yay for a non-scary diagnosis.

Also, my husband is a mutant. I am married to an X-Man!

Raq, calm-ma to you. It's a very exciting thing Mal's doing. And I'd be a-jangle, too.

Gracie did a 36 hour disappearing act this week so we've had some cat drama around these parts.

I didn't remember a post from Kat...oh. Wrong Gracie. And also? Good! I'm glad your Gracie turned up though.

Kitty-ma to Byron.

ETA: Woot to your X-Man, Scrappy! May clots venture nowhere near him.

Nothing sexier than a man in compression stockings!

So is it possible for the normal gardening irritation i get on my forearms from zuchini/squash/cucumber plants to lead to a blister rash? I'm terrible about doing "quick watering" without putting on long sleeves and the darn plants always give me a bit of irritation on my tender white forearms, but usually a wash and some salve and it heals right up. Yesterday my chiro asked me what i had done to my arm and i had no idea what she meant. then this morning i brushed my arm and it HURT so i checked it out and there was a definite small squarish sore red blotch there. Washed and salved and tried to forget about it. But it hurts now every time it brushes against my sleeves. So antibiotic cream but now it's blistering. I don't have any OTC allergy meds aside from prescription pseudoephedrine. No chance i interacted with any poison ivy or poison oak, tho the blisters do look like a very mild poison ivy ick. I'm doing slightly panicked laundry on the off chance that my shirt and hoodie are spreading it. Someone please tell me that i'm being paranoid and i'll wake up tomorrow morning and it'll all be shiney again after a shower.

Damnit. Byron won’t eat. When I finally tempted him with a Temptation treat (aka Kitty Crack), he was interested and ate it....but then immediately started coughing and looking miserable. I think that when they were trying to stick his jugular they may have stuck something else unintentionally, because coughing and hacking was NOT a problem he had before I took him in the first time today. I’ll be at their door at 9am when they open tomorrow.

Common Byron, enjoy the noms and stop scaring the peoples!

Raq, all the good-travel~ma there is for Mal. He's going to have a great time. USAir gets cookies.

Pix, much kitty~ma for Byron.

Vortex, hooray for a diagnosis you can live with! And Scrappy, ditto for the DH, but no cookies for whoever didn't warn you about the doc's department and get rid of your worries (my thinking: you've had enough).

Smonster, yay! St Woot is turning out to be very intelligent. Bad fire ants. No cookie.

JenP - work~ma and calm~ma. At least you'll get to chill in Rehoboth for a bit?

We had a great dinner last night at a place in the Village called Market Table, after checking in and falling asleep for an hour. Then we were going to see a new-to-us guitarist play, but I saw a sign for a free string quartet concert by NYU professors and we did that instead. Lots of conversation after about Prokofiev. I really had a tough time with his sonata - all dissonance and quick charges. This morning we're going to do one museum or the Harry Potter exhibition and then zoom home again so that we can thank our babysitter (my mom) profusely and deliver HKF presents. This is the first time we've both been away from her for almost 24 hours. Mostly because she gets up so early, my mom didn't want to stay overnight with her alone. Hooray for early morning reading and for grandmas! (who is possibly snooping through my papers and bills, but oh well.)

I watched a bit of Buffy season 2 yesterday and was sideswiped by the realization that the computer teacher Giles is crushing on acts similarly to Honora (Firefly) when she's flirting.

Cereal, because it deserves its own post.

Happy birthday Sarameg!

erin, contact dermatitis from cucurbits is not uncommon. Cortisone cream and benadryl are the treatment. In the future, you might try washing with strong soap right after you're in the garden. If that doesn't help, you may need to leave an old long-sleeved shirt by the door.

Regarding the gardening/yard work discussion, it does appear things could be far worse: [link]