I did a little more digging on the pheremone spray, and it is actually recommended for cat peeing problems:

•Clinical Trial of a Feline Pheromone Analogue for Feline Urine Marking - Journal Vet Med Sci. This was a study of cats who had urine marking problems (peeing in the house). After one month of using a feline pheromone (feliway) in the house, the problem was completely gone in 37% of cats, greatly reduced in 40% of cats and unchanged in 23%.

•Urine spraying in cats: presence of concurrent disease and effects of a pheromone treatment – Applied Animal Behavior Science. This study used Feliway to treat 34 different cats with urinary spraying problems. An improvement was seen in 74% of the cats.

[link]

Vonnie, she'll need an unscented lotion to put on the irradiated skin. Aquafor was suggested to me and that's what I used. She also needs a deodorant rather than an antiperspirant, because the aluminum in an antiperspirant can react with the radiation. I had to try several to find one I liked (Liquid Rock). A lot of people like the Tom's Unscented. You could make a basket with things like that and maybe teas and hard candies. She'll get more and more tired through the weeks of radiation, so a gift certificate for food delivery, cleaning or the like would be useful.

No pink, for the love of god. She'll get enough pink for 12 lifetimes.

I had to set up a funds transfer through BofA, to Russia, and it was fine. I just needed a bunch of info at first, but once the account was set up, I could do transfers (at some expense, per transfer) really easily.

Oh, and hey, while we're both here, Ginger, you were totally our 800th Hope in Transit fb like! If you'll give us your snailmail address, the SO will send you a copy of his book. Profile addy is fine or you can message us over there.

(Thanks msbelle, et. al, for promoting!)

Hauled my ass out to Towson at 8:30 this morning to swim, came back and climbed on the roof to lop branches down, chopped up and bagged said branches, cleaned out all the weeds between the sidewalks, put down weed barrier and now I need to go get juice at Safeway and decorative mulch to put down. And I've already taken my second (well, technically third if you count the pre-swim rinse) shower of the day. I hope there won't be one more.

And I haven't eaten anything yet. Maybe I should fix that.

Hubby just reminded me that his driver's license expires this coming March, which I had spaced that it was so soon. I already had the website for the California birth certificate requirements, so I thought I was home free. Then he says, "and what about the adoption information from Hawaii?"

Crap. He's right. His mother's third husband formally adopted him in Hawaii, so we're going to need some kind of court order information showing that. And getting adoption info is a bitch. So I'm going to have to contact Utah or really dig through their website to find just how much they need to cover his name change. Fortunately, this may be a situation where having all his mother's genealogical paperwork dumped on me may help, and thank god I spent several days a few months ago sorting all that paper. I'm pretty sure I saw a copy of that document, though whether it's legal is another question.

I'm also going to need a copy of my marriage license to cover my name change.

I think I'll start a conspiracy theory that all this was put in place to generate fees for the various states.

I recently heard (on NPR?) that neuroscientists are studying how "time slows" when you're in imminent peril, and are leaning to the theory it's not that time perception slows, but that the brain concentrates so hard on noticing everything at those moments that a flood of sensory data that is usually ignored not only gets noticed but evaluated and remembered, hence a half-second fall off a ladder seems like a couple seconds worth of experience.

I've experienced the slo-mo thing a couple of times. It's kind of neat.

Cash, what fun to watch you!

Those dresses are adorbs, JZ.

Today has been a fail in terms of getting stuff done. The haircut place was closed. The pharmacy was closed. The gym was closed. BUT I did get a haircut somewhere else along with new shampoo and Noah's hair is cut now too.

I want a nap. Grace is sleeping in her room and I wonder if I can sneak in with her?

Aurelia, your picture from the rigging was awesome.

Thanks JZ!

I had to set up a funds transfer through BofA, to Russia

I'm not worried about the difficulty. I don't want to give my account information to someone I don't know. My sister knows her, but I don't really care. My father is pretty adept at transferring money to me (har, not recently). But we both agree to eat the costs whenever that happens, and I trust him with my deets.

They want to avoid the cost of traveller's cheques, and getting a Jamaican bank to cash a Swiss cheques...just, irritating. No one has paypal, for aforementioned irritating.

So, I know some banks let you set up temporary credit cards to limit exposure--I was wondering about something along those lines of protection.

Had a raised voices argument with LA Yellow Cab. I used them because my wonderful app lets me book through them without speaking to anyone. Best case.

Last week, the cabbie went to the main entrance of the hospital, despite me specifying both ER and the correct street where the entry is in the notes. The app lets you see where the car is, so once it had been sitting in the wrong place 5 minutes, and I'd gotten the text and the call saying they were there, I called the company back, and told them their guy was in the wrong place.

"No, he's not. Just wait."

What actually ended up happening was the original cabbie left because there was no client, and they had to call a new one.

Same shit this week--I call, and they say, wait, on their way, yadda yadda.

I asked to be escalated, and the guy I was escalated to told me that I'd ordered the cab on my account for 8:30 at 8:25, so of course they weren't there yet-- the fuck? I got the call saying the cab was ready at 8:13, and I waited until 8:18 to start calling and complaining...and I don't have an account...

Then the cab showed up, and he hung up.

I asked the driver if he'd initially been in the wrong place, and he said yes--the guys had redirected him (I peeked over at the screen, and the notes to the ER were visible) to the ER.

I called back when I got home to tell them that they were wrong, and the supervisor was pretty testy with me. Told me I wasn't supposed to call--the cabbies would call when they couldn't find the customer. I said, "Look, last week when this happened, the cab just left, and I had to call another one...the dispatcher didn't notice he was in the wrong place either."

I ask him what I'm supposed to do next week if it happens again. Wait until the cabbie called it in, he said. So I ask--why does everyone tell me I'm wrong when I call in? He rattled off the number of customer service and hung up on me.

Thanks, Tim, of LA Yellow Cab--you're really great. I will take the customer service number and call Tuesday morning, and then sadly go back to using a cab company where I have to speak to someone to order a cab, but at least, less fighting.

And, man, if they only had *1* wrong pickup location that they go to, I could just wait for them there. But they have two wrong locations, so I can't predict shit.

Okay, I just went to comparison shop online for Rooibos--I went to the other store in the mall, you know, the one that's cheaper than Teavana?

I think I broke my maths. The rooibos blend from Teavana that I like, Rooibos Tropica ("a paradise of peach pieces, strawberry bits and rhubarb") is $11.60 for 4oz. Lupicia, where I went yesterday, has a very tasty Rooibos Jardin Sauvage going for $14.00 for 3.52oz. And that's the cheapest rooibos blend Lupicia sells. Lordy lord.

I'm also comparing Upton and Adagio--Upton on Scola's rec, and Adagio because it's fandom's hot new thing--not only do they have a fantea section of their site, but when you search for them, their SEO means that Sherlock teas are right there in the google results page in the domain listing.

Upton's Praetoria blend has hibiscus, rose, (continued...)