Yep. Equal is way better and probably not alarming.

Yay Dr. Google!

for anyone keeping track at home: my kitty's back lump is just a lump of fatty oil fluid near his microchip. He's getting a weeks course of antibiotics. Vet kept saying "this is so wierd!" while squooshing it around. Nice to have professional confirmation of my homegrown finding of "yep, really wierd, totally behaves like subcutaenous fluids!". Also super cool: this vet trip occured while I was flat on my back in my bed. Mom took Malachi in and speaker phoned me with the vet and my exceedingly well behaved younger cat. Living in the future continues to be pretty amazing.

erin, I'm glad it was nothing serious. How are you feeling?

We just ate at a new fancy burger joint. The burgers were delicious and the spiked milkshakes were also yummy! And that was very hard to type, so I may be a little tipsy.

Teppy, if that were my cat and I got beyond the Losing-My-Shit-Over-This-Dramatic-Symptom stage to think clearly, I'd be wanting MY vet ASAP - as in, prompt evaluation at the earliest available appointment. And heck yeah, I'd play up the symptoms on the phone if they were hemming and hawing about getting us in right away. Of course, it helps that this is a more rural area. We don't so much have Emergency Vet clinics as the vets take turns being on-call.

Erin, I'm glad it's nothing too dramatic. What your cat has sounds like something my grandfather had on his forehead. It never caused him any bother.

Oh, yeah, erin, it is good news! And that's some good modern technology, having the cat at the vet for the exam and you there via speaker phone.

That's an excellent solution to not leaving bed, Erin! Go thinking outside the box.

I drove down to Portland this morning for a dance convention. Hoping it'll be good. But I am getting a cold or something--one of my ears is all filled with fluid and won't pop, which is wreaking havoc on my balance. And I'm a bit worried I will not be able to stay awake for the whole thing tonight! But the lessons I went to so far were good. And the hotel room has a fridge, so I stocked up on stuff at trader joes.

I've been trying to straighten and clean around the house today, with less than stellar results. so many issues. So much of this stuff should really just be thrown away, but I have such a horror of throwing out stuff that might have some use left. But really, if I saw this stuff in the thrift store, I'd go "euw." It's not even that there's sentimental value, just this feeling that I'm passing unfavorable judgement on myself for having it in the first place and failing to do anything about it in the past.

I asked myself sternly, "Is holding on to this stuff worth damaging your mental health?" I got static back.

As someone who has recently battled the same demons, Connie, I say Throw It Out! You'll thank yourself for it later.

These things are worse than taking up house room in your domicile. They are taking up house room in your mind. Toss 'em! It'll be like ripping off a band-aid. In this instance, the FlyLady technique of 27 Thing Fling Boogie can be brilliant. Put on whatever music means boogie to you & dance around finding 27 things to throw out . Spoiler font for FlyLady advice, on the grounds that if you want it, you can have it, but I'm not just going to willy-nilly expose someone to such relentless cheerfulness that without an escape hatch.