Zenkitty, looking at the ingredients lists on Sheba, I can say I'm not crazy about "by-products" but that brand is definitely a cut above most of the stuff you can find in a grocery store. It is certainly better quality food than Hill's Science Diet (ok I didn't read the ingredients on all of their varieties, just the first one I found).That is good information to have.

I can say I'm not crazy about "by-products"

Yeah, true. As far as I know, that's everything but the muscle meat, like offal and cartilage, and I figure, cats would eat that in the wild. They eat the whole animal. So, while I don't know exactly what constitutes by-products*, I still think stuff that came from an animal is better for them than corn, gluten, or soy. And, man, my cats are eating it like they haven't seen food before.

*I suspect it means, "We can't sell this, so we're putting it in pet food."

This page (click on the link that says "by-products" to scroll to that section) explains why I don't love them but why I also don't preach too hard against them. I have no problem with feeding my cats ground up noses and toes, but at least pluck the feathers off and make sure collars and tags are taken off first. And, well, sometimes "unfit for human consumption" equals "ick, no modern human will eat that" but sometimes it means "diseased, euthanized, and how sure are we that the chemicals from the euthanasia drugs burn off in the cooking process?" Spoiler font because of unnecessary grossness.

I honestly don't recall pregnancy hormones making me any less stable than ordinary, and H concurs. Of course one has to factor in my base level of "stable". That said, Budweiser commercials make me tear up.

I don't actually think I am either, Beverly, but it is a convenient excuse at the moment for when I have a very bad day for no good reason. I think I am actually far better than when I was on the fertility drugs.

This page (click on the link that says "by-products" to scroll to that section) explains why I don't love them but why I also don't preach too hard against them

If it's a choice between something I know is not good for them and something that might or might not be -- well, the cats say it's good eating. At least, I don't know of any recalls on Sheba, and there are meat by-products in the Friskies Medleys I usually feed them, too.

Well I had a fun little morning on Metro North. Nobody got hurt and that's really all that matters, of course.

First we stopped and they told us there was an out of service train ahead of us that had to be moved. Then WE lost power and were an out of service train that had to be moved... and that another train would be coming along shortly to push us to Harlem.

It didn't work! Naturally. They came through and released all the breaks by hand. The car was getting colder. We're underground so its pretty dark when the rest of our power goes. People were getting antsy... aaaaaand the woman in the seat next to me said she'd been in the crash at Valhalla.

It took forever and a day (ok, about 2 hours) to get us out of there. She held up like a champ. On the train that took us from Harlem I heard other people saying they'd been on the train that wrecked. They always said what car, it was interesting. "I was in the second car..."

So its been A Day and I just got to work! Good times... good times...

[link] I didn't actually put the link in that post. Let's chalk that up to exhaustion. Yeah, the by-products are a wayyyyyyyy better choice than corn starch.

Trudy, I'm glad everyone is ok, and especially glad that that crash survivors weren't too miserable from fear.

That sounds like it could have been a total meltdown point for a lot of those folks. Good thing everyone kept their cool. ::ba-dum-bum::

Trudy, how awful. I'm glad everyone is okay.

The uti is being stubborn. I have to go on another antibiotic to clear it up and then a third as a maintenance antibiotic for the remainder of my pregnancy. I'm trying not to focus on the fact that utis can lead to miscarriage, but it's hard not to.