No one's cringing, askye! We care about you and we want to know what's going on.

I want to hear from people when they are hurting - even if all I can do is nod from afar I feel good that there is a safe place to let things out.

In more cat talk, we finally put my cancer kitty on an appetite stimulant. the chemo was sometimes upsetting his belly and he was getting too careful about eating - which was helping the heartburn. The vet says he isn't really too skinny, but he has no extra weight on him. 13 pounds was good - 11 is just too thin. Happily the appetite stimulant seems to be working well - and no barfng 24 hours after chemo this time. Foods that he had been rejecting are being eaten again.

Askye, what everyone else said.

Oh, good news for your kitty, Beth. May that continue.

And yes, goodness, askye, you're one of our own and we want to know how you're doing, even if, as others have said, all we can do is support you from here. I'm not the only one who worries when we don't hear from one of us, so don't hesitate to post.

Our ancient kitty (almost 18 years) has lost more weight -- she's now 4 pounds and change. She's always been a small cat, but that's way too thin. The vet gave us Hill's critical care formulation canned food to get her to eat more, so she had that for a week. She loved it, of course, but now she's not super thrilled at transitioning back to their regular canned food (which is Friskies canned).

However, in the past month or so, Tim has been giving the cats a little bit of Sheba canned food as a treat (everyone gets a treat at bedtime), which they love. So since Andi and Zenkitty have spoken fairly highly of Sheba, we may switch them over to that as their regular food, which I think Slinky (the ancient kitty) will happily eat. I know she won't live forever, but other than being old, she's in decent health for an 18-year-old cat. So I don't want her to keep losing weight if it can be prevented. Ideally, I'd like her to gain back a pound or two.

t edit My only problem is that I can't find calorie information for Sheba. I want to make sure the kitty will be getting enough.

There is absolutely no cringing going on.

I am a bad pet parent. Mr Peabody has a raw stripe on one leg. I was debating going to the vet, but it would look like it was getting better and then get worse, and I was traumatized by the last vet visit. I finally realized that he has some kind of anal irritation and is "scooting" on a rough surface outside. I didn't realize how irritated it was until he happened to do a "downward dog" stretch right in front of me, and he hasn't been scooting inside. He's not particularly licking the area. Now I'm afraid the vet is going to turn me over to the pet police.

I'm having a similar debate about myself. I seem to have the symptoms of an outer ear infection, which is new to me.

No cringing, askye, at all. And I am sorry that I haven't responded to your email, but I haven't been on the computer much for the last several days because of house staging, showings and 8000 phone calls and texts with the realtor, the ex, me and Dan. I really apologize.

There is absolutely NOTHING that could possibly be oversharing, and people actually WANT to listen to your thoughts, and offer help, or an ear or validation or whatever you need.

So, I am thinking of sending the following text to my landlord: I found a dog along the road today. I posted to CL, and I was planning to take her to the shelter as soon as it opens tomorrow (was closed today), but I was wondering, if she doesn't have a family, if it maybe might be possible for me to keep her if she's in a crate when I'm away.

Thoughts?

She's about a year and a half [link] Hil has been a very good sport about the whole thing. I'm sure it helps that it was too rainy to go to the beach anyway.

Maybe mention that your are an experienced dog owner - including adopting other foundlings. This isn't JUST "Awww.... Cute. Let's bring it home."

Strix no worries. I realized when I didn't see you around here that you were probably busy with life stuff.

Thank you everyone. This is just really painful and hard. I'm kinda glad I had all the cold virus cough stuff otherwise I never would have felt coomftable asking for a leave of absence. Kristen talked about easing into thinges but I don't think that's going to happen.

I didn't do so well in my homework well parts of it but I think there's progress. At least I hope all this painears there's progress.