I'm glad that the nice human could help you, WS. I know how stressful it feels, we had a cat who was too old and frail for subQ fluids.

Nice humans are good people, WS. And I'm glad there's a workaround for Harvey.

delurking to say - Windsparrow, I also had an old, cantankerous (but lovely) boy who I just could not give the subq fluids to. I'm single and didn't know a lot of folks in my neighborhood, and I simply could not hold both him and the needle. I even tried rigging a fancy thingie to hold the fluids but he simply wouldn't stay still. It made both of us miserable every time I tried, and I finally stopped trying. It honestly felt like I was doing violence to him - I couldn't keep doing it to him.

He lived almost two more years and was fine until the very end. You've done your best by Harvey. I think however much more time Harvey has (and may he have a good long time), he and you will be happier knowing you did your best but that measure is just not an option.

WS, best of luck with all you're doing for Harvey.

I made dinner for the first time in ages tonight, but I made the mistake of trying a new recipe, and it was mostly a fail.

Thank you all for the encouragement.

I'm glad Harvey is feeling better.

I'm looking at Cincinnati apartments. I still don't have the official offer letter from the university, which is making me a bit nervous, but the person that I've been talking to in the math department there said that I should have it "soon." I hope that "soon" means within the next few days, because my plan is to drive out to Cincinnati on Wednesday and then look at apartments on Thursday and Friday, and I can't sign a lease until I have the official offer. And many thanks to both flea and Steph for answering all the "Is this an OK place to live?" questions I've had, since I don't really know the neighborhoods at all.

And many thanks to both flea and Steph for answering all the "Is this an OK place to live?" questions I've had, since I don't really know the neighborhoods at all.

The thing with UC is that there is a VAST geographical range you could live if you're okay with a 20-minute commute. But closer in, I think you'd be happiest in Oakley (lots of development going on there, lots of shops, right near the highway), Hyde Park (next neighborhood over from Oakley, more upscale), or Clifton Gaslight (which is going to put you closest to campus). I've lived in all of them, and really loved living in all of them. Definitely safe. Not, you know, gated-community safe, but in all the years I lived in those 3 neighborhoods (probably a total of 11 years between the 3), I never felt unsafe.

Neighborhoods that I've lived in, but can be dodgy depending on the part you live in: Pleasant Ridge (loved it, but some parts are SUPER nice and other parts are SUPER sketchy [I lived on a sketchy as hell street, but it was okay]), East Walnut Hills (again, some parts are nice but some are sketchy as hell), and, as much as it pains me to say it, my beloved Northside. I don't feel unsafe in Northside. My street, the general area of Northside we live in, does not feel unsafe to me. I know my neighbors and feel 100% fine walking by myself. That said, the east side of Hamilton Ave. does see more drug-related violence, which pains me.

And the house you looked at on my street is the white one, not the yellow one (I walked up to check the actual address, since I couldn't see it on Google Street View). Looks like a nice little house, and the neighbors down that way are very nice folks. The people on my end are nice, too. Our street rocks.

(I'm happy to delete actual neighborhood names if you like, if that's too much information to have out there.)

The thing with UC is that there is a VAST geographical range you could live if you're okay with a 20-minute commute. But closer in, I think you'd be happiest in Oakley (lots of development going on there, lots of shops, right near the highway), Hyde Park (next neighborhood over from Oakley, more upscale), or Clifton Gaslight (which is going to put you closest to campus). I've lived in all of them, and really loved living in all of them. Definitely safe. Not, you know, gated-community safe, but in all the years I lived in those 3 neighborhoods (probably a total of 11 years between the 3), I never felt unsafe.

Those are the three where I've pretty much been looking. I also know that my standards for what feels safe are a bit higher than other people's, and I'm willing to pay a bit more in rent in order to be somewhere where I'm comfortable.

I also know that my standards for what feels safe are a bit higher than other people's, and I'm willing to pay a bit more in rent in order to be somewhere where I'm comfortable.

I'd lean Hyde Park and Oakley, then, in that order. (Though, honestly, at this point the 2 neighborhoods -- and, again, they are right next to each other and sometimes I'm not even sure where one starts and the other ends -- are really similar in terms of demographics.)

The major issue I'm running into is stairs. Most of the apartments available are in older buildings that don't have elevators, and there were a couple of buildings where even a first-floor apartment was out of the question, because there's an enormous flight of stairs to get to the building from the street. I'm going to be calling around to some of the property management places tomorrow -- even though they list contact emails on their websites, almost none of them have actually responded to the emails I sent.