I hope the doctor's visit helps, Hil.

I hope the new plan works a whole hell of a lot better than the old one, Hil. Also, Go Mom!

WOW. You now, good for her for being upfront with you. Sounds like she is working her way through coping, though the process clearly hasn't been easy.

My niece is lucky to have a big close-knit family. My brother and sister-in-law are great parents.

I'm just blown away that something so aweful happened to her and I never knew or had a clue that anything like that had ever happened to her.

Please, could I ask for two different parcels of ~ma?

Niki, my beloved surrogate mom, is going in for open heart surgery tomorrow morning. She is 87 and has been struggling with congestive heart failure for a long time.

When we talked last week, she was hopeful, but also a bit resigned to the possibility that she might not make it.

I want whatever is best for her.

The other thing seems so trivial, but it's grinding on me.

The client whose dog attacked the cat two weeks ago has gone plum crazy. Plus, where we thought the vet bills were $500, which we've already paid, they are actually $7000.

The organization is protected by several layers of agreements but it's just so sad and aggravating.

More than anything, I want the company attorney to take over dealing with this and help the owner to understand his culpability in a way I have not been able to. Plus, I want the walker, who had been protected from having to deal with all of this, to step up.

On an up note, a Mastiff attacked one of our beloved doggy clients today...an English Bulldog...and THAT walker was a super hero. In the end, the owner of that dog couldn't stop praising us. Fortunately, because the walker actually threw his entire body onto the Mastiff, the Bulldog was not hurt.

I don't know if it is the full moon, or what, but I really need a break from all this strife.

Best outcome ~ma to Niki.

I'm sorry you're having to deal with the crazy person. I'd think at this point you're just going to have to keep repeating "this is a legal matter now" and sending the person to the attorney.

I bet none of you has a terrier in your kitchen cabinets.

So much ~ma and love and purr vibes for Niki and for you, bonny.

I bet the Venn diagram of people who have terriers in their cupboards and people who have a purring cat half on their lap and half on the arm of their chair contains zero overlap.

If there is an overlap somewhere, the cat is rolling his eyes and thinking, "Do you really think that staking out the kitchen cabinets and barking wildly is the way to hunt? Really?"

If there is an overlap somewhere, the cat is rolling his eyes and thinking, "Do you really think that staking out the kitchen cabinets and barking wildly is the way to hunt? Really?"

Depends on whether or not the cat and the dog have hunted cooperatively with one another before, and if there is one or more bolt holes for the rodents to escape out of that the cat can guard while the dog's barking.

I have Issues with eye contact. I mean to say that people tell me, I don't make enough. I think years of being stared at have kind of made me not want to look people in the eye(Although I probably did it well enough till seventh grade taught me to be self-conscious. And now that Mom is pointing it out, even though I know she has a point, it's not exactly helping the self-consciousness part of it.) It's probably standing in my way, though in some ways, this problem has persisted because it's so hard to find a clear consequence, like knowing I would get the job/ somebody's number if I had good eye contact. There is a lot about my nonverbal presentation that I can't change that much, so I guess I'm sloppy about that part of my package...