WRT to cats and kidney disease, might I recommend Lactated Ringer's for those who don't already know of it? The normal saline, being simple salt water, stings.
When my youngest cat (now 9) went into renal failure (Urinary Infection) and recovered after an expensive stay at the emergency vet's (not expected to live as much as a year - that was over 1.5 years ago), and was sent home with supplies, Lactated Ringer's (LR) was what they sent, explaining about the stinging. My regular vet doesn't have that on hand, so I bought a bag of Normal Saline. Once. She really really didn't like it. Since with the LR she accepted it while not being exactly joyful, I went back to that. She now gets the subcutaneous fluids every 6 days, and I'm thinking about taking her to the local vet teaching hospital and asking about kidney stone removal, something they're known for.
My oldest cat (19), diagnosed with kidney disease 2.5 years ago was doing fine on the kidney diet until she started showing signs of getting worse about 10 months ago. She now gets SQ fluids every other day. Again with the LR, which my vet now orders by the case on my behalf. The expensive part is the tubing sets.
With reference to Jennifer Barber's (no. 912) last line:
I don't usually have to spell either of my names, but I've found it got a whole lot more difficult to get people to call me by my full first name, not an abbreviation once I reached adulthood. My theory is that, when I was a child and corrected adults, they were so shocked that a mere child was correcting them, they actually remembered and thought it might be important to me. Also, as a child, I was probably a bit less sensitive about possibly hurting other people's feelings or not offending the boss.
So, I try to pay attention to the way people introduce themselves (this includes name badges at Conventions/Conferences, as you are generally given a chance to put your preferred name in the big print), on the theory that that's what they want to be called and it would be churlish not to. This is one reason, for example, that GWB's habitual nicknames were a red flag for me (especially since they were usually denigrating).
I appear to have been one of the odd ones (so what's new?) who had a different fear on 9/11. My fear was that "they" would use it as an excuse to commit things like the USA PATRIOT Act. I really, really, did not like being proved right.
#130 ::: Jon H ::: (view all by) ::: September 08, 2007, 02:15 AM:
[snip]
i think it would be interesting to make the marker out of something pervaded by luminous material, but with a thin layer of non-luminous coating that would weather away in a decade or three.
Not only that, but it weathering away in a decade or three would allow for forgetfulness, and really mess with people's heads - I love it!
Going back to shoes:
#594 ::: Faren Miller ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2007, 09:59 AM:
[snip]
Any other fellow-sufferers out there with wide but not very large feet? Over-tight shoes can be a health hazard, so I'm still using a lot of old canvas ones (in nice colors) that I can't seem to replace.
Count me as one. Short wide feet with high arches and high insteps. I also have a weak ankle and an aversion to pain that keep me out of heels (mostly). I've never had a pair of shoes that were too wide. My mom had a pair of New Balance sextuple E shoes that I didn't steal. Though I was tempted. They didn't feel too wide, though.
There was a period when I went looking for men's/boy's athletic shoes, on the theory that male shoes actually seemed to be designed with actual human feet in mind. My feet are smaller than the smallest men's shoes, I was told, and when I asked to see the boy's shoes, was told they didn't get that big, leading me to theorize that if you're male, a)your feet magically skip over the size mine are/were or b)you wear girl's/women's shoes while you're in that awkward size. I find a) to be marginally more believable.
American shoe manufacturers seem to feel that if your feet are short, they're also narrow, and the converse. This means my stepmother also has trouble finding shoes to fit, as she has long, narrow feet.
Me, I live in Birkenstocks, a pair of Mephistos, and New Balances.
The problem I see is in the damage to our laws. My pipe dream is that all legislation passed during the Bush Years would be regarded as "poison" and subject to extensive review. I *know* it's a pipe dream, would throw out some perfectly good legislation with the bathwater, and is otherwise A Really Bad Idea, but I like to muse on it, anyway.
What brought this on is I have trouble seeing people in power voluntarily giving up power - especially if the power they have at hand is something thay can legitimately say isn't their fault. There are so many *good* uses that can be made of (unAmerican Law X), it would be a shame to get rid of it, and we'd only use this power for good, anyway.
That's what worries me. Also, some of the really active Constitution shredders (I'm thinking particularly of Cheney) came out of the Nixon years thinking not "lucky for us he was caught and a stop was put to it," but "too bad he was caught and a stop put to it - let's correct that little problem."
See, from the first time I heard those war drums sounding, I've assumed the War on Iraq was always intended to make Shrub a Wartime President with all the "gimmes" that entails - including having a better chance of winning the 2004 election (as an aside, I consider saying GWB was re-elected in 2004 to be incorrect - one must first be elected to be re-elected, and the Supremes appointed him in 2000. But I digress...). Everything the Bush Administration has done since then has tended to reinforce that assumption.
As for dorm room sizes, most recently mentioned in 604 and 693, I always kind of thought of the Houses as being as big as they need to be at the time, subdivided into as many smaller rooms as needed to be comfortable for the kids.
Also, WRT CHip'ssecond comment in 693, I interpreted PNH's comment not as requiring one thread to consist entirely of OMG! Genius! (wich would be dull beyond belief) but of the thread to include, as much as possible, a discussion of $NARRATIVEWORK (good and bad), and not include why $NARRATIVEWORK is a waste of time/resources/electrons.
#261 ::: Jo Walton
The first series I ever waited for the end of was Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising. When I started reading it, the first four books were out and Silver On The Tree was expected. I don't think I can have waited more than a year, checking every day when I was in the bookshop, until finally one day it was in the bookshop too. We didn't have an internet then.
Same for me - my mother actually bought me the book because my face lit up so when I saw it in the bookstore window. It was hardback, and expensive, and we didn't do that. But I found myself terribly disappointed by what I saw as "cheating" on Cooper's part, when Bran learned all this interesting stuff about himself, and he was made to forget it. Which I found terribly disappointing. Did you see that, or was it just my late teen self leaping to an unwarranted conclusion? I (of course) still have the books, though I haven't reread them since then - I think I'll have to check on myself.
Book 7 also moved Petunia from classic "wicked family member driving Our Hero down" to someone who had had a bitter dissapointment in her life and reacted poorly but understandably to it. Snape's memories showed that Petunia really really wanted to go to Hogwarts (even asked her sister to intercede on her behalf, if memory serves) and couldn't. A much more human character.
And, of course, I love Arthur Weasley, the enthusiast. The geek, in fact - one of us, but on the "other side."
#176: Actually, that's in the epilogue - by 8 years after the end of the action in DH, anyway, Harry (or Ginny) has recognized Snape enough to name their (second) son after Snape - even if it was his middle name. And by 19 years later, anyway, Harry acknowledges that Snape was the bravest person he'd ever known. But throughout the rest of the books, yes, Harry does not show Snape respect, even after he's seen enough to know better. However, Harry was a child, and there were times when he might have softened, if he hadn't been rebuffed by Snape, who was the adult, and should have known better. His blind dislike of Harry kept Snape from teaching Harry Occlumancy properly, when it definitely would have been in Snape's best interests as a double agent to do so.
That said, I think Snape was the tragic hero in all this, and I agree he's what Harry might have become had Harry not had the support he'd had. And vice versa.
Put me in the "I guessed pretty right about Snape, woo-hoo!" camp. One of the things I'd been noticing about Snape was his inability to get beyond his very poor opinion of James (and James EARNED it, say I) long enough to see that the son who looked so much like James wasn't really like him in spirit. Very tragic, very human.
I'd have liked to see a bit more about Hagrid. During my traditional rereading of the preceding books, it occurred to me that Hagrid was, in many ways, the most loving of all the characters in a series of books where the big difference between hero and villain was the ability to love. That is, while Hagrid had definite likes and dislikes of various characters, it was the individuals he was reacting to. He was always, however, ready to look at other creatures as not automatically something to be loathed because they were giant spiders, thestrels, dragons, giant, or what have you. He wasn't always wise, but without Hagrid, The Good Guys would have missed out on a lot of help.
I also found it intriguing that this volume was the only one that opened with a couple of quotes. Being American, I'm not familiar with Aeschelus(sp?) other than general name recognition, but I'm a bit more familiar with Friend Penn. And both were talking about how death isn't the end of the world, something Voldemort was completely unwilling to see or accept.
Oh, yeah - Go Neville - I noticed both he and Harry performed better at things they "weren't good at" when they weren't under pressure from others to do the expected and fail.
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