IMO and IME, there's never an easy way for children to encounter death of a loved one, including a loved pet. I will say, though, that when I was a child, the times that the pet's death was hidden from me were the hardest to process. This was true for my own ds, too. I should have known better from my own experience, but I think time makes you forget how hard it was to be a little kid. Anyway, what I think I'm trying to say is, do include the children somehow. They don't necessarily need to be there for your cat's passing (which can be too disturbing for some people) but they should know that their fur friend is going to be put down and then be able to participate in a burial or send off in some way. I'm so very sorry for your impending loss. Those little creatures sure do have a way of taking up some up the biggest parts of our hearts. :grouphug:

I enjoy my current job. My current dream job, though, is to be a speechwriter.

Yes, we have one that will run the barns and one for the house. It's come in handy.

I spend about 15-20 minutes a day doing my hair. That's blowdrying and styling it. I have very fine, straight hair which doesn't do anything and won't hold a curl, so I rely on a good cut to give it shape and volume. Then, I just help it get into place a bit and use a tiny bit of mousse and light hold hair spray if it needs it. I do it every day, but like my make-up, most days are the basic routine, while some days are a little more special (so a little more time spent).

I think it is a complex issue and I don't have answers. However, I do think there some contributing factors that haven't yet been mentioned here (or I missed them). Namely, the pharmaceutical companies have a vested interested in moving volumes of product and have aggressive salesforces aimed at that goal. Also, many physicians are overbooked/overworked and are pushed to overprescribe or prescribe as a means of shortening the time spent with a patient (i.e. as a default time management tactic). Another big piece of the puzzle that's been mentioned, but IMO, deserves more attention is that patients are woefully underinformed about narcotics. FWIW, I believe that opioid use by people who did not start out their addiction with legal prescriptions is a completely separate issue to tackle and falls under the wider umbrella of treating addictions, for which there is not nearly enough support given nor resources allotted and/or available.

I'm never surprised when any couples break up. It happens more than half the time. I do think it's probably more pressure on a marriage and a family to be in the public eye so much. I don't feel sorry for them. They're adults who can handle it. I always feel sorry for the kids, though.

I enjoy playing with make-up. I prefer the way I look with make-up. When unwell, it's one of the few things that make me feel connected to my own body again, and less like a piece of wretched meat.

It's funny how they sometimes forget, or don't believe, that we ever had a life before they entered the world. Little man, we were cool before cool was cool.

That can go both ways. Google can be your friend, too. :D

I have a kid who is into music. His instrument of most frequent choice is bass. I love how he, too, knows everything about music. I especially love it when he comes to me excitedly to introduce me to a new band he's discovered, like Black Flag or Offspring or No Doubt. :rolleyes: But my proudest moment was when he told me, with utmost self assurance, that there are no really famous bands with bass players as lead singers. And, then I schooled that little smarty pants in Motorhead and Rush. ​Boo yah!!! ​*mic drop*

I like Catherine, but not Louise with it. Catherine May is better. Also, ignore the upthreads suggesting Audrey. It's a stodgy old lady name and I hate it.

We both have friends of the opposite gender and on average, communication is about 1-2x week. But there are times when it could be many times in one day or not at all for a couple of weeks or longer. It just depends on what's going on in our lives. FWIW, the same goes for friends of the same gender, and the only totally private communication going on is that my work phone has a passcode on it, so he can't access that at all. Otherwise, neither of us have locks on our personal phones and we share a main personal email account, so there are really no secrets. Except for all the evidence on my work phone of all those torrid affairs I'm having every time I travel alone for work. ;)

How old is she? I had an older cat who went through this, but I'm whiting out the rest of my reply out of respect for your situation and that you may not want to read something that is only a description of events and doesn't have any solutions for you. If you do want to read it, just highlight the space below. ​Sadly, this sounds very similar to what happened to my Sampson. He was 13 years old at the time. He would eat, but could not keep it down. His vomit was very liquidy with only a bit of food in it. It started out as once a week, then every few days, then every day and finally multiple times a day. He could sometimes go a day with no vomiting, but we suspected it was because he likely didn't eat or drink much that day. He had several vets visits. All his test results came back in the normal range, though, and scans found no blockages or other issues. However, he couldn't stop vomiting and the meds he was given (he didn't have trouble taking meds) were unsuccessful. Eventually he was losing so much weight that it affected him so very poorly. One day he was sitting beside me and started pawing at his jaw and then I saw that his fang had fallen out. That was a devastating moment. I felt in my heart that it was best to let him go. I never really did get any concrete answers from the vet or from any of my internet research except that, "it happens sometimes with older cats." ​I hope you are able to get some useful answers to help your sweet kitty.

Any of the Romance languages are easiest for English speaking people to learn. Spanish and Italian have the added ease of simpler spelling that more closely resembles the spoken sound than does French, for example which has more complex vowel clusters.

Very fresh potatoes have a looser skin and parts that are kind of papery clinging to them. Here is a link to a close image of one. When the potatoes dry, the skins become thicker and tighter and you can't scrub or scrape them off (you can peel them, of course). They will also slip off very easily after they've been boiled. But, when they're fresh, if you don't want skins, you can remove them quite easily.

When you have fresh potatoes, do you scrub, scrape or peel the fresh skins, or nothing? I'm specifically talking about fresh picked from the garden, either your own garden or fresh ones from a farmer's market. So, I don't mean those potatoes you buy in a grocery that are older ones with the skins tight. I'm just talking about fresh potatoes of less than a week old with the papery loose skins. I'll make it a poll because I like polls (and I know I'm not the only one). The stakes are very high on this poll. Years and years of two very different family traditions are on the line. ;) :laugh:

Reductive fallacy. Epistemic fallacy. The bolded is not the only alternative. It is not an all or nothing proposition. Reducing military spending to assist funding universal health care does not equal dissolving all foreign presence and just maintaining borders. It is possible to re-allocate a small portion of spending on military to support social programs.

Oh! That's exciting! That's kind of how it happened here. SK was the leader and then other provinces wanted in and then... we have our system in place for all. Truly and most sincerely, I wish you the very best of luck moving that forward! Go VT!

Oh yes, she is a calico. She has white on her as well. Her black and orange is tortie, but she has the requisite white to be tri-colour, hence calico, on her chest belly and feet. From the definition of calico: "In genetic terms, calico cats are tortoiseshells in every way, except that in addition they express a white spotting gene." ETA: I have another picture that shows her whiteness better, but it won't let me upload more as I've reached my limit. I will see if I can post it elsewhere and link to it.

I realize that your numbers in this post aren't everyone's costs, but I just want to use this as a jumping off point. I'm just going to use your deductible and premiums for healthcare which add up to $15,800 per year. Between dh and I together, we make a modestly comfortable income and what we pay combined in federal tax, provincial tax (and we're in a high tax province), CPP (like your social security) and EI (employment insurance), does not add up to $15,800. And for that, we get healthcare with no co-pays AND all other government services.

Last up, and the crowd favourite is a little girl who had a very rough start in life. Like Joey, we are not sure from whence she came. I found her in a flower bed in front of the house. I thought she belonged to a barn momma and tried to put her back there. The next day was rainy and cold and I must have walked by the flower bed half a dozen times that day. I don't know when she was put back in the flower bed, but when I saw her again, she'd obviously been there a while. I went to scoop her up and she was limp. I was so sad wondering how long had she been there? Why didn't I look? Why didn't I hear or see her? I went going to find a dish cloth to wrap her in to bury her. When I put her in the dish cloth, she lifted her head a bit, wobbly and weak. We got her dry and gave her kitten milk, but we couldn't get the vet on the line and none of us thought she'd make it the night. The next day, she was still weak, but alive, so we took her to the vet who also didn't think she was going to last another day. She did, though, and is shiny and healthy now. She pretty much runs the whole house. Together, dh and I named her Little Miss Stevie May Vaughan.

Fourth is the gray tabby. We are not sure from whence he came. He appeared one day on the farmyard lane. He had baling twine wrapped around him, but it was not haying season, so it's odd where he would have gotten that. At any rate, he just kept following me and walked right into the house, walked up to a kibble dish and settled in for a meal. Just like that. ​I wanted to name him Ramon. Dh said that was ridiculous and I should know better. He is now Joey Ramone. Duh. Of course I should have known better.

Third up is black and white sleeping kitten. ​This sweet guy was abandoned by his mom in our woodlot. He was micro-tiny when we found him and his eyes were crusted over from that kitten respiratory infection. Quite literally, the first moment he ever saw anything was when dh wiped the crust from his infant blue eyes. He has a fixation on dh now and does the forehead bump/touch with him any opportunity he is given. I named him Winston Smith, after one of my favourite contemporary artists. He's a spunky little punk.

Next up is brown and white tabby. In this picture, she is about 6 months old or so. When she was found (again at the dump), she had a broken leg. She was very skinny and small but we took her to the vet anyway and they tried to set a cast for her. The cast, however, was too big, and ended up sliding down, hurting her. So they re-cast it, but this time it caused a pressure sore that left a huge hole worn into her leg. It was horrific and I remember the vet saying, "she will be okay. It's amazing how well they adapt on three legs." I just burst into tears. I couldn't stand the thought of that. Long story short... thanks to a boardie who recommended Manuka honey, this little girl not only healed her wound but also her break. It was, to put it mildly, a traumatic few weeks for her, but she pulled through. Dh also named her. She is Maully Hatchet.

Okay. It seems the poll is quite clear, so I will tell you their names and stories. First up is black and white kitten in red basket (I tried to re-add the picture but I can't figure that out, so see the OP if you forgot who is who). She was named by my husband. You will notice a theme in his naming. This little girl was found when my dh was at the local dump. He heard crying, but it was raining pretty hard and he couldn't find her right away. Finally, he went around the metal pile and there she was on a bit of a small hill. She came running to him when he did that sound he does that makes all cats flock to him. When he went to pick her up, he saw the rest of what he thinks was her family. The loader had been in recently to shove the metal pile and her family was in there. She made it out. Her name is 8675309. We pronounce it Jenny.