Hello again all, I have been taking these past few days one at a time. Some are good days and some are bad days (both for me and Jelika). But we are trudging onward. I am so grateful that I can come here and read all your posts of encouragement. It appears I am not the only one who has gone through this type of pain (even though some days it feels like no one in the world can understand what I'm going through). I am so glad that there are so many pets out there that have good and obviously loving homes. It makes me feel better. Biwako, my hat is off to you for bringing 15 deserving kitties into your life.. I don't know if my heart could stand losing that many... Yesterday was a bad day. I came home and Jelika did not want to eat or get up all that much. But Saturday was a relatively good day. Again we went outside in the sunshine and just sat there (which was nice because we have had about 35 solid days of rain here.. and she so loves to sit in the sun). She is still on Pred.. this coming weekend I may start the weaning dose... the vet wants her to come in for another check up but I just don't know if I can do that to her. She hates it so much. She may be getting slightly more dehydrated though so I should bring her in for a shot of the sub-q's. I really don't know why they didn't show me how to do it at home when i specifically asked them to last time (so that I wouldn't have to bring her in again for it!). Grrrr. It is so frustrating. Also, I am experiencing a problem that may be of my own making. My other cat, Kitty, has started "attacking" Jelika a little more lately.. and she has been acting like she's holding a grudge.. which she may be. I know I have been ignoring her a bit lately because I want to spend all my time petting/being with Jelika. Because I just can't stand the thought that one day soon there won't be a Jelika there to pet anymore. I do try to make a little "Kitty time" each day. But because I have to feed Jelika special food (stuff that Kitty really likes too, but she's a little too..uh...healthy (read fat) to eat it all the time) So she just sits there and watches me feed Jelika. I do try to give her a couple of "treats" at the same time so that she doesn't feel too left out, but I think she does anyway. I feel really bad about it. They have never been the best of friends, and Jelika has ALWAYS been jealous of any time that I spend with Kitty. If she ever saw Kitty in my lap cuddling, Jelika would come right up and sit even higher up on my lap or chest.. to get in front of Kitty (as if she OWNS me.. well I guess she does :) So anyways I have this dilemna because I don't want Jelika to see me spending too much time with Kitty in what could be her (Jelika's) last few weeks, but I also don't want to ignore Kitty too much and alienate her... I mean they do get along and they are friends.. but there has always been a bit of rivalry going on as well... Anyway I will update shortly. P.S I haven't tried pumpkin yet, but the lactulose seems to be working.. however it is dehydrating so i have only been giving it once a day instead of two.. I think I will try the pumpkin.

I wouldn't be surprised if the cucumbers were mislabeled. I once picked up a 4-pack of jalapeno peppers from Walmart and they turned out to be banana peppers. I'm coming to the conclusion that Walmart is not the place to buy plants, even if it's only because some sneaky customer is switching tags to annoy gardeners. Also, I noticed that there were some cucumbers that were a darker yellow --- and rotting, having fallen off the vine. Maybe some of these are lemon cucumbers; I have heard of those. But if that's the case, then perhaps I got a mixed four-pack because these are the ones I just picked today. I cut one of them open and showed it to my elderly neighbor and she says the one I cut open is ripe and ready to pickle. I'm just kind of concerned about whether it's safe to eat if it didn't get all the nutrients it needed. The green one is naturally more like what I'm looking for, and I think it developed after I doused the area in Miracle Grow. Ugh... I had to save this photo upside down on my PC to make it post right side up here. I don't know what's going on.

This is humorous looking back, but mean none-the-less. When I was about five, the plastic trolls with the wild hair were making their first go-around as a popular toy. We had some, and my brother was about 3. I told him they had magical powers, and they were my friends, and if he didn't do what I said, we would make him disappear and never bring him back. I went on to say that there was a witch in the car, same deal. And then I even went on to start in with magical incantations a couple of time if he wasn't scared enough. First my parents were frustrated as to why my brother suddenly became terrified of the Chevy station wagon, and no amount of logic could convince him otherwise. Because you see, only I could communicate with the witch, not Mom and Dad. Then, one bedtime, when Mom was trying to figure out why he was so upset and scared, he spilled all the beans. She stormed into my room, and was pretty darn upset, rightfully so. I was so focused on getting what I wanted from my little brother, I didn't think about how I was scaring him and making his life miserable, not to mention lying and taking unfair advantage of someone younger than me. Once it dawned on me, even at five, I felt horrible, horrible. And every time I think about that story, I want to go back in time and smack myself upside the head!

I've grown over 100 species of bamboo, and I can reliably tell you that those are not bamboo. You probably had some grass seed from somewhere that maybe a bird dropped in the dirt and you were successful in growing that. If you are trying to grow bamboo from that grove, you need to dig out a large, rootball, preferably basketball size or larger, for which you would need a root pruning saw of some type, and a pickax and pry bar. If all you planted was a culm, or a culm with a small bit of attached rhizome, your chances of being successful are vanishingly small. I can't tell what species that is, but it's a running bamboo and likely in the Phyllostachys genus.