Maureen, "I wish I'd seen your doctor when I had my tick bite. I am always heartened to hear of prudent reluctance when it comes to the dispensing of antibiotics." I was very glad to get the 200mg dose of doxycycline in response to my tick bite, which was an engorged female deer tick that had obviously been attached for some time, based on the inflamed nature of the bite area. I was afraid the doxycycline might be too late. I hope to repeat that preventive treatment for any high-risk deer tick bite. Incidentally, apparently I "dodged the bullet" on that one, because the bite site remains clear of any secondary reddening. My tick was an exact match for an actual-sized picture of an engorged female deer tick on the Maine Tick Identification Card. We actually placed the tick on a printout of the picture, and the match was uncanny. Then I called my doctor. "I ended up in the Emergency room, after a botched attempt to remove the little bugger (tick removal + one mega dose of doxycycline runs about $180.00--if anyone cares to know)." You had an unusually bad and expensive experience. My 200mg dose of doxycycline cost me just $1.75 at Wal-Mart. My phone consult with my doctor cost me nothing and they faxed the prescription to Wal-Mart. So we drove straight to Wal-Mart. I took my dose right at Wal-Mart as soon as I got possession of it. We had removed the tick with tweezers ourselves and put it in a bottle for identification. It's OK to gently pull the tick for several minutes, if necessary, to give it time to voluntarily release its mouth parts. Just make sure the tweezers gently grip the head or thorax area of the tick in front of the abdomen. You don't want to hurt the tick. And you don't want to squeeze the tick's abdomen, because that would be just using the tick as a syringe to inject its body contents into you. If I get any more deer tick bites I plan to repeat the single doxycycline preventative dose. A study has shown it is effective in a high percentage of cases in preventing a Lyme infection. When it comes to Lyme, prevention is definitely better than cure. And you take a lot less doxycycline in the long run. MM

Any email containing the words "forward this to all of your friends" should be considered highly suspect, especially if it also contains some kind of urgent computer warning. Viruses generally don't "fry" computers, melt them, or otherwise cause irreparable physical damage. The purpose of a virus, just like biological ones, is to replicate themselves and spread. They can't do that if your computer bursts into flames. As others have suggested, don't click on links in those messages either. They can take you to a web site that WILL infect your computer with malicious software. If you want to get additional information, open your web browser and type in the search terms.

I always laugh when it finally boils down to Fox News, when there are so many other channels, stations, websites out there. I rarely watch Hannity, those kinds of pundits don't interest me, but if you want his counterpoint, try Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who habitually lies like a rug. Nothing fair and balanced about him or his cohorts! My favorite news sources are CNN, from 2 - 6 pm PST starting with Wolf Blitzer, Washington Journal on Cspan, from 4-7 am PST, and KGO, San Francisco's big gorilla of a radio station, which is resolutely left-wing. ALL of those sources have hammered away at every conceivable aspect of the OBL case pro and con. It is now day five since OBL's demise and they are all still discussing whether or not to show the pictures, whether or not he should have been killed (as opposed to "bringing him to justice" here in the States), what the precise circumstances of his death were, how large was the role played by the previous administration in tracking him down, did Pakistan know, etc., etc., ad infinitum. I agree totally agree with Jterrilynn: "This isn't about who's right or wrong it's about what would be best over all for our country. To stay informed you can't just follow news that sticks to your exact political views." If one only follows the sources that agree with a particular point of view and LOL at everything else, instead of considering whether valid points are being made, then IMO one is not completely well-informed.

I use Norton security software. Two days ago, I got an alert from Norton that my email address was "seen" on the Dark Web, likely from an unauthorized external break in/intrusion of a website/app combo I use once a year or less to pay for parking meters (of all things). That's fine, it was legit, I signed on to my Norton account, it said only the same thing. The email was quite vague, so I called Norton. The first person I spoke to was panicked. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry. You need to change all the passwords you have, most importantly your gmail account" Me - Why, what does that have to do with anything? Her - Oh, you need to do it while we're talking right now, as soon as you can Me - Why? Her - Your email address was seen on the Dark Web Me - So what? Her - Please confirm you've changed your gmail password now. Me - Why? Can I please speak to your supervisor I was calm and polite but not sucked in to her anxiety. After 15 minutes of waiting, with her checking in on me every 3-4 and again asking me to change my gmail password (which I declined to do), she hung up on me. I called back and spoke to someone much more in control:. Me-What should I do? Him- Maybe change your password on that site. Me - Do you think there's a risk of someone accessing my account and using it to pay a $2 parking meter charge? Him- (laughing). Yeah, that's probably about the extent of your risk Me-I don't use common passwords for important or financial accounts, do I need to worry about anything else? I do check my financial accounts at least weekly. Him- No, you'll probably be fine. Don't worry about it.