I'm so sorry. I know you love your cat & want only the best for him; otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the university, & you wouldn't have authorized $1500 in fees & expense. You might double check on the blood type info; Since my old vet used to keep an office cat who donated for her surgeries, I thought that any cat can donate to any other. Even with blood tests & everything else, I don't see how it all adds up to $2300, especially at a university. I thought the whole idea of using a university veterinary department was that you would get expert care for a lower fee, since the work is being done by students under the supervision of their professors. Here, I don't think you could spend $2300 on a cat (unless you had the thyroid irradiated; then you'd be looking at about $1500); blood work & such might run $300 if the condition were really obscure & baffling & every test under the sun had to be run. An amputation would probably be less than $300. I think I'd make a list of the items on my bill & ask my vet to list her charges for the same services. Don't ever be intimidated into not confronting the situation when you think you may have been over-charged. I wish you the best.

I don't want my caps back, I want a different name. Way back in the 90s when I first signed up, I wanted Jodi_SoCal but there was a regular here named Joy_SoCal and I didn't want people to get confused so I went with the longer Jodi_in_So_Calif. Logging in is a chore with all the underscores and words, especially on my iPhone, but at least I don't have to worry about caps. :-) Jodi-

OP returning to update. So push came to huge shove (framing started and kitchen along with it) and I had to just jump. So here is how it shook out (framed shaker style, white premiter, stained island): Custom: $17,000 (bummer!) Shiloh: $12,596 Koch: $13,188 Medallion Silverline: $11,478, Medallion Sliverline: plywood upgrade: $12,923 Home Crest: $9,333 - so low it kinda scared me? Showplace: $14,184 Based on KD which I have read and read how important that is plus you can 'hear' it in the KD's posts on here - it was down to Shiloh and Medallion. Medallion had a promotion which brought the price down a lot and the KD really quoted aggressively. I really also liked her style and she was very helpful/knowledgable. Medallion also has been around a very long time, good reviews - that also weighed heavily. The Shiloh KD also very helpful/knowledgable. I liked them from the start. They have free glaze although I'm not sure I'll use it. Still thinking on that one. A little unsettled at the recent bad review on GW regarding them. BUT, that was just 1 review and nothing is ever perfect. In the end - it came down to PAINT color and door style. I like the bevel in the Shiloh lancaster shaker and Medallion's was a straight 90 degrees. I could get over that though. The paint however - for Medallion the White Icing seemed so bright white while the Divinity felt too yellow. That was the clincher. Shiloh has 4 shades of white and I like a couple of them. I am debating between Polar and Soft White. Side note: I had so much time but felt like I waited until the last minute getting quotes, etc.. So worried about making the wrong decision or paying more than I needed or getting a better cabinet than I really needed.... I ended up not getting the last quote until Sunday (as in 2 days ago - KD super busy) and they started framing yesterday. So I showed up at the job site to see they had framed the kitchen windows (spaced incorrectly from the printe) and had to decide right then and there. Just like that - decision made. So thank you all for your help thus far with determining where costs are and how/where to cut them. This kitchen quoting business has been quite the process. Now I need to fine tune the design and choose a paint and stain and away we go. Gee that sounds simple doesn't it? ;)

The thing is, people are people and a person's gender should NEVER be used to judge them by. You say the young women you see are far too bold - OK we were having a discussion on women so I said that the timid mouse image that was being painted is not my experience so the statement of too bold applied to women only because we were talking about women. There was no statement about men at all, so don't infer it. I never said or even implied that the behavior is any different than young college men or that it is more acceptable in men. In fact, I said both young men and women were too bold. Since the innuendo is getting me in trouble, the statement is probably going to get me hung but what the hell. I was specifically talking about the all too popular trend of asking any guy you like for d#ck pics, and reciprocating with topless photos. I get a few drunk pics of some guys junk several times a year. Believe me, I think they are too bold also. I never said that bias doesn't exist. I am just referring to the evidence that all biases seem to be lessening, thus studies centered around younger adults may be more relevant. There is still plenty of every bias to go around. You guys are really looking for a fight, that quite frankly, I don't want to be in. So you win. Risk aversion/acceptance varies widely within the genders and I suspect that women may be, on average, more risk averse than men. - Let me explain in greater detail. EVERYONE has different risk appetite. Older people are more risk averse than younger, poor people are less risk averse than the upper middle class, different races have different risk tolerance, different geographic areas have different risk tolerance, and all of those are gross generalizations. The reason why risk doesn't matter between men and women isn't that they don't have different risk tolerance, it is that everyone has different risk tolerance. So the first thing you learn in finance is establishing acceptable risk. There is no right answer. As long as the desired rewards match the risk, you are right. As investors both men and women learn about the market (become sophisticated), we usually see risk seekers temper their desire to make it big in the market, and we see risk avoiders start to focus more on the rewards, realizing that complete risk aversion may not achieve their goals. In the end, the two sides, whether they be race, gender, or just personality, get reasonably close together. So what I am saying is there really is no issue for gender to effect. Once you have a risk appetite that you are comfortable with, you control for it. Controlling for it simply means selecting the investments that will most likely get you to your goal at your stated risk and realizing that not every investment needs to be at your risk appetite.