Mary, are you saying that they make you mow the lawn on Mother's Day!? LOL Of course not. That would be cruel and unusual punishment. The Govenator finally declared a state of emergency for some counties south of here in Cali due to the rain. Luckily, most of the danger has been in agricultural areas and not residential...so far. I thought it was bad back in January... ...when this fisherman along the Sacramento River fell asleep while on sturgeon patrol. LOL Notice the toppled chair on the roof? That was probably from his wife high-tailing it out of there, like normal people tend to do. (BTW, no one was harmed in the taking of this picture.) Sorry to all of your allergy sufferers, though! :( Brenda

Soooooooooooo sorry your kitty died, Karen ! :-( There are good people / competent people in every profession.There are also people who should never be near anything living! If you have ANY doubts about what someone tells you, ask questions and DO NOT let them rush through their answers ! If you feel at all uncomfortable about a treatment suggestion (or attitude) WALK OUT and find someone you trust. This is your family member and they deserve the same respect and care as any one in need. I have found that many owners know what needs to be done in many circumstances and some times it does make my job a whole bunch easier because the major problem has been resolved, or nearly so. :-) You are right. No one knows their pet better than their owner. Oh sure we might know technical terminology like: "boo boo elbow" or other things but the bottom line comes down to ONLY YOU KNOW what is best for your pet! For example, chemo may be OK for some but not OK for others, no matter what the vet says and the decision you make for your beloved family member IS 100% right for you! My Mikey, my very best fuzzy friend ever, a grey kitty, had squamous cell carcinoma in his mouth. I knew as well as his oncologist, there was not really any hope to prolong Mikey's life. We did try 2 courses of chemo but most importantly his pain was under control. Mikey died 32 days after I found the bump on his gums that was smaller than the size of a BB pellet. One month later, Teeb, another kitty , had intermittent diarrhea. She went for endoscopy and we found intestinal lymphoma. Following numerous e mails and phone calls to human and vet oncologists it was determined that form of cancer was not painful. Chemo would buy her another 9 months of life. OK. We went for it and we got 22 more months with Teeb! I would say 95% of her days were good days. If she could wake up, get petted, eat and slug the other cats who got out of line, that was a good day! After all, Teeb was the kitty who was in charge of the rest of the kitty herd. :-) Bosco, the GSD, had a very guarded prognosis with his type of cancer. A very aggressive hemangiosarcoma of the spleen generally spreads and kills 80% of the patients within 1-2 months of the initial diagnosis. We were ~~VERY~~ fortunate to detect it early and remove the cancerous spleen in an almost bloodless operation (to decrease microscopic spread of the tumour cells throughout his doggy body) and we started chemo exactly 10 days after the surgery. He still had his stitches in his belly when he started his chemo! We **NEEDED** to try to prolong his life for a multitude of reasons. True, we are very fortunate that I am a vet and most things are either free (like x-rays, surgery, bloodwork) and the treatment was done at cost through the extraordinary generosity of the oncologist who cared for our Mikey and Teeb. Had I been a "real person" our cost for Bosco would have been just over $5000.00 total! WOW!! I don't know that we would have been able to afford that, even though the cost was spread out over 4 months. (That price does not include the follow-up met check radiographs and bloodwork after December 2005.) Thankfully all has turned out far better than anyone anticipated for Bosco. :-) This was the right decision for US. Had someone else been in the exact same circumstance and decided not to go further with surgery or chemo, that would be the exact right decision for them! Everyone is different and only YOU know and understand what your beloved family member can or should endure. They know only you and have complete trust in you caring and love for them. This trust can never be betrayed and don't let any one try to force you or your pet into anything with which you are uncomfortable! Mmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeee. (((BTW Semper .. the full colour photograph of the 3 pound cancerous tumour is available for your viewing when you request it. :\-) )))

You might want to check out Gerald Durrell's books, especially the memoirs/travel/animal collecting books. They are light nonfiction and most of them have a strong evocation of place. I especially recommend: My Family and Other Animals (about his childhood in Corfu, Greece) The Whispering Land (animal collecting in Argentina) Three Singles to Adventure (animal collecting in British Guiana) Beasts in My Belfry (working in a zoo in England) The Drunken Forest (animal collecting in Argentina and Paraguay) The Bafut Beagles and A Zoo in My Luggage (animal collecting in British Cameroon) Durrell wrote wonderfully (and often humorously) about places, people and animals. Other books that come to mind are Arnaldur Indridason's mysteries that take place in Iceland. At least three have been translated into English (Jar City won the Golden Dagger award). His descriptions of the people, land, weather and society are very true-to-life (although rather bleak, as the policeman protagonist sees a lot of the dark side of life).

Friedag, thank you for fascinating anecdote about Allingham and du Maurier. I had no idea about their rivalry. I think the two remind me of each other in that Allingham (in my opinion) is trying to write mysteries which can be taken seriously as novels in their own right. In this aspect I think she struggled as a writer, but she did succeed in adding a deeper level to the standard murder mystery. I'm still not sure whether I admire Margery Allingham as a writer, though I loved The Case of the Late Pig. Professionally, she was so eclipsed by Christie and Sayers, that I feel a bit sorry for her. In Dancers in Mourning, for example, her detective Albert Campion finds himself falling in love with the unhappy wife of a man who is a suspect in several murders. Campion agonizes about how to proceed with his investigation, and the reader is meant to sympathize with his personal unhappiness, and his professional scruples. I was reminded of My Cousin Rachel, in that the narrator's shifting perceptions of Rachel shape whether the reader perceives Rachel as a murdering fortune-hunter, or merely as a victim of jealous paranoia. With the exception of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (published at the beginning of her phenomenal career) Christie would not have added such a complex layer of characterization to an already successful formula. What amazes me about Christie is how she was able to churn out 3-4 novels a year for decades without going bonkers at the sameness of what she was writing. (To be fair, Christie was very pressured by her publishers not to stray from her set formula.) I hope to start Sayers in the fall. I have never read Georgette Heyer, but she is on my list of writers to try. Heyer's reputation has improved considerably in the last few years. She is an interesting example of the ebb and flow of a writer's respect among critics and readers. I know someone who helps choose the titles for a local book club made up mostly of career women in their 40s and early 50s. I suggested My Cousin Rachel as a possible title. She crinkled her nose in polite disdain, and made some dismissive comment about Daphne du Maurier's books. It was this incident that made me think she had become "old hat" to contemporary readers. Heyer suffered this same fate for years.