I wish my fleas would disappear as easily as
giving the animals a bath, but they won't!  Our
new cat brought in tapeworms, which have a
flea vector, and as we are on our third worming
the war is getting serious.
 
I agree that it is desirable to avoid chemicals,
but honestly there is a tendency to think things
are worse than they are.  I am not only a chemist
and a physicist, but have worked in biology and
married a biologist to boot.  Many, many things
we eat and drink affect our central nervous systems
and are skin irritants, fat/wine/coffee all hit
the CNS and peppers/onions/cukes make the skin
go mad.  The trick is really knowing which things
have toxic levels or long-term effects and how
much our bodies can handle.  I avoided pyrethins
out of habit but the war must be won!
 
On a very happy note, I found my long-lost cat
yesterday -- missing for almost 3 MONTHS!!!!!  Boy
was I happy!  Many apologies for the occurrence of
this right after some more tragic escapes and
condolences to all--the events were so awful, I
would be crushed and hope you are recovering well.
 
Buttercup's hair continues to grow like mad, her vulva
swelling is still up but I'm getting much more hopeful
now--thanks to all for the news on similar experiences
and to Bruce for making me less worried about
needing to DO SOMETHING--a problem I've had since
losing Pandora to that flu.
 
Merry Christmas to all and we hope your ferrets don't
steal all your ornaments!!
 
        Mike, Erica, Ian, Inigo, Buttercup,...
 
PS We're off to adopt some more carpet sharks
        tomorrow--about time Buttercup had someone
        her own age to play with!
 
[Posted in FML issue 0672]