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]