ladyotterfae

Public service announcement of sorts, since I know several people who keep epinephrine around for allergies - Auvi-Q is being recalled due to a possible dosage error (the med is fine, it simply may not deliver enough, and it is safer for them to recall). If that's the delivery device you have, the number to call is on their page. Unfortunately they cannot directly replace with another brand, but they have stated they will arrange for reimbursement of cost for people who have to pay out of pocket to get a different unit. https://www.auvi-q.com/

As requested/suggested by a few people, I have put together a GoFundMe for Maggie's care. Things are tight for pretty much everyone, so please don't feel pressured to do what isn't possible. If people can help me get the word out that we could use a few bucks from people who can do that, and that we need good homes for the puppies, that would be hugely helpful!

Maggie's Family

Alright, I'm looking for some help finding ways to make this trip work. Aside from the obvious "if you know of paying work I could do, tell me!", I'm trying to figure out how to cut costs. We already travel with food of our own, since eating on the road can be a budget-killer. Sadly, the convention hotel isn't one of the lovely places with kitchens, so there's only so much we can do, but that's life. They are supposedly at least feeding us breakfast during the convention proper, which helps a little.

My biggest challenge is post-convention, pre-Richmond (and while in Richmond, honestly). If you know people who are in Baltimore area, or north/east VA (pretty much anywhere from the greater DC metro area, through Alexandria, and down to Richmond, as well as the Williamsburg area) who might be able to give us advice for cheap-but-not-terrifying places to stay for a couple of nights mid-week, please pass the question along to them? Basic wheelchair accessibility is necessary for D (basic meaning can get into the room and into a bed/couch without dealing with more than one stair, in this case), and I am chemically sensitive, but I generally just accept that I'll be at least slightly ill while traveling.
A nifty town to explore is a bonus, but certainly not necessary.

I don't _think_ I know anyone out in that area whose home would be even remotely accessible and who would be okay with couch-surfers. And besides, if I do, I obviously don't know them well enough to ask, given that I'm unaware that they're there. :P


I'm guessing that in Richmond proper we'll stay at an Extended Stay or similar - not dirt cheap, but they have kitchens, which helps offset cost if we actually behave ourselves and cook.

We can find relatively affordable ways to entertain ourselves in the area, though of course if you are in said area and want to play with us, feel free to give me a poke. We may wander into DC or Alexandria at least for one day.

I'm a bad brain-fried monkey, and failed to post this last week. A friend needs some help paying for treatment once insurance has decided she's done. Several people have offered up shiny things in exchange for donations.

Here's the post. Go, look at shiny things, help if you can, pass around.

I could be convinced to toss some baked goods into the ring, if there is interest - local-ish interest would be ideal, but I will work with whatever, feel free to poke at me for what I can do/associated donation suggestions. D has said he'll do more than 4 of the journals if there is demand.

I did this a few years ago. It's a nice idea. There's a community as well, holiday_wishes, which is a good place to post, though watch the posting/list rules, it's slightly different there.

( the rules, for those who haven't played before )



1: cards/notes/stickers/pictures/trinkets, you know, things what come in mailboxes - I've been feeling very cut off for quite a while now. My own fault for living where I do, I suppose, but I miss my friends.

2: leads on work for D. He's a computer engineer (hardware, in other words, rather than a software person), with some training in factory automation stuff, and a strong interest in audio hardware.

3: leads on work for me. I do filing and paperwork, help with large projects, do light cleaning/organizing, and cook/bake/make candy on request, as well as my massage practice. Because of my chemical sensitivities and chronic pain problems, taking a full-time job is not in the cards, but I would happily take on more work, particularly as two of my regular non-massage clients have had to cut me for personal or financial reasons this year.

4: a laptop. Mine croaked a while back, in a non-reparable way. I used D's for a while, but it needs a full overhaul now, and I was never really comfortable using his toy. We're sharing the desktop these days. I'm certainly not saying I'm computer deprived - we have a desktop to share! - but it would be really nice to have a portable machine of my own again.

5: stuff from my amazon wishlists, here. I have three wishlists (home, work, and me), but that's the main one. Used is of course perfectly welcome and encouraged.

6: gift certificates/cards. as much as D and I try to buy most things used, or get by without, some stuff just doesn't show up at goodwill or other thrift stores reliably, and we can't yet get by without things like food and fuel. :P (useful and very welcome: target, QT, hardware stores, groceries, restaurants. the dream stuff: penzeys, recollections (historical clothing), antique malls, bookstores (half-price, B&N, local used stores, whatever), lizzie and rocco's (or other good pet supply place), clovers or other natural food store)

7: reading/author suggestions, with or without an accompanying sample. ;) For starting points, I enjoy Pratchett, most Lackey, Anne Bishop's Black Jewels stuff, Mary Jo Putney, and a decent amount of Mary Balogh and Jo Beverly's work. I'm a voracious re-reader, and I will happily admit that I have a fondness for well-crafted fluff with enjoyable, resonant characters, though I can appreciate the kind of novel you read deeply once, then set aside for years while it percolates. For non-fiction, I love Pollan's writing style and readability, and the topics I'll read about are pretty far-ranging, with history, food, fashion history, food history, sustainable living, frugality, biological sciences, health, and herbalism/natural health being fairly common trends.

8: assistance sorting/hauling large quantities of heavy things (books and bookcases, mostly) between an upstairs apartment, the house, and a few storage units. I need to get more of my stuff out of the apartment to try and clear it for mom, but my hauling ability is severely limited, and my drive is minimal because I find it overwhelming. This has the potential to be frustrating, because things will likely wind up being moved multiple times as they get sorted and re-sorted to determine what stays, what goes, what gets sold, etc.

9: donations for no-kill pet shelters. Since we're practically running one at the farm (recovered ferals, and several FIV+ kitties), I wouldn't turn down donations for their care, but mostly I just know how much the shelters are struggling. The number of pets coming in certainly hasn't gone down, and often has gone up, even as donations keep dropping because money's tight everywhere. Have more space or time than money? A lot of the shelters rely on in-home foster care for the pets, and volunteers to help at adoption events.

10: clothing inspiration - I need to start making more of my own clothing, for various reasons including fit problems and a style that stores don't really cater to. Not only would a cheering section be appreciated, but I could use diagrams/patterns/photos for dresses/skirts/outfits that would fall into one of these categories: pioneer/heritage clothing (think living history exhibit stuff); south asian/middle eastern traditional; 60s-70s 'back to the land' styles; simple medieval that can be readily adapted for work - ie, not just the nobility-wear; things you think I'd enjoy or look good in. Fabric or clothing is of course welcome as well, I just figure most people won't have those on hand.

This is a preliminary call for ideas/names. A cousin (more precisely, the widow of one of dad's cousins) has decided that she can't keep her cats. Her reasoning is unclear, and given her mental state at this point, getting clarity probably won't happen, though I may give it a shot. Mom and I helped her adopt these cats from a shelter over 8 years ago, and we're going to have to step in now to keep them from being dropped off in a shelter and probably killed as unadoptable for a variety of reasons.

The basics: Two female cats, a mother-daughter pair. Both white haired with blue eyes (I believe - mom certainly had blue eyes as a young adult, and her daughter looked just like her, with no sign of eyes changing at the time of the adoption, which was 8-10 weeks, I think...), at least one is a medium-fur. At the time of adoption, the mother was a sweet and elegant young cat, not quite a year old, who charmed everyone she met (I met her at the vet office when she was in to be spayed), and the baby was, well, a sweet baby kitten.
The problems with immediate re-homing are that they are now 8 and 9 years old, cannot be separated as far as anyone can tell, and they've been allowed to become rather horribly unsocialized over the last few years. The description I've been given says that the momcat is rather unfriendly these days, and the daughter is timid around most people. These are traits that can be overcome, generally, but it will take time and patience in good foster care.

I'd like to find them a medium-term foster arrangement, someone who can help resocialize them, and actively groom them for a good home for the second half of their lives. I'd do it myself, but the babycat (currently known as Casper) who landed on my doorstep last week is already taking a lot of my focus and energy away from Kimi, and I will not risk her health by adding any other feline distractions to the home right now. There's also the problem of lease/landlord/city pet limits, and some other stuff.

Anyone know of a good foster home with openings? Anyone willing to try taking them on for a while? Someone in the vicinity of MO know of a no-kill shelter that actually has openings for paired adult cats? When I helped pull them from a shelter, I dubbed them Sapphire and Topaz - they were gloriously striking cats. Their current names, which I admit kind of make me cringe, are Pretty Girl and Baby. *sigh*

Leaving this one unlocked, in case someone needs to pass it along.

He's home. We just finished another walking lap of the neighborhood with no luck, and I was making myself sit down for some cereal, so I could take my antibiotic (like I said, I got thoroughly shredded trying to keep him from bolting), and as I sat, I heard crying that wasn't Kimi. I'd left the garage door propped open since yesterday, and he'd found his way into there and was asking for us.


*relieved sigh* time to pill him, start his new diet, take down about 50 signs, hunker down for the next wave of thunderstorms, then collapse and whimper for a while.

I'm about to launch into my cookbook collection, specifically the one-dish meal and crockpot cookbooks that mom has a fascination with, to try and solve this problem to some extent, but I love playing "ask the internets", so here goes:

I cook for dad. No, I mean, I make almost all of his food, aside from the oatmeal he eats once a day, and the occasional can of sardines. It all has to be packaged in 2-cup pyrex bowls, frozen, and then reheated in the microwave. This means nothing that is ornate, doesn't work in a bowl, or can't be mistreated by going from frozen to hot in 6 minutes of intense microwaving. (We tried defrosting in the fridge, but he'd forget something was there, let it go bad, then eat it anyway and get sick. This happened more than once.)

This means I have to provide 14-21 frozen meals a week, that have to meet not only those requirements, but all his dietary requirements, some of which are genuine, some of which are his being blasted picky and/or making connections in his head that have limited contact with reality.

So, here's what I need. One-dish, or easy-to-assemble, recipes, that can be frozen without destroying them, and don't involve anything that can't tolerate rapid reheating.
Dad won't eat the following:
-beans
-red meat
-pasta
-bread
-anything spicy
-green peppers (or any peppers, really)
-anything he reads as "too healthy" or "too fussy"

He also has historically been difficult about too much potato and rice, but he seems to be relaxing on that one. (He has had blood sugar problems in the past, but things have improved somewhat.) He has requested lots of vegetables, but again, gets grumpy if it reads as too healthy. Cheese works wonders on this problem, so almost everything gets topped with cheese.

I did have an eggplant parm recipe in play that worked very well, but I'd put it on hiatus due to terribly expensive eggplant, and now he's decided it irritates his bladder (???), so I've been asked to not make it. Or the chili casserole (he outlawed beans entirely about a week ago, after months of telling me to just 'go easy' on them). I don't know if I'll be allowed to make the corn-veggie casserole again, since it's one of the things he poisoned himself with.
That currently leaves me with only a chicken/veggie 'crockpot' soup in a tomato base, and the seafood-rice casserole (also tomato base).

Anyone have anything brilliant to suggest? I've gotten some great recipe suggestions elsewhere, but most of them don't take the "in a 2-cup pyrex" into account, and/or would be terribly impractical to make on the kind of scale I'm talking about. I won't do anything that can't be easily scaled up to make at least 8-10 dishes for freezing, and 12-20 is better. The ingredients need to be not outrageously expensive, if they're used in quantity, and if it takes hours to assemble, unless it makes 24+ dishes, it's not really worth the time. (Yes, I get paid for doing this. I don't get paid very much, and it can be somewhat exhausting, as well as taking away from time that I could be doing other work, and it tends to leave me with no desire or energy to cook decent food for us.)
Help?

Mom's on this kick of getting me some sort of composter, because she doesn't want me trying to turn compost piles by hand, with my back injuries. I appreciate the thought, but looking through them is eating my time and what little patience either of us had. The reviews are generally all over the map, and I can't get a feel for what's really going on half the time.

Does anyone have, or know someone who has, a turnable compost bin? What do they like about it? Hate about it? Would they get it again? Is it practical for someone with a small garden, and a large container garden, with a moderate amount of compostable waste due to eating a lot of veggies, having a fairly large yard (for in town), and being quite willing to raid the office for paper waste as needed?

I'm leaving this unlocked for ease of sharing around, if you want to pass a link to someone who might be able to help.

Picking the collective brain -

What do people know about various e-fax systems/programs? One of the women I work for has efax, and can't stand it. She asked me to find out about other options. I need something that's reliable, easy to understand (she's not a techy by any stretch of the imagination), and can be set secure, for medical information transmission.

Anyone know of possible candidates, before I dive into google and swim about?