I don't know what happened here, but I can tell you that the ONLY reason for the text entry is to sort out the bots from the humans. TGF is besieged with bot requests for membership, and when one does sometimes get through, they collect email addresses for spammers, advertise, etc. A little history: TGF was started several years ago when a number of folks got fed up with the new terms of service imposed by the new owners of this site, iVillage. Without wanting to rehash that debate, some of us were opposed to this sites claim of copyright for any picture we posted, even if that photo was on a third-party web server, like photobucket. So Dan, a nursery owner, created TGF so we would still have a place to play. To his surprise, the C&S crowd far outnumbered any other gardening interest by a huge margin. We are all grateful to him for creating a fun and safe place for us to share without losing our rights to our own words and photographs. A few months ago, tired of the constant battle with bots, Dan transferred ownership of the site to Josiah. I have never known Josiah to be elitist, exclusionary, unwelcoming, disagreeable, etc. He is a good guy, really. Because TGF was started by a relatively experienced group of growers, the level of discussion over there is different than this site. There are almost never posts about dead or dying Jade plants, just to note one difference. After spending some years away from this site, a few of us started to post here from time to time. I am still very wary of posting photos like I used to, but I do enjoy discussions here and the opportunity to help some of the C&S beginners. So that's my story, and I'm sticking too it. Neither TGF, nor Dan, nor Josiah, or the members of TGF are elitists. When beginners find there way to the site, they are always welcomed graciously, assuming of course, that they are polite in return. It's too bad you decided to join and be obnoxious, R. Perhaps you could try again, as you certainly have a lot of knowledge to share. As long as you can refrain from posting oddly disturbing smoking rabbit photos, I'm certain you would be welcomed too. Brad

Not a frequent poster but I've certainly enjoyed following your home posts Bodica. You are in an intense phase of grief. "Did I inconvenience.." that is blaming the victim; don't do it. Remember that even though it was not installed, your mother knew that you were advocating for her right up to the end. Institutions can cause so much pain. I don't have experience with nursing homes yet, but the pain the hospital caused me and my daughter at her birth and in the following days took years for me to recover from. I wish I had spoken to a counselor or therapist bc it was very hard on my husband and I. What eventually healed me was the natural process of how dendrons/memories change in the brain (softens the memory; it's been documented), and also looking at how happy/free from hurt my daughter is now. Your mother is free from the pain now, I hope that is a comfort to you. Unfortunately many of us have gone through these nightmare experiences of intense pain; loss of loved ones, injustice. Some say call a lawyer, in certain cases I might, but also I just try to be more loving to the ones I've got left. That is what heals me and honors those who are gone. Best of luck, and fwiw, I'm sure this thread will help countless others. I'd never given a washlet a second thought before, but now it's high on my list for older loved ones and someday me.

DH said the other day, "We'll pay for it in our taxes or we'll pay in the ER" which is true. I don't mind at all paying taxes to cover more american's health care costs...but I do mind paying taxes to fund thee deaths of thousands of our youth in wars we shouldn't be fighting. My biggest issue with this debacle is that it's not health care reform (call it that all you want but it's not!) It's just a screw around issue with insurance companies that obviously isn't working terribly well for most. I like parts of it, but the ability to hop prices up the day after the bill passed should have been addressed if our congress wouldn't have tried to rush this through. Goldie shouldn't have to "win"...it should have been a clear mandate to be enforced immediately. This staggered crap just means that when we have a new administration, and we will, it will be available for debate and for new laws to remove all that this bill might have done good. Health care reform though was desperately needed. At every hospital we visited we saw this need. Families that weren't devistated by costs so much as they were by lack of a good system of diagnosis. No standard of care from state to state, no central records keeping....transfering records from hospital to hospital is a nightmare! And that pile of lost paperwork (they forgot to include an early bloodwork result in our package and that carried over from hospital to hospital because we were copying the original package with the forgotten piece). that one little slip was the answer to our son's pain taken within the first month of his life, he suffered for three years because the other doctors didn't see that one piece. And this is not the first case of a medical clue gone astray. So many things aren't covered, so many issues of health care and drug costs that were swept under the table....terrible stuff. And as to the life expectancy issue.....life style does come into play there. I know that at all of the hospitals we went to for rare diseases, the beds were full of children from other countries. Most paid cash to get to America for the quality care of someone who actually specialized in their condition. At Johns Hopkins half or more (it varied) of the children in the program we were in were from other countries, including Canada, Japan, Quatar, Mexico, England and Germany. They paid cash to get in because it was the best program in the world. America is tops in many many areas of the medical world, but getting the kids or adults who need the special care to the specialist facility is an exercise in futility most often. My frustration shows :) I know that many know what real medical trials are....and I can easily say I'd probably view the insurance reform differently if I hadn't experienced what we did. But my experiences led me to see that this is all a silly joke without addressing the real issues that needed to be addressed.

How old is your cat? What brand of food did you feed? Most foods are filled with cheap grains and fillers, grains probably stressed the kidneys over the years and overtime lead to this. Cats are 100% carnivores, the only time they eat plants is to soothe their digestive tracts. Grass,catnip ect. Vets in gen know a lot about how to treat these kinds of issues but sadly because of mass capitalism, ( if you think purely in a $ view point- this makes perfect sense to the makers of the food) The foods they preach to be good are crap ( S/D science diet, and (Iams - a brand that does animal testing BTW). actually cause many of the issues they do services for. Use the prescription food only when you MUST and then switch to raw or grain free canned. Pre made raw Natures variety Bravo Primal canned/dry Innova EVO Instincts wellness grain free,and wellness core ziwi peak Orijen- a dry