My mom had to have my brother's cat Bo put down today. A few months ago, a tumor showed up on Bo's front leg at the joint. Bo was 14 years old and amputation was not a good choice for her. It got to the point where Bo could no longer take care of herself, so my mom took her back for a second opinion. This wasn't going to get any better. This vet said it was cancer caused by a rabies shot she had in 2002. It happens in 1 out of 8000 cats according to him. This scares the hell out of me!!!

My mom is bawling her eyes out right now for having to do this. My brother is in Afghanistan!! He doesn't know yet. My mom has been emailing him letting him know Bo was not well. He wouldn't write back to her. I think he didn't want to deal with it.

This put my mom out $179. $100 of that was for cremation and to get the ashes back. She had no choice since she feels she has to return Bo to my brother at some point.

Well, day five without my car - Thurs, Fri, Tues, Thurs, Fri. I'm going nuts here. I HOPE to have an answer today. The owner of the shop was calling in a favor from a buddy and they were supposed to work on my car at 10 last night! I have no idea what the financial outcome will be here. You know they are putting in HOURS on my car. I know they wont charge me for that though. Not sure what's fair here. Guess I'll see what they say. This sure is a baffling problem with the brakes. One I hope never happens to anyone else. Wish my car could just be cut and dry like everyone elses. Nope, I had to buy the possessed one. I think mechanics hate me.

Well, I guess I'll find out in the morning if I really have brakes now. I probably do. They ended up replacing the master cylinder. No kidding - that really should have been their first guess. Granted they DID fix something on Friday, just not the whole problem. On the bright side, they gave me a break on the labor charges for the inconvenience. So, another $250 and most of the hydraulics in the braking system are replaced. It seems to me the master cylinder should have lasted more than 2 or 3 years. I don't know anyone who has ever had one replaced in a car. Twice for me in this car! They did say it was quite rusted, so that's really got me wondering about the shop that replaced it the first time. I stopped going there quite a while ago.

So...$400 on brakes and without my car for 3 days. I will certainly go ballistic if DH even thinks about buying one more useless thing for his car. He wants an air intake setup - a different one than the one he has! All I want is a mechanic who's not too chicken to fix a coolant leak. Oh, and brakes too! Those are nice.

Did anyone see this story yesterday?

Got almost to work and put the brake pedal in - right down to the floor! I'm so glad I spent $150 on Friday for them to fix this. I called DH since I didn't have the number to the shop. Good thing - they would have gotten an earful. I'm hoping it was just a fluke and for some reason the new part was faulty. Although after that happened with the starter last summer, I'm not sure I want that to be the case. (Yes, my new starter burned out a day later - 30 miles from home.) It's possible the shop did fix something, just not the right thing!

It's a strange problem and seems to show up after the car has been driven a while - 20-30 miles. At least that's how it was on Wednesday and today. Since that was the case, I knew I'd be ok heading home. The brakes gave out again less than a mile from home. Boy is it fun not knowing if you'll have brakes or not when you put the pedal in. Something I think we take for granted...Thankfully I drive a 5 speed so downshifting and the emergency brake are my friends if need be. Back to the shop it goes tonight, so let's hope this doesn't cost too much more money.

I'm home sick today - no fun! The swelling in my mouth seems to have gone down a little bit, but it's still quite swollen and uncomfortable. And I get to do this again in two weeks if this heals ok. Glad the next one is on a Friday so I'll have the weekend to recover. I'm not sure why this wiped me out so much. Just walking the dog took all my energy.

Well my car is fixed. A rear wheel bearing (

I have to post my baby too! This is Moose and she is 6 1/2 years old. My best friend! She most recently is the inspiration of the domain www.moozcat.com. I'm not sure what DH has in store for the website, but it wont be dedicated completely to Moose. Right now she does grace the homepage. At least for the next few minutes...

Wow, it has been an expensive day - and I don't even know how bad yet! I just got back from my first of two crown lenghthening surgeries I have to have. For those of you who don't know what that is: it's dental related, painful, and uncomfortable! I suppose that's all the details anyone might want. The good news is that I DO go to Tufts Dental School so this "only" cost me $350.00. Insurance will pick up half of that and I have my FSA as well. Too bad I didn't account for these two surgeries in my FSA for the year. Oh well, I think I'm only off by $250 or so.

If I wasn't stressed enough about going to the appointment today, my brakes just added to it. I've been telling everyone that I don't have brakes. Not entirely true, but if they don't work 100% of the time, do they really work? They acted up a couple times on the way home last night - put in the pedal and get NOTHING. Do you think they could have acted up when we went out to run errands and DH was driving? No. Things really went downhill on the way to work today, so I got a ride to the T to head into Boston. DH picked me up at the T station after my appointment and we went to get my car. Do you think it could have acted up in the 30 miles he drove it home? Thankfully yes - when he went to turn into the mechanic's yard. Turns out I didn't imagine it after all. Now how to convince the mechanic...

Guess I'll find out tomorrow what the damages are. Brakes are rather important though!