Melissa P

i am at a loss! i've been searching, and my brain is dead now, so i turn to you...anyone who can help me! i have a neighbor who feeds the feral cats in the area. in the past couple weeks i have found feces and dead birds in my yard, chased 3 cats away in a matter of 5 minutes, and had to lock my own cat in the basement because these strays wouldn't stay away from my patio window and kept taunting him! they have dug up another neighbors new grass...and i just put over $1000 into a new front yard that i'd rather not be destroyed. is there something that says you can't feed these animals? i know there are 6 or 7 adults, and one i have been told recently had babies. i've also been told that she takes them to get them fixed after they have babies. so i don't even know for sure how many cats there are total! animal control will only take them if they are contained. i'm not getting anywhere near these nasty little things (and don't give me crap about how it's a kind loving animal...loving animals don't leave dead birds on my doorstep!)! if she's paying to care for them, does that make them her pets? she also has cats that live inside the home. so if these strays are technically hers, then she has a boatload of cats! how many cats are allowed in a residence in milwaukee? i've searched everywhere i can think of and can't find it! i know i saw it once, but don't remember where. so i know the answer is out there! please include a link so i have something to back up the info. thanks!

i'm 31 years old and have 3 good sized bald spots on my head, and the rest of it is very thin. my ponytail now is the size of one of my pigtails 10 years ago. i was tested and was found to have a significant vitamin d deficiency. where levels are generally 50-80, mine is 17. i am taking 50,000 units twice a week as prescribed by my doctor and will be tested again in a few months. my question is this: once my vitamin d is balanced out, will the hair grow back?

this is an odd question, i know, but i really need to find out! when i moved into my house, it had a well established garden. we moved in winter, so i waited until last spring to figure out what was actually in there. i don't like it. i'm overrun with hostas (which i plan to dig up and pot some, get rid of most) because they were used as the border of the garden...all around the house! there are these lamb's ear things, some ground cover, little purple flowers...it just looks like a mess! it's not pretty, and it's not anything like what i want. so my plan is to completely overhaul it. i want to put a border for a raised garden so i can start over and plant what i want. i heard a few years ago that you can kill a garden by layering newspaper, cardboard, and soil. it would cut out the light and nutrients from the good soil by basically smothering everything, killing everything off. but i remember it needing to be a ridiculous number of layers to make this happen! does anyone know how to do this? how long does it take everything to die? and can i plant over it right away? i am a teacher on spring break and would love to get the bulk of the work done this week if possible.

so i volunteered to have easter at my house this year. i'm making baked mac and cheese, salad/veggies, and last night i got a whole pork loin. i'm already marinating the pork in italian dressing, garlic, and parmesan...but there is a slight problem. i don't know how to cook the darn thing! it's an 8 pound loin, so it's pretty big. i was figuring i'd get a foil roasting pan to cook it in because none of my baking pans are big enough to hold it. my husband thinks it should be cooked on a rack...but i never heard of that. i don't know what temp it should cook at, or for how long! can anyone help?

so i just heard of this film last night. my sister suggested my hubby and i see it because of all the acclaim it's getting. she hasn't seen it, but she's heard it's great. so i suggested it to my husband, and he said he heard it was good, but he thought it was subtitled. can anyone tell me if the film is in english or if it has subtitles? thanks!

i am a special education teacher of students with severe needs. i was told by another teacher that one of her students has a virus that should be avoided by pregnant women or those who plan on having children. she will be my student next year, and i was planning another pregnancy for next year as well. the teacher didn't know what the virus was called, only that it is passed through saliva, urine, feces, vomit, etc...all are likely for me to come into contact with my students (even wearing gloves). what are some possible viruses that this could be? i know that CMV is one, but i don't know if there are any others.

within the last couple days, my cat (about 7 yrs old) has lost some hair on the back of his neck. there is a nickel sized bald spot that my husband said felt like a scab, but now is just skin. there is a bit of a liquidy film over the area, and a bit of dried blood. i am taking him to the vet as soon as i can, but for now i'd like to put some neosporin on the sore to try to heal a bit of the skin. is that ok or should i just wait for the vet?

my son turned 1 at the beginning of august, so he's almost 14 months now. when he was a baby, he was very mild mannered, good natured, happy, perfect little boy. for the past couple weeks now though, he's been really sleepy but never wants to sleep, he refuses to be put down (i do anyway because i refuse to hold him all the time!), cranky, throws tantrums at everything. what's going on? is this a normal 1 yr old thing? is he hitting his terrible twos early? do i have a bright *sarcasm* future ahead with him? help! any helpful advice is welcome! i'm a first time mom, and i've managed to get through most issues without looking for too much help. but this time i'm lost! i've tried letting him cry it out, i've been firm when he throws tantrums, i've ignored certain behaviors, etc. it just doesn't seem to be getting any better!

ok...so i went camping over the holiday weekend and had a great time...except at night. i know that for some reason i am a delicacy for mosquitoes. not sure why, but i have come to grips with it. so oi know to wear pants and spray myself with a high DEET bug spray. for some reason though, those buggers laughed at the spray and just saw the jeans as an added obstacle. i have 7 bites on the back of 1 thigh, 6 on each ankle, 8 on my back, and many others on my legs. they are horrible and they itch so badly! i've tried everything to get the itch to go away. i tried a hotter than hot bath, baking soda, alcohol...none of it worked. any other suggestions (not calamine...the smell makes me sick)? thanks for your help!

ok...i need a recipe for what i'm familiar with as chinese coleslaw. some call it ramen salad i think. at any rate, it's cabbage, apple cider vinegar, sugar, ramen noodles...i don't know what else is in it, and i don't know how much of everything. if you have a recipe for it, please post ASAP as i'd like to take the ingredients so i can make it this weekend (going camping, no stores for about 20 minutes when we get there, so i need to get everything ready tomorrow afternoon). thanks!

ok...my son was breastfed (well, i pumped) for about 2 months. he then went to formula because i just stopped producing. before he went to formula, he pooped 2-3 times a day. when we first switched to formula, he didn't poop for about a week. then it was every 3-4 days (my poor baby was so constipated!). after switching formulas 5 times, we found one that had him going once a day. but that once a day was little "rabbit poop" as my husband calls it. anyway...he just turned 1 and we started him on milk. almost instantly he started going 2-3 times a day again, and more like it was when he was a baby.

is this normal? and is it because now he's not getting all the iron he was with the formula? and if this is the case, why won't a doctor admit that the lack of poop in formula fed babies is because of the iron? had i been told that in the first place, i would not have had to have my poor baby suffering with horrible constipation for 3 months while i searched for something that gave him some relief! i spent months looking in stores for low iron formula, but they just don't sell it unless i order it online.

i'm asking this here because there isn't a "are you kidding?" category. so we got new furniture today, and moved the old furniture downstairs to the basement last night. we had a loveseat though that we put out on the street for garbage pick up this morning. when i got up, i saw one of the neighbors down the street come and pick up the loveseat. now i don't have any sort of problem with that...i'm glad someone could use it! i would have taken it to goodwill, but the thing is at least 40 years old (i think it was a college couch of some friends' parents), and i figured no one would want it. anyway...half an hour later the loveseat was back! my thinking is that once you take it, it's yours. is it customary that if you decide you no longer want or need someone else's trash that you return it to them?

a neighbor "keeps" feral cats. he leaves a window on a van opened, and feeds them. if that's what he wants to do, fine. but they keep coming into my yard to do their business, or they sleep under my car, or they taunt my cat from inside the house! i don't wish harm on the cats...i just want them to go away. i've tried lemon juice...it worked a couple days, and now they laugh at it. my other neighbor tried some citrus powder stuff...it may as well have been catnip! animal welfare won't come for them unless they are contained, but i have no means of that. even worse is that i'm seeing a small kitten now that i've never seen before, which means they're breeding. HELP!

i just cut down the beginnings of 3 trees in my garden. the problem is that i didn't realize they weren't supposed to be there until they were fairly large and established. this is the first summer in our house and i was looking at what was coming up in the garden when i noticed these 7 foot trees growing in the middle of my hostas! so i cut them down, but i can't dig up the roots without disturbing the rest of the garden. is there something i can do to the stump (well, stumplets) to keep them from growing?