At 12:40 AM 12/20/02 -0700, you wrote:
 >> Pip has moments where she yowls about the house for me, and MUST be HELD,

Aw.  Scared kitty, looking for parents.  Hug!!

 >a woman with a seriously horrendous load of emotional problems. She'd 
found in the course
 >of trying to treat her own problems, that a tight squeeze for a few moments
 >helped calm her. [...]  She also found out that a cow on a ramp going 
*up* is calmer than on
 >a ramp going down, and that silence was better than noise (no-brainer there)

Wasn't that Temple Grandin?  She's autistic, but high-functioning. She 
wrote a couple of books explaining that she doesn't think in words the way 
"we" do, but in abstractions and pictures, and she feels that she thinks 
more in the way animals do, or at least that she CAN, and can put herself 
in the livestock's place.  I think I remember seeing her book in the store 
and wishing I could buy it (but of course we didn't have the money, and 
there's no place to put one more book, not even squeezing it under the bed 
with all those other "hidden" ones.)  It was fascinating, from what I 
skimmed and picked up.  She actually thinks in a different way . . . 
outside the box!

- - - -
Nine out of ten doctors recommend reading my books.  The tenth is a quack.
Shalanna Collins                                          shalanna{at}attbi.com
_Dulcinea: or Wizardry A-Flute_ by Shalanna Collins (e-mail me for excerpt)
ISBN 0-7388-5388-7 trade paperback  http://home.attbi.com/~shalanna/>

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