And to add to the paranoia consider this: Try a lead-testing kit on some of your mugs you assumed to have lead-free paint. You may find some surprising and disturbing results. Although our imports of dining ware are supposed not to contain lead, this is not always true. Dare I mention Oprah tested an entire set of her favorite imported dining ware she purchased from a US store and found it to contain lead.

Is Pb the chemical symbol for lead? That seems to ring a bell. If so, ain't it interesting that Pb looks like an abbreviation for "Problem"?

Helen, you're right. I am very slow to anger--generally about as laid-back as they come. So the yellow paint in those many-times-chewed #2 pencils hasn't leeched its lead into my system yet.......

Lead regards,
Waitingwind