I'm with you on the senior moments thing, Pat...and I'm still in my 30s. :D Glad you figured it out. Brenda

Oh, heck, why remove the flowers when they are so beautiful - and so many of them are edible too! Flowers don't kill plants. Mind you, some annuals will flower soon before dying - but it's not the same thing, is it? Most of my herbs (the popular culinary, so-called Mediterranean ones especially) flower almost all year round. It's wonderful! I just let it happen, and enjoy them. (I live in the subtropics where the climate suits these herbs perfectly.) oregano - just doing what it does best! Leave them. tarragon - not the real French tarragon, maybe? Leave them. parsley - it's 2 years old and about to die. Remove the entire plant and start again. But if you leave it to its own devices, it may very well self-seed. Just what you want! Lavender - it's the flowers you want for culinary, medicinal, cosmetic, perfume (etc) uses. USE THEM. And let the plant produce more! sage - so pretty, so edible. Leave them. chives - leave them, or eat them. They won't kill the plant. The plant will die down in cold weather, but it'll pop back up again in spring. mint - the spearmint could well set seed and spread even further if you don't remove the flowers. Remove them and eat them. Ditto the chocolate mint with regard to the eating thereof. basil - I remove the flowers only when the plant becomes top-heavy and threatens to lift itself out of the ground. I have never noticed the slightest difference in the flavour of the leaves with or without basil. Some people say the flavour changes when it flowers - if it does, my taste buds are dead! You can eat the flowers. Cutting off the flowers may encourage a bushier growth of your plant if you live in a cooler climate where it won't get to optimum size. Choose for youself. cilantro. I call it coriander. Removing the flowers might prevent the plant from bolting, but it's unlikely. It's a very short-lived annual (in my part of the world, even in winter, it lives only 2-3 weeks). There's really nothing you can do to stop the plant from flowering so why bother? Let it go to seed and you'll end up with a whole lot more plants. You can eat the flowers.

I am so sorry this happened to you and I definitely agree that with the current economic situation, we will be experiencing increased crime - especially theft. I live in what I consider to be a safe place, but it IS a city. What kills me is reading things on the central neighborhoods listserve like this: Our car got broken into overnight and they stole our ipod, GPS, laptop and sunglasses. This is the second time it has happened." We are not talking running in for 10 minutes - we are talking "overnight" and "second time it happened" - I'm sure if that stupidity continues there will eb a third time and so on. Your post is a good reminder that apparently even 10 minutes is long enough for thieves to take advantage.

"The Government. When was the last time you had an interaction with it and were happy with the result?" It was the last time I had an interaction with a government agency. And the time before that and the time before that. Things have changed, or maybe it's just the ones I have been dealing with. I recently started receiving Social Security and the people I dealt with (including one guy on a 30 minute phone call while I was driving in the car) were knowledgeable and friendly. You maybe don't need to change your name with Social Security. Why not go ahead with the process to change your legal name but leave alone the existing account they deposit your monthly check to? Open new bank accounts with your new name and change over the other accounts you have using the authority of the legal name change. Or, maybe it's simple, ask SSA (as others have said) what to do. You've been thinking about this for 20 years and have done nothing?