An afterthought... "frangea pangea" is, of course, a misspelling--a wrong guess--or I'd have found it by now. I put the letter "e" in there to soften the "g" sound, not to add another syllable. The name the gardener called out to me might have been one word or two words. At any rate, it had the sound of fran-juh-pan-juh (4 syllables in all) I don't know whether the gardener might have been a native Spanish speaker or not and if so, whether that would have influenced his pronunciation. I vaguely recall thinking that he might be from Cuba. The pronunciation seemed a bit slurred to my ears. I just assumed he could understand my question. (I don't think fran-juh-pan-juh is Spanish for "No speak English!") If you have any notion as to what the proper spelling/name of this ornamental tree is, I'd appreciate knowing. I don't have a real need to know, of course--I'm just curious. The flowers, as best I can recall, were on the small side but produced in large prolific bunches close together that you could easily notice and admire from the street. The ones I saw were a rosy dark pink. I think the foliage was thicker and shinier, different from a Mimosa and the flowers had more substance. The form of the plant as a whole was more like a Mimosa than a camellia. It didn't grow straight upwards an it had substantial limbs curving around the corner of the house. I only saw the tree from the car in the street, a good distance away from the actual plant, so I could be wrong on some of this. Anyway, if this ornamental grows in your area, you might consider it. It's lovely, lovely. Best wishes, Mary

Ok, I've answered some of these points above already but once again to clarify: 1. There wasn't enough room at the table, so we did fix a plate but it wasn't just a matter of taking our seats. There were no seats to take. Going to the kitchen was a last resort - I didn't know what else to do. 2. The hostess had not yet eaten by the time we arrived. So she couldn't remain sitting at the table and eat without getting up. She wasn't already sitting at the table. She was standing, fixing herself a plate. 3. I didn't realize how late we were till we got there - there was no set starting time and she lives an hour away, we sat in the Friday-Afternoon-Heading-Out-Of-Town traffic which I don't know if you can imagine unless you live in a place like Houston where it's unpredictable at best and can be horrific. 4. My children, ages 17 and 20 WERE includded - it's a holiday. (for those who aren't Jewish, maybe that's not meaning anything to you, but would you go to a friend's house for say, Easter Lunch, and leave your kids at home, no matter what age? This would be comparable to that. In any case the invitation which was sent via email said, You and your family. There's NO question, the kids were included. 5. She made no attempt to sit near us. She put her plate down as if she meant to sit near us but came back before ever sitting anywhere, picked up her plate, and went to the other table. I don't mind if she sat with us or not, it's just the way she acted as if she was going to, then apparently changed her mind. Even THAT wouldn't have mattered had it been a table with others in addition to just our family. It was just weird, the four of us, sitting alone in the kitchen, no other guests sitting or eating with us, the rest of the entire party in another room, and no attempt to integrate us into the party. Yeah, we're guilty of being late. But as hostess, it's her duty to make us comfortable and welcome, late or not. That's what I think you'd learn in an etiquette class. 6. And again - we were about 20 minutes late. Is that really late enough to turn around after being in the car one hour and not show up at all? If someone were 20 minutes late to my house and let that convince them to blow off my party, I'd be horrified. 7. I HAVE gotten over this, WAY over this. I wasn't going to answer lizzynola's post for that reason and because most of her questions/comments had already been covered in my previous posts. But since the discussion continues, I'm answering. I am glad I was able to vent here. I'm no longer mad or hurt. I'm still good friends with her. She had no ill intentions. I thank you all for your comments. May

Hi: we are empty nesters with a City Apt (3 baths 3 bedrooms): where my bath is part of the Master bedrm and hubby uses another one as "his". We also have a rural turn of century country cottage with 3 baths on multi level so we SHARE the master bath (and it is the largest). What you recently described with the split config and some passthru/shared areas resonates and we find has worked well. Since space does not seem to be a constraint, you may, for resale purposes, want to consider a bath-spa. Meaning add some spa elements. I know you said you dont need more humidity or heat...but steam enclosure or ready-to-install-cabinets may not add considerably except for the actual steam generator. Mini dry or steam sauna rooms are great (we have a Finnish-style sauna...it is about 8x5 and is a separate room. Next to it is a small 1/2 bath) Also in our 'hood, a dual bath could count as two and run into code issues. So i am sure you'll be checking out how your town regulates Here is what we've found as best configs we've lived with or had the pleasure to experience: - separated closet areas are ideal..even with a shares common entry. Also our requirements for lengths and drawers are different (just consider the accessories or shoes!) - that said, i dont like the closets being super close to the water. That is humidity from the shower or tub in the very near vicinity. Further, my SIL and BIL rebuilt their master bath with her closet being direct accessed from the bathroom. I found it nice but not really conducive to full dressing...too small and i wanted to be out in the open more where i could stand back from the full length mirror - the real reason we use separate bathrooms is the toilet and you've addressed that. we always prefer bathrooms where the toilets are a little separate...be that a half door or semi enclosed. And we really really treasure Windowed bathrooms. More windows the better - The more isolated the toilet can be from the other areas (layout wise), the better the other areas work and feel clean, fresh,comfortable. some bathrooms we liked even had a small hand washing sink in the toilet area. - A Toto toilet special flush toilet with a SOFT CLOSE lid for us is a MUST!!! once you have it (now others make the soft close lids too) you wonder where its been all your life. Same for the way the Toto flushes low and high volume. Unfortunately their color and style choices are limited but do check out the functionality and try to replicate. The power flush with minimal water use is good. - I am not fond of separate bidets (and we travel abroad alot so we see these) One more thing to clean and plumb etc and addl space taken up for something not very attractive. Instead, the Toto-type bidet function can be added to a hi-end commode. For a price, of course. - two tubs two showers feels odd. And you've addressed this too i think. A large shower with ease of access, open feeling and glass or even outside light is best. A rain head in shower is nice but not in lieu of the regular. We are very eco conscious so we arent into the multi jets --- my BIL recently did a walk in large shower with lots of jets; i cant say that it enhanced my shower experience because i would rather just finish up and not use the water. And i didnt like sloshing thru a large wet area to find a place to dry my feet. So large without everything being subject to water jets was my observation - When i want to use water, well for me its a deep tub WITHOUT jets ---nothing to disrupt luxuriating in hot bubbly scented water A handheld as option with the tub is nice (to rinse off, to rinse hair, etc) - Double or separated sinks are a plus -- really it is the separate mirror each of us is after! plus separated banks of drawers or spaces. My bath has bureau drawers and there I keep my lingerie so that i can dress the underthings right there. That said, some common space for the replenish supplies and for towels. - We love thinner waffle weave towels rather than big thirsty Turkish ones...because the former absorb quickly and in humid weather, we can use 1 a day and not create immense stax of laundry. So, we both like having a stack of towels right there in the bath rather than in a linen closet down the hall. - Lighting is important. Not just the usual over sink lighting that is good for working on the face. Some softer moodier lighting or lights on reo-stats are good. I saw mirrored cabinets spanning double sinks that had soft lighting running along the bottom. Left on, such as the evenngs, it was a nice glow and almost meant i didnt have to turn on lights brightly every time i went in. - Audio or even a small flat panel feed to your bathroom? that will take special planning if the latter. For sure, i love listening to the radio and would love to have some thing in the bath rather than turning up my clock radio so loud! Enjoy

I am working on a similar project for Jan, and she has dug out old family photos from as far back as 1892, however one can not begin to really appreciate those photos until you understand the early history of photography itself. Commercial photography had begun back in the late 1830's but in those days it was a very dangerous process that was only done by professional photographers. In 1888 George Eastman, founder of Eastman Kodak, developed roll film and produced a simple box camera that came preloaded with a roll of 20 exposures. For a mere $5 anyone could buy a camera, snap the photos, then return the camera to Eastman Kodak Labs at Rochester, NY, where the film was processed & printed. The camera was then reloaded at the factory and your prints and camera were returned, all for the paultry sum of $1.50, but keep in mind that in the 1890's top paid factory workers were only making $1.50 a day, for a 10hour day. The idea of making the film with a paper backing so the operator could load the film and just send the roll of film back for processing did not begin until Kodak introduced the "Kodak Brownie" in 1901. In those days there were no aperture or shutter speed adjustments and the ISO value was determined by the type of film used. Basically all they could do was take snapshots outdoors in direct sunlight. What I find most amazing is how little those photos have faded over the years.