Thank you everyone for your sympathies. C3D: That is a beautiful poem. I am going to print it and frame it along with the pawprint and lock of hair the vet is going to give me when I pick up her ashes on Thursday. I had a little panic attack this weekend when I had trouble contacting Lisa about McLovin. In the meantime we went to the Berea Animal Rescue Kittyrama. I fell in love with a 1 year old gold tabby female named Tiger. Didn't want to make any hasty decisions so we left without her. Heard from Lisa's daughter Saturday afternoon and if everything goes well may have McLovin this week. Bear's sister Boa is missing her terribly. She walks around the house caterwauling looking for her. This is the first time in her life she has been alone. I am so excited. My son still wants to get Tiger, but I told him to be patient till McLovin has a chance to adjust to her new surroundings. Now you have to remember this is coming from a person who said "never again, no more animals." lol Jenny

Laurel and Sue - ME AND MY SHADOW was a Munson seedling that John Rice acquired in a huge group he bought from Wimberlyway after Bill Munson died. He tried to register it in 2004, but at that time the Munson family refused to have any seedlings registered with Bill's name on them. Their concern was that people were registering seedlings that wouldn't have met Bill's high standards. The AHS honored the wishes of the Munson family and turned down the registration. My understanding is that Rice was going register it this year in his name only. As far as I know, the only place you can get ME AND MY SHADOW is from Rice or from someone willing to sell some fans on the Lily Auction. I got mine when Rice auctioned some single fans to benefit victims of the Katrina Hurricane. The color is rich, dark and holds in the sun. Here's another photo of it from last fall on rebloom. Last year, when it used to rain regularly, it had 5-way branching and 22 buds per scape. This drought year, it's only top branched with 8-10 buds a scape. Debra

So.... just so you know - you enabler, you - this is how my mind works: I thought, "wow, I really like VIOLET TRANQUILITY", so I looked it up, Petit. Went to Petit's website, and low and behold they are having a summer sale (*DON'T, REPEAT, DON'T LOOK!!!!). Then I think, "well, I don't really have enough of Ted's work in my garden... so maybe I should get some". LOL. Oh boy. Thankfully I contained myself and just got ONE from the BOGO sale, which *REALLY* means he will send me three! Aral Sea Royal Fringe Fleet Goddess YIPPEE!!! I think my first bloom was WHEEL OF TIME, which is weird, because it is registered as a mid, but anyway, that was on April 28th. But, I think it would be an outlier and mostly things started about May 11 -15. We had a lot of that same weather pattern, which was great - lots of rain and cool weather!

The bad news is that apparently this is a very common problem with this printer. Not sure if there's good news or not. The way it sounds from what I've found is that there's probably an issue with, most likely the color cartridge. Several resolved it by replacing the color cartridge, whether defective or a low tank, I'm not sure. Here's one excerpt I found: "I just got off the HP help line. After changing my black ink cartridge a test page was printing each time I turned the machine on. This is very costly, in both time and ink as the cartridges themselves for this machine hold very little ink. I tried to learn from HP tech how to turn off the test-print while keeping my color cartridge empty. It turns out that you cant do it. HP requires you to keep buying and using cartridges whether you need them or not.If you buy the color ink it will use it up in its testings. And if you dont buy the color cartridge it will use up your black ink by printing the test each time you turn on the printer. The printer was inexpensive sure, but I'm paying for it in wasted ink." But I did find this at the HP support center: "To ensure the highest-quality prints, the product performs an automatic alignment process when you setup the product for the first time, and when you replace the cartridges as part of normal maintenance. The product prints an alignment page during this alignment process. You must complete the full alignment process or the product continues to print an alignment page each time you turn the product on or off, or start a print job. HP used to be solid printers. (sigh) Not anymore. Do you have new cartridges? Also, are the ones in there HP brand or a generic? Here is a link that might be useful: An Alignment Page Prints Every Time that the All-in-One is Turned On or Off or a Print Job is Started