back in suburbia.. on limited lot size... i too fixated on size ... etc .. moved to 5 acres... i dont have to worry about all that nonsense ... given i have no space constraints ... you know what..??? .. the garden can take care of itself and i dont have to force my predisposition on it all ... and 99% of the time... i like the result ... its what i would call the 'cottage garden' look ... as compared to 'formal garden' look ... the other 1% die.. for not cooperating with my outlook .. lol ... my point.. if i have one... you spent a lot of time and effort.. trying to force your will on the plants ... and you were constantly frustrated ... thats not quite what the garden should do for you.. raise your blood pressure ... let the peeps with the garden staff.. do the whole 'formal' thing .... so you let them do their own thing.. and now they are happy.. and you are happy ... one might call that .. a more zen approach to the garden ... ken

So sorry to hear about your father, but nice that you got a final phone call. I can see how that would be comforting. When I lived in Culver City (1989-1994) I had a land line with a phone number that had previously belonged to Larry Welk III, a helicopter pilot for channel 9 news. At this time I mostly used the name Larry instead of Lars because Larry is what my family called me, and that is the name that I identified myself by on my answering machine, which had cassette tapes back then. At one point I started to get a lot of phone calls from companies that wanted to sell me insurance for my helicopter, and this would take up a lot of space on the cassette tapes, which I could not fast forward through at that time. Therefore I changed my outgoing message to say, "Hello, you have reached 310 377-8855, the house of NO LAWRENCE WELK music. If you think you have reached this number in error, take two Geritol and dial again in the morning." The calls from the insurance companies stopped after that. However, when my mother heard this message, it made her mad, and she made me change it because she was a Lawrence Welk fan.

When it comes to "spoofing" I don't think there's any way to prevent it. However they do it doesn't have anything to do w/your phone line or account, they just use the number. I know ours was being spoofed because at the time we still had our answering machine hooked up to our land line. I received several nasty messages from strangers complaining that we'd called them. I immediately disconnected the answering machine and turned the ringer off of the land line.

I've not blocked any numbers and I get very few robo calls at home. I used to get them at work, and even there I did not answer if I did not recognize the phone number. Where I live the main area code is 310, but my number has the overlay area code 424. I don't know anyone else who has a 424 number, and so if I get a call that begins with 424, I can be pretty sure it is a robo call. My doctors numbers all have the 310 area code, and frequently when the doctor's office calls, only the number and no name shows up. I will answer 310 calls that I do not recognize for this reason, but I try to put them in my contacts list for future reference. I wish the doctor's offices would put a name in their caller ID. Most robo calls that I get do not leave a message, but if they do, it is usually in Chinese.