Actually, Gorey wrote and illustrated many bizarre books, and his home is a museum on Cape Cod, I believe. I got Clare one of his books for Christmas a couple of years ago. It was about these strange children, and I think it was written in verse. It was called The Gashlycrumb Tinies. I talked to Clare a bit about your poems and book. She said getting them self published by Amazon's publishing company is easy. Then I forgot to get her to write down the details. But I think if you go on Amazon's website and hunt around, you'll find info on self publishing. I've seen the info many times. Clare was interested in the illustration idea, and I want to talk to her more about it. She's deep in a job right now, illustrating software on teaching children to read, and the publisher/editor who hired Clare keeps making the work more elaborate and changing things. Clare's stress level is building dealing with this person. Say....this thread is a great place to have private conversations I've noticed. Heehee. Maybe I should post a rose photo. Diane

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Funky.....I didn't have time to do a lot of research on knives because I wanted to get the order in ASAP. We currently have a set of low end Henckels.....it was probably $100 or less with the block, 6 knives and 6 steak knives. It's got to be at least 10 years old. I use the steak knives for just about everything...I know.....so bad. As mentioned, I don't cook much and if I do it's super easy stuff. I ended up buying Victoronix....a chef's and paring knife. Figured anything would be an upgrade from what we have and they got good reviews. Didn't want to go top of the line yet with Wusthoff or better Henckels, etc. I'll see how he likes these and will maybe invest in better knives down the road a bit. Thanks again!

Yes to lack of merchandise. I hate spending hours online trying to sift out what I want, especially when it isn't anything that unusual. Finally found the fairy books for little girls I wanted, and now have to take back three that I ordered from Amazon before finding the right ones. I am now waiting for an animal fuzzy hat for a baby which I thought would be all over the local stores but was not and then I found that the best ones online could not make it to me by my cut off date before we leave for the holiday. Sometimes I think I could make it in retail considering how poor of a job most of our local shops are doing, then I have to ask myself which came first, lack of customers or lack of selection and quality goods? I used to work at a high-end plant nursery and I see they have cut way back, which is probably a result of their nice stuff rotting in the store in previous years, not enough customers. A large array of bedding plants is a middle class luxury and the middle class has been grievously gutted in my region.