Well i spoke to a man at SBOE named wayne and i was told he was the manager so i spoke to him and i asked which variety did they sell, the one from the comoros or from madagascar he said he did not know and asked me if there was a genetic difference between the two? i said no i dont beleive. he said thats interesting and that he did not know they were in the comoros and that he thinks the ones they have are from madagascar. so he asked me what is the difference? so i said the rest periods are harsher and longer in madagascar and in the comoros its not that harsh or long. and then i asked what do you do? he told me that they in the winter grow them dry and when they start to show the slightest sign of distress he waters them. so i asked when the leaves look a little wrinkly? he said yeah and then in the summer when they just get a little dry. he advised that many look down-right ugly. he also said that they may even look that way in summer as well just because they are so thirsty. he said i believe that he said that you reduce to about half from regular watering. ill have to call and see if i can speak with him again. they both were very helpful!!!!!!!!!!! I ultimately bought leonis from cal because they did not have them in stock at SBOE. when i called i left a message and then called again and spoke with a woman(Lauris) and she said oh you must be sam looking for the leonis? i said yes i am!!! so she said that she only had 2 left(Lucky me) i was very dissapointed thinking oh well im out of luck thinking she was gonna say that she already sold them. To my suprise she said that she set one aside just for me and that it even has a spike!!! i started jumping up and down!!!!! i asked can is it too late to order it and it be here this weekend? she said no its not. I said can you hold it for me untill my mom gets back with the credit card(Im only 17 hahaha), she said sure but just order before 2:30. so i called back and she said okay and i asked how big are the spikes and she said not too big maybe 2-3 inches and i has one flower that had already bloomed, Wait it Get better she then noticed another spike emerging from the leaves!!!!! so now you'll have two spikes,and it has 7 leaves. the best part is It was 25.00$!!! hah i called at just the right time huh!!! you all will have to come back and check the posts for my pics this friday Okay you promise. ill be sure to describe the fragrance for you guys although MB youve probably smelled it before!!!!!!!!! Thank you all!!!! Happy Growing!!!!!!!!!! Samuel

LOL! I'd just love to meet some of the people who write these jokes. It's too bad that jokes never seem to get credited with the author. Thanks for lightening things up. I have a published letter in the newspaper about Health Insurance today but let's not go there, here!

If you find yourself 'being different' ALL the time, are you simply being oppositional? How likely is it that one person disagrees with a group of others about so much? You are, of course, welcome to your views, whether they are real or simply meant to oppose. Lucille, thanks for your calm and well-stated comments. No, I'm not being oppositional. I'm male (one of few here), I'm younger than the majority of participants, and there are several other demographical differences that others' comments highlight to me. And I'm a hybrid A-B personality, I'm not passive. I want to resolve ASAP problems or issues I face, I don't accept the status quo about anything. These factors make it very likely that my reaction to a situation someone describes on this forum will often differ from that of others. I offer my views, when they differ, as another perspective or counterpoint to consider. To me, a litany of comments of agreement or concurrence to what someone else has said that are common here add little to a discussion. PS - Thank you too to joyful guy.

What is Trump's admiration for Putin all about? Who knows for sure, but it probably has to do with his business involvements with russian oligarchs. From WaPo: There is strong evidence that Trump’s businesses have received significant funding from Russian investors. Most notably, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. made that very claim at a real estate conference in New York in 2008, saying “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” Donald Trump Jr. added, “we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Trump also made millions when he agreed to bring the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013, a deal financed in part by the development company of a Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov. Agalarov is a Putin ally who is sometimes called the “Trump of Russia” because of his tendency to put his own name on his buildings. At the time, Trump mingled with the Russian business elite at a swanky after-party. “Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” Trump bragged on returning home. As a sign of the importance of Russian investors, partners of one of Trump’s projects then under construction in Panama visited Moscow to sell condos at the building in 2006. Trump also made significant money from one Russian oligarch in 2008, when he sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev. Trump had bought the home at a bankruptcy auction less than four years earlier for $41.4 million.