Oh!!!! I understand. Thanks Hazelnut! These swaps are fun huh? *****Laurie's List****** I LOVE fairies...my garden theme is fairies. Oh heck...I have them everywhere...I admit it. Unicorns Windchimes Scented candles or fragrance oils I love all plants but I like growing bulbs. And plants with "Fairy" in the name. :o) I collect sharpies and pens I have 2 dogs and 2 cats I like heart stickers scrapbook stuff My favorite color is "Autumn" I like fruity bath stuff, body sprays, lip gloss, fingernail polish, fingernail stickers, etc. I also like garden stakes It's hard picking my brain at the spur of the moment. :oP Rosie, I will send you my address soon. Thanks! This is a neat idea!!! Laurie

Where I went to university (Rice, in Houston), we had residential colleges, like Harvard and Yale, and the freshmen were require to sign up to serve tables for dinner, generally on alternating weeks, depending on how many freshmen there were to go around. We had seated dinners with white tablecloths, and the waiter-freshmen would go to the food service kitchen with a huge tray to pick up the plates of food for the tables they were serving. Everyone was required to wear a tie for dinner, and on Sundays a coat and tie. If people at the table wanted seconds, the freshman server would go back to the kitchen to get them. At the end of the meal, we would clear the table, take orders for coffee or tea and come back with dessert and the coffees and teas required. I hated the food service food, and the meat they served helped me to decide to remain vegetarian at that time. The tea was terrible too, and so I would bring my own tea bags to dinner, which a few people thought was a tiny bit strange, but most thought it was a good idea, and it caught on. At dessert, I would have to ask for "hot water" instead of "tea" to make sure that my cup did not come back with a tea bag already in it. I used to have tea parties in my college room, and I would serve cake from one of the local delicatessens - usually Alfred's in The Village, which is no longer there. I had an electric kettle and a Bavarian porcelain tea pot and cups. I also had sterling silver sugar tongs, to use with sugar cubes. If any guest picked up sugar cubes with his fingers instead of with the tongs, he didn't get invited back. Fortunately Houston had good restaurants, and Alfred's was a good alternative to university food - plus it was walking distance. Also as a freshman during the first month, we were supposed to wear stupid beanies and vests (only Hanszen College required this, and I happened to be in Hanszen), and we also had to learn each upperclassman in our section (Hanszen had five sections) by name and greet him by name if we passed each in the quadrangle. If we failed to do this and were caught, we were then forced to do "shack runs", which meant that we had to go to all the rooms in our section and take orders (and money) for take out food from the local "Chicken Shack" restaurant on the other side of Main Street from the university. This part of freshman orientation had become voluntary by the time I was a freshman, and so I volunteered not to participate. Later in the year, I was elected to the freshman council and got some of the more (to me) humiliating traditions abolished, in order to bring Hanszen up to date with the other colleges - all of which had already abolished those traditions. I didn't oppose freshman orientation, but I did oppose the "Shack Runs". I also did not oppose having freshman wait tables, which of course lasting beyond freshman week. The worst tradition at Rice was the water balloon fights. I was lucky enough never to get hit, but I had some close calls. Also at Rice, despite a male/female ratio of about 3/2, there were no panty raids on the female colleges (housing was segregated back then, although visitor of both sexes were allowed in rooms). Instead, the female residents had jock raids on the male colleges, in an effort to get attention. All they got instead was a bombardment of water balloons. Lars

I love the lines: "His mean little mouth was drawn up in a sneer But the cleft in his chin was as cute as his rear...." That's why it would be fun to see the original version as it played out over those days/weeks. We had to wait to see what lines would be posted next, and it was that much more amusing because they were posted in two or four line additions.

When I'm being tailed too close I tap my break pedal just enough so the light goes on and they think I'm breaking. After a couple of times, they get the hint, but I love the window washer idea, will try that next time. One thing some drivers do that I just don't get is to ignore merge lanes. We have a lot of turning lanes that start out as two at the turn light, but after the turn, they eventually merge into one. Ideally, cars are supposed to alternate to form a single line, but instead a lot of folks here purposely speed up so the car from the other lane can't get in even though the lane is ending. Seriously? Where are they supposed to go? Over the curb? The same thing happens on the freeway too when there's an accident or road construction. It really irks me to no end.