Those of you who know my "love" of phals will really laugh at this one! I am happy to say I do not miss a single plant that has died. Don't get me wrong, I probably mourned, but I have undergone so many changes in "orchid affections" that I really don't miss any of them. And the ones that I gave away or traded? Well, good riddance! OK, so the ONE? A phal!!! And the only reason why I miss it is that DH gave it to me (a HD phal), and it eventually spent a tortuous summer getting sunburned, and then, since I can't stand phals, (but they hate me too, and refuse to bloom) I decided to give it to my mother as a starter orchid. Well, close to it being mailed, I noticed a spike! Well, I felt committed to giving it to Mom, and against DH's advice ("She'll kill it!"), I sent it to her. She killed it. DH and I really had no sentimental value attached to this plant. But a shade plant that took A LOT of direct sun (my live or die regimen), got sunburned to hell, and THEN decide to bloom?! I should not have sentenced it to certain death. That's why I miss it. It didn't deserve death. And I deserved it's bloom ;) Besides, I could have given it Mom after it bloomed :p Carolyn

Agnes -- Yes, the Hardy Boys are still around. I think they go through a periodic overhaul to ensure that they don't seem TOO dated. The original Hardy Boys series was written in the '20s and '30s and they were overhauled in the 50s or so. I think they received another makeover in the 80s and, from what I can see, they're in the middle of another one. I think they're actually producing NEW stories. I found the Hardy Boys series to be quite engaging when I was about 12 years old. Nowadays, I find them interesting as they reflect the times in which they were written. You can really see the results of the overhaul from the 50s, what with Chet's jalopy and sock hop dances. Nowadays, if I'm not mistaken, Chet (or was it one of the brothers?) is now a computer hacker of sorts.

The Black Arrow...Robert Louis Stevenson

Years ago when The Far Pavillions first came out, it was very popular and was hard to get from the library. I finally found it on the shelf (and I worked at that library too!) and took it home. It went back unread at the end of the borrowing period. This happened a few times; for some reason, I just couldn't sit down to read it. Finally, my sister in law gave me a paperback copy as a birthday present and it again sat on my shelf unread for quite a while. One day, bored, I picked it up and started reading it. Hours later, my eyes closing despite my efforts to stay awake, I put down the book with only 60 or so pages to go and fell asleep. I finished it the next morning and couldn't understand what took me so long to get into it. For those who think Tolkein is too wordy, Rosefolly explained it much better than I could. She said he wrote as if the books were being presented orally. (Rosefolly, you explained it more clearly in a much earlier post.)In other words, his works are meant to be read aloud. If you listen to an audio presentation of LoTR, you will hear this.