I saw an article on Facebook where you take a cutting and stick it in a potato. So I have 11 Rose cuttings some are in potatoes some aren't but they're all in soil and they are all under a plastic soda pop container. My first efforts were in too much sun and they all died within a week we have been in their containers for 3 weeks and all look great they still very green so hope I don't get all 11 I'm going to have to find a place to put a lot of new rose bushes

Cartegena can be a tough area, too. It's been almost 10 years since I was there, but there were tons of armed soldiers throughout the city. I don't think we would have felt comfortable going out on a tour of our own. We loved going partially through the canal - my brother-in-law; however, said it was like watching paint dry, but if he wasn't gambling, he wasn't happy anyway. My husband and I thought it was fascinating to watch our ship be boarded by the canal pilot and escorted to the eastern (but really westernmost) entrance of the canal. Did you know that the eastern entrance is more west than the western entrance? We also had the opportunity to visit the San Blas islands, home of the Cuna Indians - it was quite an eye-opener to see the sea-level islands. Helene

Cindy -- Well, I finished Purity of Blood and it's not a bad read. Some of the prose is, for lack of a better term, kind of Gothic or almost 19th century in style. However, given that the narrator is supposedly an old man reflecting on his early life in 1700s Spain, I guess it's forgivable. I still think that Perez-Reverte's other books are better. The books in his Alatriste series are nice, quick reads but they're not as complex nor as enticing as his previous works. Yes, there is mystery, sword fights, evil villains, and damsels who may or may not be in distress, but they're kind of shallow compared to his more fully developed or, better yet, better developed works. Still ..... they're nice reads for a weekend night when it's cold and blustery outside.

Colleen, you certainly put a new twist on things! I laughed pretty hard over your post! The conclusion of this adventure is that the seller does not have my book and is issuing a refund. They told me to keep the wrong book. I am not sure what to do with it. I think I discovered how/why the book got published - it contains quite a few nude photos of the author. So I have a bit of a dilemma. What do I do with it? Should I just go ahead and donate it to the library sale? Should I throw it away? Use it to start fires in my woodstove when the weather gets chilly?