First off, I'm so sorry you got sick. What a bummer for it to hit while you were off for some rest and relaxation time. At least you were able to look around a bit and enjoy being in such a neat town. Hope you will feel better soon. Bonnie, have you shown us your pretty dishes? You know we like to see them even when not in a tablescape. How about posting some pics of your treasures for us? OA, it's nice to know your IRL name, don't think you've mentioned it on here before. ;o) I'm Kay in case you didn't know, but I'm so used to Luvs on here that I sometimes catch myself signing emails that way even! LOL Luvs

Unfortunately, I can't think of a way I could help. Back in 1995, veterans were gathering to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of the war. When I volunteered to help, I was contacted by vets looking for buddies they hadn't heard from in decades. I found hundreds of them. It was a wonderful experience. I simply used software that had phone directories for the U.S. It was state-of-the-art at the time, but very ho-hum 12 years later. If I think of anything, I'll let you know. Don't you wish GardenWeb email worked better?

I have to agree with Linda on this one. You arranged this nearly a month ahead of time, never even got a reply saying that he had received the email with the time and would be there, and never spoke at all in between? My friends and I generally think of long noncommunication as an implicit agreement that whatever was being discussed has fallen by the wayside. Less so if there's a definite date and time or it's a big-deal event, and it's certainly more polite of the guest to do the confirming himself, so as not to make you feel like the mother hen, but still, in the interest of not wasting my efforts, I would have called a few days before to confirm rather than just preparing a meal and hoping for the best. I think it was more than gracious that he apologized on the phone and then sent you a handwritten note after you chastised him twice. To be blunt, after that sequence of events, I would be wondering whether the host preferred being righteously angry to actually having brunch with me. You may find that everyone has more fun if you open yourself to some slightly less rigid social occasions.

sat in garage for awhile.. would do a close inspection of all related wiring for rodent damage; try jumping off engine right at starter with separate batt and then start to trace down with voltmeter where power is not getting thru ( ign sw, start solenoid, starter, wiring)....and just to be on the safe side, get that new batt load tested. the smaller batts are somewhat notorious for being bad right off the shelf.