Thank you for your responses. I kept researching online and kept running into the idea of "fungus" being the culprit so I panicked and pulled both of them out of the pot. The roots looked normal, I think, but they were mostly brown (not a lot of white) although they did not seem dry. I don't know what healthy roots look like. Anyway there were more roots than soil it seemed so I did my best to separate the two plants without destroying too much of the roots of either. Did loose about half the roots of the dried "dead-looking" one and about a fourth of the other plant's roots. I repotted the healthy rosemary into the same pot with a lot more soil and out of sheer attachment kept the "dead" one. I planted it in an other pot with more soil just in case it still had some life left in it. The roots did not have any rot and the soil was moist but not soggy. Maybe it was root bound? It is not really humid in San Antonio and I figure that if I had over or under watered BOTH plants would have died. Our temperatures for the last month or so have been 100 to 104 with a heat index of up to 10 degrees more and we have not had any significant rain in almost three months. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the healthy plant will not hate me for all the movement. So far it looks ok... we'll see if it survives that change. By the way... the one that died is not brown or black... it is a dried green pale sage color. It's leaves are all mostly on the branches although all the shaking to seperate the two plants made it loose a lot of needles.

As much as we enjoyed the Robert Parker books, I refused to buy them after I realized that we were reading them in about 2 hours. They were great big books printed on the thickest paper with the largest margins and very few words per page. We used to joke about how fast we would read them. "Honey, could you flip the steak now?" "Sure, just let me read this Spenser book first." lol My irreverent husband wondered if his obituary would be written like that, too. All that aside, I'm sorry Robert Parker died, he wasn't very old and I'm sure his family will miss him terribly. We did enjoy his books and the TV show with Robert Urich, he was the perfect Spenser. I recommend reading his books in the order that they were written in, when possible. They do have a progression of characters and story lines that might be helpful. (And I have to agree about the Susan Silverman eating habits and Jesse Stone's tortured love life.... I got kind of tired of both of those.)

Thanks for all the comments. As to some of your questions, the biomom isn't a mother by any sense of the word. She is a user and even borrows money from SD (she works weekends as a waitress) and never pays her back. But my SD defends her, so I just stay out of it. As for SD grades, yeah, her grades have dropped. We are not exacting parents, but we do prefer to see A's and B's. My boys both had all A's and B's, with one exception: 17 son had a C in his dual enrolled math course. SD had 3 C's...she was simply told to bring them up, but there was no consequences. Besides working Thur. Fri. Sat nights, she plays Varsity BB and has practice 4 times a week. She then plays SB in the spring. I have spoken to DH and he has agreed to try and be a bit more fair...I told him it was that or we just weren't going to last. Today was day one...and we'll see what happens from here. As to what he thinks they're doing when they are together...well, this is true...I kid you not. The boy is a "christian" and has "christian" parents and HD seems to think that makes him trustworthy. Hah! SD room is detached from the main house...about 60 ft. away. She and bb like to hang out in there alone. HD allows this. One night I was outside by our fire pit and they came out of the room and turned out the outside light. It got very quiet and they stayed there for several minutes, so I called out "Hey, no lingering in the dark!" SD stormed into the house and told her dad what I said. She told him they were PRAYING!!! And he believed her! I just couldn't believe he fell for that. Anyway, I appreciate all your comments and you are all right...he has to do the changing, for both his sake and SD. Thanks!

lacey, the books by F J Macdonald are very gentle reads about his simple life growing up on a remote croft on Harris (it's worth looking it up on a map just to see how far it is from the centre of population). I remember he describes his Grandfather, the Kirk Elder, who lived in the 'town' of Tarbert, having the first flushing WC installed and soon wondering what had happened to the wonderful oyster harvest in the sea-loch. The price of progress! I think JFM must have been born at the end of WW1 or early '20's and his story takes him up to WW11 . . .hence the Lysander . . . He used to give talks on the BBC and when I read his work I could 'hear' his Highland lilt coming through. 'Scots' or 'Scottish' are fine. I don't think 'Scotch' is correct; it's a drink. I can't help you on your second request (unless it's Robert Louis Stevenson and the 'Kidnapped' stories) but the Abe books site below might jog your memory. Here is a link that might be useful: Some books about the Highlands