The number of hours of winter chill, matter with the once blooming old European roses, I live c. 10 miles east of San Francisco, Ca and I think our climate zones may be similar. Temperatures here rarely get below 30 degrees above zero Farenheit, and if so, than at most for a week or so in total, and that every few years, however some of the Alba, Gallica and Hybrid China roses bloom very well here, -de la Grifferaie blooms gloriously for more than a month in spring, and the Apothecary Rose and Alba Semi-Plena have a shorter bloom cycle, but bloom fully. In Oakland, Ca I've grown Celsiana and La Ville de Bruxelles and both are extraordinary roses, for beauty of bloom. La Belle Sultane didn't bloom much for the first two years in my garden but now it is taking off and Luanne, my wonderful neighbor has an older plant that blooms fully and very beautifully. Her plant of 'The Bishop' is the healthiest and most beautiful of the once bloomers in her garden, it produces a bountiful display of red-mauve roses every year. If you want more ideas for Old European roses to grow with borderline winter chill, I suggest that you search the Internet to find out how many hours of winter chill you get each year and compare it with San Jose California and if they are close, then check the website of the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, They list all the roses they grow. I've seen these blooming at san jose heritage and would grow them where I live: Belle Isis Nestor Felicite Parmentier de Meaux (also grown at the Berkeley Botanical garden) Mme Legras de St. Germain Belle Amour Konigin von Danemark James Mason (a modern Gallica) Gloire de Guilan although the garden is very hot in summer with temperatures in the 90's and triple digits, with few hours of winter chill, San Josee Heritage Rose Garden have dozens of the older European roses, most of these bloom during the weeks between: mid to late May through June most years. Best Wishes, Luxrosa If your garden has as much winter chill as Sebastopol California, then you might look at the list of roses that vintagegardens.com sells, as all of their mother plants are grown on site in that town.

I have a vintage *dryer* - a 40-year-old GE that's got to be the smallest one in existence. It's about 20" wide & deep and runs on 120V electric. It's non-vented, but I don't think it's a condensation dryer; rather, it just exhausts through a filter and fills the room with warm, humid air. There's no automatic shutoff; you have to guess how long it will take and set a timer (it does automatically add a cool-down period at the end). It somehow manages to hold a decent amount of clothes and dry them in a half hour. The apartment lease forbids the installation of any appliances permanently attached to electric, gas, water, or exhaust lines, verbiage likely intended to include washers and dryers, but the landlord and his lawyers don't know about 40-year-old portable mini-dryers, or the similarly small washer that temporarily attaches to the sink faucet and drains into the shower, neither of which are permanently attached to anything and thus skirt the rules. I bought it used; i've only seen one other like it. Although I never owned one, many years back my then-gf had an old 1960s Frigidaire washer with the roller mechanism which we spent a weekend repairing, using a big orange repair manual as a guide. It was top-load and the agitator bounced up and down rather than twisting sideways. The tub was slightly wider at the top than at the bottom, and didn't have the usual perforation holes in it; instead it spun crazy fast and used centrifugal force to drain the water over the top sides. (I can't remember her birthday or her middle name or her shoe size anymore but still remember the details of her laundry appliances. I have no idea what that means...) The house I grew up in had an old Maytag set; for some reason I still have the owner's manual so I know it was model 906A. Top of the line from circa 1970; the entire back control panel was illuminated with a bright fluorescent tube that stayed lit whenever the machine was running - I have no idea what its purpose was. No control knobs, which was rare back then in those pre-electronic days, just a row of mechanical buttons. The matching dryer had an real bell that clanged every ten seconds or so for the last few minutes. They lasted until a few years ago. My other vintage appliance is an early-60s Frigidaire window air conditioner that cools the bedroom in the summer. The style of the vents and buttons remind me of a car dashboard of the era, perhaps not surprising since Frigidaire back then was owned by General Motors. Ah, the days when GM used to make appliances. The way things are going, we'll soon be reminiscing about the days when GM used to make cars....

Thanks for all of the input. Part of my concern is that my only "risk" factors are a slender build and drinking one cup of coffee a day, so there is nothing to cut out. I've been taking 2000 mg of D3 for about a dozen years in addition to my daily multivitamin. I walk an average of 4 miles a day, much of it carrying groceries. After finding out about osteopenia in my neck, I've changed my daily headstands to handstands. I do seated and supine exercises wearing my rollerskates which weigh 3 1/2 pounds each. Maybe I need to move into actual gym weights and add calcium + magnesium to my vitamin program. I eat dark, leafy greens, but I can always eat more. And maybe I just say, hey, I'm 66 and this is the reality of getting older. Up until a few years ago, I had an insurance policy with a $10,000 deductible. I went to the doctor when I got sick, paid out of pocket and the only tests I got were when I was a volunteer research subject. I never even knew I had this problem until I got that dexa scan test. Maybe I've had it for years. All I know is that I don't want to spend even three weeks feeling as emotionally distraught as I felt on that drug.

It's extremely bulky. Also, if she does any kind of work that involves handlebars, she'll have to take it off or it will get damaged (weight machines, chin-ups, bicycle, ladders, etc). Personally, I'd find it very uncomfortable for driving. (I have some rings that are slightly wide and thick, and I take them off for longer trips. They're not even as thick as the oura.) This is what version "3" looks like, on what seems like kind of a small hand: