I don't recognize the problem -- when we had Lamarque, it was fine. Realize that there are two (at least) roses out there going by that name. The one Jeri grows is very likely what is often called "California Lamarque." The other one, "Thomasville Lamarque" is more often seen in the South -- it's less vigorous, and has larger clusters of smaller flowers. Who knows which one is the "real" Lamarque. But in any case, both of them should do fine in Ocala, so I don't know what the problem is. I've only ever grown them on 'Fortuniana' roots, so I don't know how either should perform, own-root, in Florida. Malcolm

Around here, Walgreen's is the best for medical items. Hope you find it soon. I see that Walgreens sells them on line. How about Bed Bath & Beyond? They always have a big variety of items. A nice clean head of hair lifts anyone's spirits.

If it's 7 A.M., the temperature is below 20 degrees, I'm waiting for an outdoor auction to start and the only hot beverage they have for sale is coffee, I'll have a cup of it - black. Otherwise, I drink tea, hot or iced. My favorite of many decades is from a tea/coffee shop in our town. It's a full-bodied loose black tea called Russian Fancy, not to be confused with that smoky Russian Caravan. Another workhorse tea at our house is Twining's English Breakfast, which is great for making iced tea by the pitcher. For flavored teas, I like Black Currant and DH likes peach but we both enjoy Bigelow Constant Comment, which I think is a good value. Herbal tea is usually mint. Growing up, we never had dessert right after dinner except on holidays but every night after we finished the dinner dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, we'd have a cup of tea and a treat like cookies or nut bread. I revived that custom and we look forward to it. Most of you know that my best friend and I love to visit tea rooms and they have certainly enjoyed a revival throughout the eastern states in the last few years. I also have a lot of tea paraphernalia and entertain friends with tea parties. On Black Friday, I will be hosting a "Shop until you need teatime" open house like I did last year. Can you tell that I love tea?

My mother's parent's both immigrated from Italy - small villages in the Italian Alps not far from the Swiss border. My mother's parents also immigrated from northern Italy, Piemonte to be be more exact -- one from a small village north of Torino, and one from a small city (they met in Los Angeles). I made contact with her father's family, or rather a cousin in Torino searched and found us in California. I visited, and went with my cousin to see where the family originated. We went to the municipio, and for a few centesimi, obtained a copy of my grandfather's birth certificate. They still had huge ledgers with handwritten entries for births going back centuries -- the small number of people living there probably made storage of the ledgers possible. My father's father returned to his town in Toscana in his last years; I visited his grave so I have his date of death. I wrote the province and asked for information on his birth and death certificates, and surprisingly received an answer. I qualify to apply for Italian citizenship based on my father's father, or at least I did the last I checked, but other circumstances tossed a roadblock and long detour in my path. With the current rise of the Italian far right, I'm not sure I want to take the chance of reliving the days of fascists brawling in the streets.