RE: Baretta Street Amber...Wow, this has been REALLY slow to grow, but it bloomed this week, and these little flowers are so beautiful! Very interesting to compare my TINY little plant with the much larger mature specimen in the Sacramento Cemetery. The color of the flowers here is very different- you can see that it's a creamy pink. (the darker ones in back are Buff Beauty). When I'm home from work tonight, I'll see of the other bud that I left has opened.

Thank you Cat. Her parents say that one thing everyone can do for the family is to pray for her, regardless of religious beliefs. She is a spiritual girl who loves God. I don't know her personally, nor do I know her family, but this is a big issue in our community, there was one attempted kidnapping a few weeks before but the girl escaped. We're hoping for the best.

I must agree with the too-few people who really liked this book. I read this book many years ago, but remember it vividly because its one of my favorites. Its great entertainment, but more than that. I didnt see much of the sexual parts in it, but I was reading it by modern standards. Looking back though, I could see how a book like this could be considered quite racy for its time. But I think that because I didnt notice many sexual parts I was more able to see the many complexities of it. It could have ended up as a cheezy romance had the history parts not been as wonderful as they were. Its a book that shows the fall of a woman. How one bad decision can lead to another, and can ruin one's own life and the lives of others. It was facinating to witness the outcomes of Amber's actions and how she never seemed to learn from them. Like many young people Amber rushed into danger (under the guise of the new and unknown) headfirst. When you think about it, Amber didnt do anything that any young person has done before. The glances into the time period were also dazzling to me, thought the book wasnt about history at all, it was about the life of Amber living in this time period. Throughout the book I was unsure weather I liked Amber or not. I disliked her reasoning, and deplored many of her actions, but somehow I couldnt help but like her and hope that everything turned out well for her. I loved her optomism, and her refusal to let bad life circumstances (which were sometimes of her own making) get the better of her. I was really surprised at the abrupt ending. I was SO looking forward to see if Bruce actually did come to love her or not. But I think now that it was better that it did end so. It imbued in us, the reader, the same optomism that Amber has for her future. But in all likelyhood it will end as bad for her as it did for Tess D'Urberville. -Sorry this is so long! I was going to start my own post about it but saw that there was allready one and that it was fairly recent. CMK

O, I have one of these (and I thought you did too, Floral). Symplocus paniculata - flowers look like little myrtle blossoms which turn into blue berries. Thanks for posting this, Rouge. Will look at my somewhat uninspiring shrublet in a new light.