Pepper is just beautiful. We had a cat that was mostly Maine Coon, and she was a wonderful cat. The day we had her PTS my DD (5 at the time) lamented that she wished she didn't love her cat so much, because it hurt so much that she had died. There is just something so special about a treasured pet. She will truly live forever in your heart. One of my favorite books for children about death is about a dog who died, but whose (child) owner feels comforted that his dog knew every day how loved he was. The same is true for Pepper . . .I can just tell she knew she was loved.

There is nothing worse than SA clematis in the South at least. I have one inside a bunch of azaleas. Our neighbor has it and I guess it " ran" across the street. I have pulled and dug and there is no stopping it. Joanne your video is WONDERFUL !! WOW>...I love the idea of the grapevine for a resting place. You gave me all sorts of ideas looking at the pics. I will have to go back and view it again and again. Lovely. natal: your garden is ALWAYS one of my favorites too. My roses and clemmies are all doing better than ever ever. I attribute it to bone meal. There is nothing like it . I put several large scoops a couple times a year and work it into the soil with a little hand cultivator...very gently. Water in and the plants go gang busters. Always add a handful of it and a handful of Osmocote to each planting hole and your plants will just burst out of the ground. When you look up clemmies you will read that they "crawl,walk run" so it takes 3 years to really get them going. The best thing to do is cut them back to about 6 inches each of the first two years so they will put out lots of stalks. You don't want just one. They build up a lot of strength. As mine start blooming I will post pics.

Vee -- Good question. What MAKES a work a novel? Is it length? Content? Lack of illustrations? Lack of "words" (shall we call them "pseudo-words"?) such as "splat" or "aarrgghh"? Are we to constrain the term "novel" to merely works that are predominantly comprised of text? What if a work had one or two illustrations? Shall we consign such works to the bonfires of the "non-novel"? Of course, if a work had equal parts illustration and text, what shall we call those? Picture books? Half-novels? Literature for the illiterate? Yes vee, graphic novels are just picture books with few or no words. And you are correct -- those of us who purchase such works are lookers and not readers. You see, we don't really know how to read anything other than large, stylized but emotive printed text like "yeek" or "aargh" or "splat". These terms, by the way, follow a unique canon of agreed upon words, conventions, pictures, exclamations, and sock colors that all graphic novels MUST abide by. If they don't abide by them, then they can't be called graphic novels. It is put out by the Graphic Novel Code Authority and all graphic novel purchasers are REQUIRED to buy a copy otherwise they won't understand what's going on (after all, the medium and the paucity of words does not lend itself to expression). A select and secret committee of graphic novel artists and writers get together every full moon to discuss the entries in the canon and they burn their notes afterwards. If the smoke arising from the fire is purple, it means that they have a new definition but if the smoke is colored green, it means that they couldn't agree on a definition or whether to order subs or wraps for lunch. As a sampling of such terms and their agreed upon definitions, here are a few : yeek - a codeword for something icky -- as in when someone sees a mouse, you see the term "yeek" with the character pointing at the offending item/creature aargh - in graphic novels, this is placed in a panel with a stricken character as a form of extreme unction signifying that the character is about to shuffle off this mortal coil (or is in the process of shuffling off but can't seem to figure out where he left his house keys especially when the cabbie's waiting at the door) splat - a very old and respected brand of cushion that used to buy hidden advertising space in comic books. It is used to signify mushy things suddenly decelerating against a non-yielding surface. The term has migrated to the graphic novel space in honor of the company's previous support of the graphic arts. Unfortunately, the financial support that they provided stopped when the company went bankrupt following a bank run in Honduras after a bizarre banking scandal. The company's employees had discovered that when the company said it was investing their 401k into CDs, the company really WAS investing in compact disks manufactured in Honduras. The company CEO subsequently disappeared but is...

Lilyfinch, I am sorry about your loss Olivia. And anyone who lost a pet. After all they are like a family members. I lost a few too. Thank you everyone for your condolences and sympathies. But I am taking step by step. Lilyfinch, it is okay. I am having trouble to talk to my sister also. It is extremely difficult to talk about anything. So, we decided not to bring her name up and if we do she just breaks down to tears. Giving her some space until she is ready to talk. So far I talk to her 3 times (5 mins most) where we used to talk daily and for hours. Time will heal. But thank you , all you Rosarians. I truely appreciate deep down my heart. I just don't want anyone to be in that boat. That is why I brought her up and I am extremely quite as not talking about my personal life. A little about Meveen. She is beautiful girl who loves to dress up and applied makeup. Yes, she is very wealthy but very kind , helpful. She is brought up with tons of love. A graduate from Singapore University with a degree. She is always laughing and joking with great personality. Falling in love with a guy who is very abusive mentally and physically cause damage to her. She was madly in love to a wrong guy. And about to marry him. This is a deleted post that I took a screen shot. The post was taken down. It is by a top photographer in Singapore. Jin