blue

Great article. Great skeptical points and very funny. One other point would be, if there is such a thing, if you (observer) can tell if he or she (observed) is gay, that so-called gaydar, then -- do only gay/bi people have gaydar, or do straight people have gaydar too? No, seriously, if "gayness" (or "bi-ness") shows up just by looking at a face, then can your straight buddies tell too? Just what exactly IS it that "gaydar" supposedly senses? Looks? Sound? Movement? What? ...And I dare any of that not to sound somehow like picking up a stereotype. Is it hormonal, pheromonal? If so, we'd sense it in person, but not from photos. It's a legitimate question. Is there some way you know a guy is gay or a girl is gay? (Yeah, yeah, somebody's gonna say, well, maybe the fact he's kissing a guy is a clue....) But no, I mean it seriously. Just how DO you think we (gay or straight) know for sure (and accurately) if someone is gay? Does it kick in at puberty? Can you tell if some kindergartener is gay? Honestly, it's a question. OK, let's say you have a foolproof answer all thought out. Now how do you explain how one person can have a "reliable" (accurate) gaydar, and another one can't tell most of the time, or at all? Yes, this can readily affect the person, at least in his dating life and perhaps in getting hit (or missed). The theory would need to account for that too. I'm being very honest there, because, well, I've never felt I had a gaydar that worked even half the time. That was definitely true before I came out, and still is mostly true afterwards. Being totally honest, as a teen, I was usually pretty clueless about whether someone liked me (was attracted) or how to take that or show I was attracted, without being obnoxious, or at all, pretty much. It seemed like, even to me, that I was blissfully unaware. Yet hey, I did want the chance to date and maybe find out. I had the desire, and the equipment seemed to work fine. (Except it seemed to work when thinking about guys instead of girls. Hmm.....) I'm trying not to get too off-track there. What I'm trying to say is, if someone's going to prove "gaydar," they have to explain how gay/bi people know a person is gay; they have to explain how straight people can or can't have gaydar; and they have to explain how gaydar develops along with developing sexual awareness and sexual emotional maturation. What about that girl or boy who seems blissfully unaware that some boy or girl likes him/her, or how to let that person, or the person they like, know that yes, they like them. What about that gaydar? Come on, you're just as gay (or bi or straight) if your gaydar works or if it doesn't, right? But how does it work? How would you know if he or she is gay? Can you...auto-tune your gaydar? Meh. I liked it a lot better getting a good laugh out of it. But it'd be nice to know if there is some real kind of gaydar, or how that all works, or the auto-tune thing. Besides, I still wonder if Bobby just wanted to hang out, or if, like I was kinda hoping.... :angel: Oh well, that one will always be a mystery. Darn it.

Three years ago now, I had a chance to visit cousins with a teenage daughter and son. The boy was very quiet then, mostly, though I think he's finally growing out of it. The daughter, though, is the kind of girl who knows her own mind and what she wants and where she's going. (Dang, don't you admire people like that?) However, well, you know, she's a teenage girl. So...OMG! The Jonas Brothers! Justin Bieber! The.... (And so on.) And then when we drove by the neighborhood of the boy she liked, OMG! He's so.... You don't want to know the reaction when we actually went by and saw the young guy, skateboarding and shirtless. You'd have thought a major earthquake hit the van, hahaha. Hmm, and I have no idea of his personality (...apparently, he's hot, cute, and soooo dreamy, and Mama, can she stop for just a minute and talk...) but hey, if I were that age, he was indeed good looking. Except, you know, for a 9th grade athletic skater type boy. He'd have to grow up a few years. Definitely my female cousin's thing, though! Watching and hearing all the reactions from the young female cousin was, OMG! sooo amazing! -- particularly when she was otherwise very together, poised, and well spoken...when not experiencing massive teenage girl hormones, hahaha. Her brother was too quiet to really know yet. I got the feeling he'd be reserved, even on his favorite subjects, at the time, or about girls. (He was much better about all that last time they visited.) (Uh, and I think he's probably straight.) All the teenage fangirl drama, though, was hilarious to watch, only a little tough on the hearing. :D I do wonder, though, about the teenage guys' reactions. I can bet (from similar memories of friends that age) they'd be very busy downplaying Bieber or boy bands or other teenage male stars, unless they're somehow "cool" (and undeniably macho enough to be safe to say they like them). Yet those same guys likely dress and talk somewhat (or a lot like) those very same stars, and if you catch 'em off guard, they may even like listening to them. Then you'll have the guys who are less hung up about liking those male teen stars and their music / acting / etc. Then you have a few guys who are fans, fanboys, and they're not the least bit worried to say so. It doesn't prove one way or the other if they're gay. It does say they are comfortable enough in their own skin to say they like who and what they like. I'd bet it can get very interesting seeing how teen guys and girls react to, say, Glee. I'd bet you'd get that range of opinions.

Another point that I've come to realize I need to work on: C.J. Cherryh, an author whose work I really like, made some comments (I wish I had a link/copy to cite) about writing characters and stories. She said she thinks stories are primarily character-driven, instead of plot-driven. You as the audience relate to the story, the story is shaped, by the characters, how they feel, think, and how they act. A leads to B leads to C or D or E. But then here's what really was valuable about what she wrote: She said when you write, you need to remember each character is the hero of his/her own story. Each person thinks he or she is the central character, and has his/her own feelings and ideas about where things are going. For example, the villain thinks he's right, and the villain isn't all bad, any more than the hero is all good. So while A is doing A things, B is over here doing B things, which may be in concert with A, or may be at odds with A. Meanwhile, C is over there doing something completely different that may affect A and B later...or sooner. So each character is doing something to add excitement and richness to the story. Now, granted, not every character is a major character. Somebody has to be the extra or the supporting character. It explained one big reason why I like her writing. There's always something going on with every character. The sidekicks and the villains are strong characters and so is the hero. There may be many heroes or villains. They all do something. This was something she expanded on after the more usual advice of the writing exercise of writing the same scene through each character's eyes. I wish I was even ten percent as good at it. That advice was really something.

Hmm, next time I need to use up remaining bacon, I'll fix that. Yes, it looks a lot like a quiche, but perhaps I'm missing something. Quiche is great. I wanted to find a Cajun/Creole cookbook recently, and I found My New Orleans by John Besh. Very good stuff, though I haven't tried the recipes yet. He talks about growing up and learning cooking, hunting, and conservation from his family, then getting a culinary degree and experience in France (two regions), Germany, and Louisiana afterwards, and then how his outlook changed when Katrina and Ike hit and after. There's a love of tradition, both native Louisianan and its roots in France, Spain, Italy, and Africa, and even the influx from Vietnam and India. Really good. Another I'd recommend is Robb Walsh's Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook. You'll find recipes from the many regions and cultures that make up historic and modern Texas, and I can tell you they are authentic. Again, there is food and cultural history of how the groups that make up Texas added and changed their own foods, from the original settlers to today's immigrants, native Texans, and Americans coming in from out of state. Other friends have me interested in trying Asian food. Other than Chinese-American, I haven't had many other Asian foods, even though there are plenty of places in my city. (I've heard I should try banh mi, for instance.) LOL, yeah, you have to be careful on calories, fats, and sugars, but you can also enjoy good food, even so.

Yeah, that's the one. Now if someone can tell us the story and give a link. :) Oh -- Now I remember another clue. I think it was a recommended story by the MailCrew guys also, but I haven't heard from them in a while. Aha, Eureka! That's it! That was the clue I needed. Thanks, Colin. Somehow, you jogged my memory. OK, the story is still at The Mail Crew's site, "Through Different Eyes" by Drake Hunter. Here's the summary there and the link. Through Different Eyes by Drake Hunter, linked from The Mail Crew.

Could someone point to a story title, author, and link, please? I think this one appeared at Nifty or at Driver's old site or maybe DaBeagle? Yeah, my memory is very fuzzy, because the story was one of the first I read, and I didn't get to read all of it, for whatever reason. The story involves a teenage boy who sees something odd at night, goes to investigate, and finds some sort of blobby, large alien or pod. There's some sort of mental link, and the boy is host to the alien for a while. No, I don't remember the outcome. Several times lately, I've found myself wanting to read this one, as it was really great, poignant strong characters and good science fiction.

I'm going to do a really dangerous thing and step in before reading other comments. I skimmed a little, that's all. How do you write a character who is fundamentally different than you? Can you? How do you write an alien character? How do you write an animal character, like a dog, cat, horse, bird...mouse, cockroach, flea...? How do you write a tree or a rock or a stream or the wind? How do you write God? Can you? See, it seems hard enough when you're writing a character who fundamentally isn't you. An evil mastermind. A famous real life figure. A caveman. A man from ten thousand years in the future who may not be quite human. Or how about a woman? A little kid? Or someone with a subtly different mindset and culture? Your first crush, whether it worked out or not? Yourself as a younger person, even? Those all sound hard to write, because they are people we know are very different, and yet, they are somehow like us, a little bit the same. But when you get into writing a sentient computer, or an Earth animal, plant, etc., or something inanimate, or...God...? How the heck do you write them, as characters? You have to make it up. You're the storyteller. You're playing a game of pretend, and you're telling everyone around you what's going on in the game of pretend. You get to personify things, beings, even ideas. So in one sense, it's easy, you make something up that fits the story you're telling, the character that person or thing or idea is. In another sense, you are writing someone or something very different, but you understand that character because you know what is the same, similar, in yourself, and what is fundamentally not the same, very different. If I write a character who's an ordinary person, I may draw on parts of my everyday self, or I may use parts of people I've known or seen or heard. It might be a childhood friend, a relative, or someone you know personaly, or a public or historical figure. If I write a hero, a protagonist, that character needs to be the better parts of me, the person I'd like to be, or people whom I admire. But that hero is not going to be perfect, or no one will believe his character. If he's always right, perfect, and it all comes easy because he's so good at everything. Yeah, not falling for it. He has to be just heroic enough to be believable. If I write a villain, an antagonist, an anti-hero, that character is going to be the parts of me that I'm not proud of. My faults, mistakes, the little petty or uncivilized parts I wish weren't there. Only...we all have that dark side, don't we? And strangely, the villain thinks he's right too. Or thinks he can get away with it; he thinks he's justified. The villain may be the worse parts of people we've known or read about. Or we might make something up to fit the story problem/conflict. And that's our problem. We are writing about things where we can't be in the heads or shoes of each of those characters, yet we have to understand something about what they'd be like, and we have to know what part they play in the story we're telling. What type of person would do that, say that, feel that? What do the other characters need? What does the story need? Oh, I certainly don't have all the answers. I'm primarily an editor, so far at least. But when I'm editing or when I'm reading/watching/listening to a story, I try to think of why that's written that way. Yet, yes, in story ideas I've had, it can be really perplexing. Here I'm going along fine, and then A and B are in a jam, and what does B do? What does A do? Why? What does C do when C comes along? How do I write that, if I don't really know about them? I mean, I can't very well walk up to a random boy, man, girl, woman, creature, alien being, cybernetic lifeform, force of nature, or deity and say, "Hey, dude (dudette) how's it goin'? Say, put down that whatchamacallit a minute and tell me, how do you feel about so and so? What would you do if such and such? Really hard to do, if it's a big tyrannosaur, say. Or the supreme being. Or y'know, whoever, whatever. Also kinda hard to do with real life people, even if you're working from memory. After all, you're not the same person you were ten or twenty years ago, for instance. Research helps a lot to get your facts right. Heck, even things I think I know, I may get to writing and realize I'm not sure exactly how that goes. How exactly do I describe that one again? Writing about someone, somewhere, some-when else, not easy without research. (And last I checked, I can't pop over to Lamdba Leonis VI, assuming there is a Lambda Leonis VI and that I could live there, spacesuit or not.) So somewhere in there, you're pretending and telling people about it. Sorry, best advice I've got. And yeah, I've been trying voice parts lately, and getting any idea of a character and what he's supposed to sound like from three lines of dialogue, sometimes without other characters' lines to act off of? I've discovered it's much the same as trying to write a character and get that character right, only there, I'm supposed to guess what another author had in his/her head and bring that character to life in my voice. Yikes! But the same advice holds: There, I've got to make believe and act out the part. Kinda different if it's a bear or cougar or sheep (like one of Codey's stories) or an alien or some character I have no experience of in real life. But also a fun challenge. ... Uh, but I'd really need a dialect coach if I ever want to try a Boston accent again, haha. (I'm usually good with accents, but some, I don't know enough of the details. I tried to sound like the Kennedys. Didn't quite get there.) However, apparently, I make a pretty good psychotic Cardassian officer, for instance. Hey, don't judge me, man. Hate on the haters.... Your mileage may vary. I think this is actually one of the toughest topics. We're supposed to know something about it, but ultimately, all we can do is draw on what we know of other humans and the world around us. Hum a few bars and wing it, man. That's entertainment.

Did someone hear a lion roar, or a butterfly fall, or the sound of distant thunder?

Ray Bradbury wrote, wrote, wrote. He was a poet in his prose. He always had something original. Though I've read many of his short stories and I love science fiction, I haven't read a fraction of what he's written. One of his Martian short stories has the line, something like, "[ _____ ] skinned and golden eyed they were." (I'd have to reread, I think it was brown.) -- We learn the "Martians" there are descendants from Earth. Another has dinosaurs turning up in Greentown. They don't make many like him. He'll be missed. What an amazing man.

Oh, good grief. Firefox just updated itself to 13.0 after easily less than a year. In fact, my dim memory seems to say it went from 10 to 13 in less than a year. I'm tempted to make jokes about pimples and Firefox hitting puberty early. I'm tempted to make jokes about superstitious, unlucky 13. (Baloney.) Mostly, I'm just tempted to laugh. The version numbering has gone completely ridiculous. How about they name the next version 14-Psi-Phi-Green-42-Half-Pear-Quadrillion. (After all, they couldn't call it Apple or Googleplex or Peachpit, now could they?)

:headdesk: Oh, man. I just had to ask, didn't I? LOL.

Thanks, James, saving those recipes. I really like fried okra, but I don't fix it often. I had to look up a remoulade recipe, and of course, found everybody has their own not-so-secret recipe. :D ...Yes, I'm gonna get a Cajun/Creole cookbook, dunno why I haven't already. (Suggestions welcome.) We are overdue for rain here, but nothing like last year's nearly year-long drought, and so far, the heat's normal too. But yeah, the climate here matches anywhere not too far inland along the Gulf Coast for growing conditions. Next year, I'll be expanding my gardening attempts. BTW, it might be nice if people like gardening and cooking topics enough to have a regular thing going. Paul -- Dude, monkey cooties! -- OK, I've never asked, how in the world would "cooties" translate into French? I have a feeling it's not entirely an American cultural thing. LOL, but friendly monkeys are welcome. I mean, if we can have orangutans, beagles, emus, and such-like, might as well have monkeys! Also, I'd much rather meet a friendly monkey than a mean monkey. :thumbsup:

Hahahaha! I think I lost it at "military grade camo pantyhose". I am very glad I have not run into any chiggers in a while. I haven't been out in the woods/fields to run into them. But I miss the country a lot. Loved the photo. Loved the poem.

Merkin, Nick, Des, Cole, thank you. I will try those. Though the ladies might look at me a bit oddly, buying pantyhose. LOL. That, and I don't think I have the knees for 'em. You know, good Southern boy that I am, I think I've only had fried green tomatoes once in my life. -- I would love to try 'em again. I have never had chutney. Various other things, but not chutney. I'll add it to the grocery list. Better to have some idea how various kinds are supposed to taste, before fixing some myself. -- I am not a chili head, but being Texan, I have a little higher tolerance (maybe) than some. I would be happy to add a little chili or cayene or jalapeño peppers. That's definitely not a foreign idea.

Good for them. More, please.

Wow, Jason Alexander is a class act. Thought so before, even more so now. As one commenter noted, that is the way to apologize, to take responsibility, and to handle things. Not by putting down others, but by saying, you know, I screwed up, I did it, I've learned, I'll try to do better, and I'm truly sorry for what I did. As the one commenter said, other public figures, particularly politicians these days, should note that. It used to be that people would own up to their mistakes and genuinely apologize and try to make amends. It seems to be a lost art. I am very glad to see Jason Alexander knows how to handle it when he messes up. Good going. His comments that he got made fun of for liking voice, dance, theater, acting, music, literature, in a town where manly men play sports...oh boy, how that rings true. He did this without putting people down. Good job. I didn't see the routine on Craig Ferguson's show, but I probably would've laughed, even as I also would've been a little irked. More people should be that classy, to take the time to examine why people were offended, to think about it, and to see what the matter was, and then to respond in such a fine way.

I'm reading through the article now. I really, really wish site designers would think about the colors and sizes they use. Both the text and links are light, low-contrast, and hard to read for me, including the buttons with white text and a pale color. (And my vision is such, these days, that I am not entirely sure if that's pink or orange. I didn't used to have color issues and wasn't colorblind, but now, some colors are hard for me to distinguish.) Yes, I know it's not related to the article, but it is aggravating to have to highlight or use Firebug to get it readable. I do design web pages, or did. Grr. Reading the article....

The title he was referring to is the thread title, "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" by the Beach Boys. IMHO, it's fine if your story idea comes from a news item, headlines, etc. One poem I wrote, "War At Home," was because I'd read or watched a news article about three teens in a park. One had killed another, very violently, over a breakup with a girl, and because of racial or gang issues. So one boy's life was lost, the other boy's life was ruined by his actions, and one girl would carry the memory, her life also damaged. ... And crime tape, blood, oil, grime, all around. Link: War At Home. Why report news? So people will be informed of what's going on around them, and so people might do something to make things better. Writing a story is one way of working to bring about change. -- Yeah, I saw more than I ever needed to on 9/11 and after, news coverage. I haven't wanted to watch coverage of it afterward. Maybe someday. I didn't have anyone there, but it was all too unconscionable, and too easy to compare it to my own downtown area. Anyway -- there's the seed of a great story (or several) in that clip.

Slight follow up, he still doesn't get it. Nothing new on Diane Tran that I found. http://www.khou.com/home/Judge-in-Diane-Tran-case-I-will-continue-to-be-tough-on-truancy-156489575.html

There was probably some sort of gardening discussion, before I got sidetracked. Not that I mind getting sidetracked.

So you're saying I should go out to the woods and see who turnips? Well, if he's very Thoreau, that might be...very thorough, very nice. I really do miss all those back country vacations when I was a boy. Yes, I'd be amazed if I ran into the love of my life running around in the woods. But I suppose it could be an in tents relationship. Ow! Darn, somebody's throwing peanuts again.

That sounds like a radishal solution. Ow! Well, I got a little advice from gardening friends at one forum which I think I can actually follow. I'm a babe in the woods about growing plants. I'm even more a babe in the woods about recognizing plants you'd find out in the woods. My parents did some gardening when I was a kid. Heck, my dad grew up farming, and both sets of grandparents grew up from a long line of farmers. I must have a talent for it somewhere. I'm actually kinda proud of my efforts last year and this year, but I don't feel I really know anything yet about what I'm doing. LOL. I would bet that my parents and grandparents and a few friends were probably laughing their butts off up in heaven / happy hunting ground / wherever, watching me this afternoon. Heck, I thought it was pretty funny myself. I was just aggravated at the mauling I gave the poor innocent tomato plant. I really hope it makes it. ... Should I worry that I actually apologized to *a plant*? Especially considering that my purpose is to harvest the tomatoes it produces for my food? Too complicated for my noggin, for sure. By the way, I'll have pictures sometime this week. If you see a tomato plant sobbing piteously or screaming vegetable obscenities at humanity, yep, that'd be the one.

Wal-Mart's latest practices on cutting back employee hours and other things...I will be shopping elsewhere when possible. Target is OK, but my local Target seems...odd in a way I can't put my finger on. I don't know what it is or why. K-Mart pulled out of Texas several years ago, which was a shock. We have Sears, of course, but it has become more about appliances and cars than other department store goods back in its heyday. (Heck, it's been years since Montgomery Wards went belly up, but that still seems so strange.) There are a few other choices, big chains or local. I went in Fry's last week, and was shocked to find half their shelves empty and lighting reduced to half throughout the store. I purchased items I needed, but I was glad I'd purchased the other items I needed online elsewhere. They weren't readily available right there in the store. And that Fry's serves most, if not all, of Houston. I was shocked to see a high tech, geek-friendly store, which obviously caters to a higher income crowd along with the middle income folks, going like that. There were only three checkers working, and I only saw one person in the computer/printer sales area working. Wow. America really, really needs to use production and hire workers from our own country and from close allies. (By close, I don't mean only geographically close. Several other countries are good allies despite much distance.) I have no quarrels with the Chinese people, and I'd be happy to see them gain a more democratic (or otherwise freer) government. The problem with buying from China is their form of government, their ideology and how they treat other people/countries as well as how they treat their own people, is very different from how they ought to treat them. I'm often dismayed when I see how businesses today (mis)handle customer service, their own employees, and other basics, or buying overseas or from non-allies instead of locally or from allies. They're being foolish, and some day, it's going to come back and bite them. Heck, it already is. -- And how many people, here or overseas (Europe, elsewhere) would *love* to have a good job, yet don't get enough hours or can't find work, because of how businesses do business these days. I have now heard of at least three different Wal-Mart employees, one former, who are/were getting 28 or 20 hours per week, so that it wasn't even paying their fares to and from work. That's why the one quit. That kind of thing can't last. I used to think the idea of corporations owning the world, acting as their own governments, or holding sway over people, was far-fetched. -- Now I wonder when we'll first see what amounts to corporate slavery or indentured servitude, because I think we're not far from that, or from a corporation acting as a government. Strange days indeed, most peculiar, mama.

I'd commented over in the first chapter. Great story. I hope you're enjoying writing!

HELP! Gardening Misadventure. A comedy of errors. 1. One of the baby tomatoes snapped from the vine. My fault. It's very whitish-green, about two inches more or less around. Can I do anything for it? Is it going to ripen or rot? Do I plant it, since we're still late spring / early summer? Should it remain on the ground or be taken inside to sit on a counter or window sill? I'd like to save its seeds for next year, at least. 2. If a stem breaks from a tomato vine, will it root if the broken end is planted? (No, I haven't read the books I got yet.) Which brings me to my tale of great misadventures yesterday and today. The team of guys from the yard man I still use came by yesterday. They weeded and mowed. This included weeding out the grass that had invaded my garden plot (so much for that) and if the green onions had done anything...they're gone too. I am not actually unhappy about that, but I will talk to the guy during the week. Well, otherwise, things seemed good, though they need to set their mowers higher. So, OK, I got out there this afternoon, I started watering plants, and I discovered the wire frame I'd used to stake the largest tomato plant had fallen over again. (I doubt it was the yard men. The plant's top heavy.) I set it up, but it wouldn't stay. I got it into my head to disentangle the frame and plant. Hahaha, oh, this is where the fun began. Pulling it up and over was not a particularly good idea, but pulling the plant out from under it was not much better. In the process of attempting either, I partly uprooted the poor plant. Oh, no! Eventually, I did get the vines disentangled, one way or another, and was left with a large mass of tomato vines slumped along the ground in a heap. And partly uprooted. And oh yes, I had managed to break off one tomato and several smaller stems, including one with a flower without a baby tomato yet. Well, genius, now what? Meanwhile, both cats are very happily exploring the yard, probably amused by the crazy human's antics. Determined to do something right today, I moved the water hose to continue its job. I went in, got the ball of string and my pocket knife, and grabbed the wooden stakes I had not yet used for bracing the tomatoes. Then the fun began again. I found myself actually talking to the plant, apologizing to it. I staked the other two tomato plants, discovered one baby plant was under another and got uprooted, and replanted it. Aha, progress! But by now, I discovered I was not used to squatting, rooting around in the dirt, etc. I didn't know yet how long I'd been working, but it honestly didn't seem like it ought to be that much work. Then I got back to the main plant, the one with the most tomatoes, and now, the one in the most danger of not surviving. After much more fumbling than there should have been, I got it staked from its many sprawling vines to a constrained mass in something vaguely like a column. It looks too cramped to me now. The three stakes are about a foot apart. My main worry is whether I got the roots properly back in the ground with enough soil on them. I was going to go to the garden center (Lowe's or Wal-Mart or somewhere) anyway, this week, so -- another big bag of soil and a few more stakes go on the list. I am worried. I hope the main tomato plant, with the most tomatoes, will survive being savaged by the sudden and inexplicable attack of the careless ape-like being. (There is probably a religious metaphor in there, but I don't feel like fooling with it right now. Maybe later.) So -- If I did right, the tomato's root system will reassert itself and it will survive losing stems and being completely shaken and rearranged and confined. I sure hope so, because those several small, green-white baby tomatoes look good, and I really want to have homegrown tomatoes later. I will want to save the seeds. I've had good success so far this year. The other plants appear OK. One has put out a couple of tomatoes and has flowers. The other, nothing yet. The baby plant that I replanted is still too small to produce. I've learned two very important things: One, stake your tomatoes properly so you don't screw up the poor plant and aggravate the fool out of yourself for potentially losing a perfectly good plant and its produce. Two, I planted the tomatoes too close together. I'll know better next time. After doing all this and being worn out, I put the hose on the garden plot again, hoping this would help the plants settle back in while they can, until I get to the garden center, probably Tuesday. The two basil plants are growing great. They are both flowering. So not only will I have fresh basil to use, I may be able to keep it going over the winter. The marigolds are also doing great. I moved a small plant that had been obscured by the tomatoes or basil. Ahem, I clipped the neighbor's crepe myrtle where it was growing over my fence. (Don't tell her, lol!) I have no idea if the cuttings will root, but I guess I'm about to find out. One plant has outgrown its pot and will be planted in the front or side yard. My goal for this week is to get grass seed and start it in my front yard (bare grey dirt) and back yard (dead straw, clover, some grass, weeds, all mowed nearly to the roots) so that I might actually have a lawn again. I still can't afford to replace the gates or back yard wooden fence. I hope I can this summer. I hate looking at it, and I'm very surprised my neighbors or the homeowner's association haven't yelled at me about it. ...But I suspect I'm not the only one, as it looks like several people in the neighborhood are trying to keep their homes up too, and letting some things go. So -- Questions about tomatoes and crepe myrtle. Advice much appreciated.