Pots of dirt to you--living memory of a precious gift to me.

Years ago, my dad went out and dug up a patch of daffodil bulbs and gave them to me in a tub of dirt.  I don't remember where he got them from--either a vacant lot or the old house on Monroe Street.
I do remember that I left the bucket out in the front yard too long and it filled up with water--I was scared I'd killed them.  But they finally got planted under the bird bath and have bloomed sweetly every year since.  To me, they'll always be Dad's.

This spring we had to dig out a water leak under the birdbath.  We only dug as much as we had to, at the time, and I saved out a big bag of the bulbs.  The hole exposing the water leak is still there (think, eyesore).  But I saved the bulbs over the summer and just now filled up these pots with them.  The ones still in the yard will probably survive but I'm not sure about these.  I'll do my best.

 Book #7 and 8 are by Kaori Yuki-- The Cain Saga: Kafka






and The Cain Saga: The seal of the Red Ram Part 1.

Somehow I missed part 2 but I'm not screaming for it right now.  If I find it, great, but I'm not going to special order it.  They're a prequel to her Godchild series.  Technically I should go re-read that series but I think I've had enough for now.  The next manga I'm going to attempt will be Reborn!  

What to say?  Highly recommended if (a) you're a teenage girl into (b) manga and (c) creepy Victorian murders, poison, body-snatching, incest and revenge.  Compared to--for example--the Twilight series, these books seem almost wholesome.  There is redeeming love, loyalty, and goodness to counterbalance all the evil.   Plus, Cain and Riff are a whole lot hotter than dopey Edward and growly Jacob.

Kaori Yuki is a genius, albeit an evil genius.  Her drawings are pretty amazing, too.  It took me a long time to learn how to read manga and I'm still not too good and picking up the action not told in words--and that's a shame, because that's the unique charm of manga.  The "flinch", the "shove", the "fist in air"...I wouldn't have even realized that Riff punched Oscar if she hadn't said so in the author's notes.