Orchids Bloom, 2007 fades

Someone asked me how soon will your orchid bloom (?). The answer was "whenever it wants to!"

My original plan to have at least four orchids, each blooming in a different season has never worked. Any attempts to anticipate when each orchid will bloom could vary from six to sixteen months. Shown are two stages of the budding process taking place now. This recent arrival from the orchid greenhouse is a hybrid Vanda crossed with a Port Royal. The stalk and foliage are two-dimensional, with opposing leaves and, very soon, three blossoms.

The photographs were taken three days apart showing the increase in bud size, just about to release a splendid color to the world. There could be two more later, one never knows what an orchid will do.




The house is quiet. First Dear Hubby caught a cold and has been coughing, wheezing, sneezing for more than a week and now I have it. After pills, Emergen-C and lots of chicken soup I emerge slowly to deal with reality once more. We have an understanding that talking promotes coughing and so we communicate with a series of hand gestures and grunts. So this is what we've come to (?).

After a week of chicken soup, dear hubby ventured out to shop and brought home chicken and corn bread. Two casseroles of shredded chicken, mushrooms, onions, peas, corn, celery and chicken broth are in the oven as I write. One for tonight and one for later. If I live.

The shopping trip was necessary to get our 'fixin's' for New Year's Eve. The plan is to stay in (to contain the germs), have a tasting tray of smoked fish, pickles, country pate, salad and champagne. Not the most exciting idea for a holiday dinner but given our current nourishment of antibiotics and cough syrup almost anything would be better. Our New Year festivities in recent years have been minimized because we leave for a cruise to the Western Caribbean four days later. I need strength for packing, checking all the lists and getting several playlists of dance music downloaded before we leave. Besides the champagne at home our celebrating will be done at sea and very likely to jive music as we sail into warmer weather while practicing a long list of dance steps.

My New Year's resolution to clean out the sewing studio and donate considerable yardage of fabric to the January DOQ's Silent Auction has begun but there is much more ahead. This year I have got to get that room organized if I ever intend to create anything resembling art quilts. Or if not, just to clear it out for the sake of sanity.

On return from the cruise the Winter term for Couples Ballroom begins at Fred Astaire in Durham, our Wednesday night lessons in Single-time Swing begin at the Arts Center in Carrboro and I must outline and organize notes for the "Really Simple Blogging" class in the Spring '08 term. 'Really' and 'Simple' are the most relevant words in that sentence, for both the class and the new year.
Cheers, bb