Wow, been a bit of a while

This past weekend (St. Paddy's Day Weekend) was incredible. We (Me, Jake, Barry, Sarah and John Turner) all parked our asses at Steve's on Friday night. We drank and watched movies and generally screwed around all night.

At eight the next day, we were up at the ass crack of dawn (8 AM) making whisky eggs in the age old tradition that we started last year in Boston. This year, there was the addition of green food coloring. (Do Not Recommend!) We also partook in Carolans and Lucky charms. And drank a quarter of a case of Guinness.

Then Jake, Sarah and I went to the Western Pennsylvania Orchid Ass. show to look at all the pretties and maybe buy some. We did, and we did. It was awesome. Jake got two Dendrobium Kingianums which were both hybridized from the same parent and I got a beautiful Paphiopedilum, which is just gorgeous. All three of us got a good earfull of info involving growing orchids in PA, the element ratios in fertilizer and all sorts of awesome things no one else cares about, but that I'll probably blog about later anyway.

After the Orchid show we made a pit stop at Steves to drop the orchids and Sarah off, have a quick Guinness and then run up to Pine Richland to see Seusical with Carlos.

Two notes on Seussical:
1. It should never have been written
2. The cast of the Pine Richland High School did the most amazing things with it possible. Kudos to the freakishly talented kids.

After that we came back to Steves and settled down for a good night of Super Smash Bro's, DRINKING, Boondock Saints, DRINKING, passing out, and more drinking. Well, I did the passing out. Everyone else did the entertaining laugh a lot giggle fest. I feel as though I missed out. Anyone up for another performance?

Sunday was a day of rest. We laid about and watched Super Bad which is thoroughly enjoyable no matter how many times you see it and recuperated from our collective bender.

Conclusions:

1. I have not outgrown partying, nor will I ever, I think.
2. I do not like Green Eggs and Ham, I do not like them Sam I am!
3. DAMN YOU SEUSS! Get out of my head.
4. Jake is impossibly cute when he doesn't want to get up and hides under blankets.
5. St. Paddy's day is still happy.

IT LIVES!

My Phal is alive and doing fine. I was poking around in it (as usual) and noticed a nice bit of new root growth. Also the leaves have perked up a lot and regained some of their original luster. So I lost the bloom spike. So what?

I also have a new member of my orchid family. It's a beautiful spotted phal that my mom brought home to me from Lowes where it was languishing in the sales area with a partially crumpled bloom and no Terra cotta pot (only the plastic insert.) I gave it some orchid grow-enhanced water and cleaned off the leaves a bit. It is also looking pretty good.

I've got them all sitting in a row on top of my radiator in front of my south-facing windows in my room. I never realized just how much i like plants in my window. I really do. I believe I need to get some more. Maybe a nice bonsai or a few mini bamboo....hmmmmmmmm.

Have I killed it? HAVE I????

From over-watering to under-watering in one fell swoop. If this Phalaenopsis lives, it should go down in history as being the hardiest plant EVAH! Well besides Jake's Dendrobium that keeps rising from the dead like some dry botanical zombie, wrapped in the bandages of it's own leaves. Kudo's to Jacob for keeping it clinging to life.

I would have lost interest completely as soon as it stopped being pretty and green and adopted an attitude of death. I don't know what that says about me, my personality, or my horticultural capability and come to that, I don't much care. ON WITH MY HAPPY-GO-LUCKY LIFE!

I watered the phal. We'll see what happens. In other news, my baby Cattleya is doing quite well. I think it's sending down some nice new roots. The leaves certainly look robust enough. I hope it doesn't have horrible ridiculous frilly blooms like some Cats are prone to have. Then I'll have to kill it passive-aggressively for the reasons stated above. God forbid I ever have an ugly child!

Orchids AKA My Recent Obsession

When my dad was alive, he constantly grew things. I find it slightly ironic that it was only through his death (however circumspectly) that the passion for growing things began to grow in me. As a sympathy gift, we received a Phaelanopsis. I sort of found myself staring at it an awful lot, and then my wonderful boyfriend Jake, who also grows orchids said they were difficult to take care of because their particular climate and light and care requirements. This of course meant that I HAD to make this thing survive and bloom more or my. pride. would. suffer. I'm sure that was not the intent of his comment, but thanks to my ridiculously competitive nature, I found myself obsessing over the plant. He lent me a few books about orchid care and growing, and between him, my natural mothering thing that I do, and the challenge the poor thing presented, I find myself completely orchid gaga.

Why do I say "poor thing?" Well, in my craze, I over-watered the plant and it grew some nice mold. I learned my lesson and re-potted it, hopefully in time. In any case, poor liddle phaela not withstanding, I am totally obsessed. I've been planning an orchidarium (I've been informed that Terrarium is to dull a word) and I'm just really excited.

My dad would be proud. He had a green thumb. I'm not sure yet whether my new botanical urges will be contained to the Orchid species (Genus? Phylum? I don't remember the hierarchy!) or whether I am destined to be concerned with all thing green, but the seeds have been planted, as it were. Wish me luck!!