Clarity may be hard to find today...

At the crest of the wave that is this semester, I seem to be sick. I was fine yesterday-- aside from some panic about potentially taking Pete to an emergency vet, it was an okay day. Even improving on breast stroke. And Pete appears to be improving. Today, I'm all sore throat, congestion, cough, stiff neck, and alternating fever and chills. Lovely. It's not like I have a paper due in 48 hours, two group projects/ presentations back to back Monday, a fellowship application due Monday, another longer paper due in a week... do you see where this is going? But after shivering uncontrollably in my office for two hours, I'm at home. Shivering uncontrollably, but at least I can slob around in a sweatshirt I keep putting on and taking off.

Ugh.

My "Twinkle" was in bud, but the trauma from being dropped, kept in less than ideal circumstances for a week and a half thanks to the bathroom wreck, plus the sudden cold snap has unfortunately cause it to drop ALL of its buds. That, on top of noticing certain things like my two boxes of tissues are missing, is again provoking me into considered docking my rent for that whole mess. As it is, I still need to write up a bill for the replacements for the ones that were damaged-- except, of course, it's COLD and I can't ORDER replacements because NOBODY with half a brain is going to ship a delicate plant to Pennsylvania this time of year. My lovely blue dendrobium has lost all its leaves save for one cane now, and my lovely crimson dtps is failing, one leaf at a time. Depressing. On the other hand, my noid white dendrobium and my noid miniature harlequin type phal remain in bud and the buds continue to progress. Let's look at pretty things.

Orchids as part of your holiday decor? It can be done.





Isn't that lovely? This oncidium smelled like cloves and other sweet spices



I love the naturalistic decorations-- birch branches with white lights, paperwhites, and maidenhair ferns.