Organized, efficient, and orchidless

This afternoon I cleaned up a bit, and worked on sorting out my newly printed digital pictures—which actually feels like a wonderful party, because I love looking at pictures. I’ve been trying to get my pictures organized enough to start putting them into albums since this summer—ideally one day I’ll develop this thrilling new organization system in which I could add them as I develop/print them! A shocking notion. Will has gotten tall this year, and I think Laura probably has too, given her rate of outgrowing jeans, but the only thing I notice about her in the pictures is how long her hair is getting. Really long.

While I worked at home, I sent poor Chris off with a terrible list of errands, carefully organized for maximum time efficiency. Too bad that this efficiency was on vacation last year when we built the sandbox cover; I bought this very expensive hardware early in the process, put it somewhere I wouldn’t lose it, and promptly—of course—lost it and ended up buying it all over again. But I found it this week! We’ll see if it’s too late to return the first set. But at least I’m all time and money efficient today—because I know perfectly well that if I go to Lowe’s to return the screws, I’ll end up buying an orchid. We’re replacing a broken outside light fixture, I’ve already picked it out, and I’m using a gift card I got for Christmas to buy it, but as sure as I know my name, I know I’d just make a little detour through the nursery. I adore orchids, their thick waxy leaves, the rich colors in the flowers, the way sometimes the leaves are speckled, how the flowers last so long you might even have a chance of getting tired of them. Chris and I used to go these beautiful botanical gardens not far from our house in graduate school, and I could just live in the orchid room, in that damp mossy light. Flowers growing in trees above your head, without one bit of concern about whether you can see them or not. They seemed to live on air. I usually just buy the phalaenopsis orchids from Lowe’s, since they’re generally the least expensive and supposedly the easiest to get to bloom again, although that hasn’t been my experience. But I especially love the much more expensive paphiopedilums, with their one extravagant bloom so stiff and formal and exotic, a purple-striped invitation to insects. Orchids mean January to me, a single bright spray of flowers, a simple clay pot, an antidote to the overexuberant loudness of Christmas trees and lights and presents and poinsettias.

See why I can’t go to Lowe’s?