The Floral Menace

The workaday world is a tough place. For example, here I am at 6:14 am every weekday morning, if I looked just like my hedgehog Sylvia.

And here I am at 6:15 am, ready to face another day!

Hardingfele came over and took some photos of my beautiful blooming "Halloween" cacti this weekend. (They always bloom right around Halloween so I feel odd to call them Christmas cacti.) These are two separate plants I grew from cuttings my mother gave me, but when I tried to separate them, they had merged and refused to be separated so I just put the two of them together into a larger pot.

Here is a closeup of a pink blossom:


Here is a closeup of a red blossom:

I have always loved plants, so imagine my surprise when I was told (after almost two years, mind you) that I could no longer have plants in my office. You are probably thinking, "Plants? They are so quiet and harmless! They just sit there looking pretty and cleaning the air!" But that just shows what you know. Obviously plants are the new menace, now that Communism has failed and Al Quaida hasn't blown any planes up lately. For example, here is a picture Hardingfele took of Nola, the tiny sprig of papyrus I brought back from New Orleans last summer. Look how enormous it is now! If that isn't suspicious, I don't know what is.

Here are pictures of some of my plants/assassins and terrorists. The big dracaena on the right that looks like a palm tree is Greg and the plant in the middle is Dr. Cheung. (They are named after their previous owners.) Greg and Dr. Cheung are no longer menacing me because they are now at Rich's new house, basking in the atrium area and protecting the place more fiercely than Rottweilers.

And here are some more infidels and deviants.

The two large plants on the left are Jolly Bob and The Professor, which are also now guarding Rich's house like spiky green pitbulls. I needed to get them out of Plant World to make room for the plants from my office. (Hardingfele asked if the ban on plants includes the little plant in Arphaxad and Amminadab's bowl, and I said I had wondered about that but wasn't about to bring it up. For whatever reason fish are still allowed in my office.)

Here is a movie of Sylvia unrolling.

Famous Hat