If you follow the link, it will take you to a site called JustAddIceOrchids.com. This website features a two-part article on “How Will Heat Affect My Phalaenopsis Orchid?”, which feels like one part too many. I am going to get to the gist of it right here ** Spoiler! Spoiler!**: your Phalaenopsis Orchid will not appreciate extreme heat. Or cold temperatures, either. It’s a picky thing, the Phalaenopsis Orchid. It wants to be kept between 65-85F, thank you very much.
While you are at the JustAddIceOrchids.com website, a pop-up will appear that says, Hi there! I’m Bertie the Plant Care Bot and I’m here to answer your plant care questions. You should know that Bertie is not a live person (Bertie has bolded this information so that visitors won’t get confused) and he won’t tolerate any foolishness with the questions he’s presented. You can’t ask, “Why doesn’t my Phalaenopsis Orchid return my texts?” or “Should I maybe dump my Phalaenopsis Orchid for that little heat-tolerant tramp, the Penstemon?”
These were the things I wanted to know, but Bertie wouldn’t let me ask. Such a robotic spoilsport.
Like a certain orchid I know, I thrive in moderate conditions and, yet, I was sweet-talked by a certain life partner and ended up in Arizona. During the months of June, July and August, no sane person in Arizona takes a long morning walk past 8:00 AM. As a result of this, me and my certain life partner get up WAY too early to take our morning stroll, up and down hills.
The other day, we found that someone had dragged a sofa out to curbside and was offering it, per the picture above, absolutely free. While we marched up the incline, and in the sofa’s general direction, my life partner said, “We’ve been wanting a new sofa.”
Never in my life had I told him, “I’ve been dreaming of getting a sad-looking curbside sofa to infest the living room. Do you think we’ll ever be lucky enough to find one?”
I told him, warningly, “It’s free.” His optimistic response was, “The best things in life are free.” With apologies to the Melbourne Ska Orchestra, what a crock.
Drawing closer, this is what we found:
I knew what the stains looked like, but I didn't care to share. Then we trudged home and poured a couple of mugs of not-free iced coffee.
One last note: Although Amazon Vella has yet to launch, we’ve completed our first storyline for the service. Because serial fiction takes its cues from television, this is considered Season One. Forty-three episodes, nearly 70,000 words, and we’re very pleased with how it came together.
Once we can offer it to the reading public, the first three episodes will be… free.
You have been warned.