More orchidy goodness

I've seen these around lately. Oncidium Lambaba "Cutie" seems to be the right name a hybrid of Beallara Vashon and Oncidium ornithorhyncum, only one half of which seems rather obvious just from looking at the flower. I'm a bit confused how the labels say one thing but vendors call it another...is this the first sign of fallout from revising Oncidium Alliance hybrids to all be called Oncidium?

The flowers seem very variable despite being clones. Some have bigger lips than others, or shorter spikes, so I'm guessing either the meristem tissue was wonky or the plants are extremely susceptible to cultural practicies. I hope I have a chance to find out. As I love O. ornithorhyncum -- come on, same scientific name as the platypus! -- I couldn't resist a plant that looks like that species on steroids. It even has a faintly pleasant scent. Supposedly warmth-tolerant, we'll see if that holds up.

97 degrees. Oy. I'm seeing signs of heat stress on the 2 masdevallias, the Oncidium Twinkle, the Zygoneria and even the Phal amablis. The large paphiopedilums, minicatts, jewel orchids and other phals seem fine. Even Coelogyne mooreana (which isn't) is doing alright, probably due to being in the window right behind the big living room fan and beside the open window; last year it grew magnificently but then again we had a very cool summer.

Ga ga ga ga ga

I love being able to hear Spoon on the radio. I only feel a little bit smug over having discovered them three years ago, along with Interpol and Franz Ferdinand. The whole GGGGG album is great. "Don't You Evah" is a great track. How can you not love a band with song names like "Believing is Art" and "The Beast and Dragon, Adored" and "The Ghost of You Lingers." Okay, so their album titles suck. Big deal.

Hot town, summer in the city

Oops, it's not summer yet. 97 frickin' degrees, three days in a row, and one of the weirdest windstorms I've ever seen finally ended it. Last night around 9:30 the calm still night outside my window suddenly went SLAM and the street trees were bending over eastward! Stuff started rattling down the street, the curtains blew in, dust and crud came blowing in the open window, and this kept up for at least ten minutes before the lightning, thunder and rain started. The temperature dropped from 87 to 70 in the next hour -- effectively a 30 degree drop from the midday high. Well. Tornado Alley this ain't but that might've been a taste...

Knitting baby trousseau items to keep babies warm while the temperature is in the 90s became too bizarre. I ordered a batch of Essentials sock yarn from KnitPicks last week, to make cute warm wee sweaters for my friend's future kids who will need them this winter, and somehow gosh darn it 11 skeins of Key Lime CotLin yarn found their way into the box too.

CotLin might be my new favorite yarn. I have some Classic Elite Cotton Bamboo in the knit queue and making the swatch was pure pleasure, but the CotLin goes just a bit quicker and oh is it ever light and supple. Bamboo needles suit it perfectly; I started knitting it on bamboo straights but I don't have circular #5 or #6 in bamboo, and the Inox circular needle I've put the project onto is only...okay. The yarn is so light the aluminum needles feel clumsy. On the other hand, the wool-blend sock yarn feels just fine on aluminum #2s. I suppose I'll just have to force myself to buy a full kit of bamboo straights and circulars now...I have to find a Japanese junk store, they usually have the straights pretty cheap...

Rose Rioja #1: Aradon Rosado

A pleasant discovery! The label was plastered with 2005 silver medals, the 2004 vintage bottle was less than $12, it's summer, I love Spanish rosado wines, I chilled it tonight to eat with leftover Indian food. What a good idea that was.

The color is beautiful, a rich pale scarlet. Chilled, the bouquet is rich and fruity rather than floral, worthy of a full red Rioja. Spouse's first sip made him think, "Hemp???" and then "Hops???" Fuggles hops, not Cascade. Mine made me think plum, raisin, white pepper, with sharpness appropriate to a rosado. It's spicy on the tongue, and lingers well with berry overtones.

Loved it with our Indian meal. As Uber Queen of leftovers, I have set ways of handling certain ones. Our favorite takeout makes combo meals of appetizer/entree. We ate the ka-choris and all the Malai koftas and one carton of rice and most of the saag panir Friday. An hour ago the 2 potato samosas and their spicy chickpea sauce were chopped up and heated in the same pan as the second carton of rice; a roll-cut zucchini and handful of frozen haricots vert were heated with the remaining saag. Thick fresh-made Greek yogurt (from the neighborhood Greek grocers) mixed with honey, salt, black pepper and cumin makes terrific quick raita.

It was 93 freakin' degrees outside today but never got warmer than 81 in the house, even without using the a/c. We braved the heat and brought towels & sheets to a cat rescue team, found wonderful vintage porcelain cups and some wacky Time-Life books at a church street fair, went home to recover, then did Street Fair Safari on First Avenue to bag Copa soaps for both of us, a non-fruity carry bag for Spouse's cell phone and Moleskin notebook, black socks for Spouse (born and bred in NYC, he cannot imagine buying socks in a normal store), and a couple of bargain phalaenopsis orchids for me. Lunched at the Barking Dog, where truly excellent french fries are just an everyday pleasure. Came home and vigorously attacked the sloppy bagfuls of yarn stash lurking by the bedroom a/c...wrestled it into submission, forced into the large wood cabinet! Discarded several battered shopping bags, uncovered a few skeins I'd been hunting to no avail, returned missing knitting needles to the jar. Knitted more stuff for a friend's baby trousseau. A good day. A good day.

Nature's perfect breakfast

My poor spouse had a tooth pulled this week -- the oral surgeon jocularly called it "the tooth from hell" -- and so soft items of diet have ruled our roost. Fortunately I've been able to recall how I survived after having my lower impacted wisdom tooth strip-mined ten years ago, and while he's now heartily sick of hummus my poor spouse at least hasn't gone hungry.

Banana milkshakes are just the best thing ever. I first saw them made on a Food Network show about an ice cream parlor or maybe a diner somewhere in the midwest. Ultra simple recipe: take 1 ripe banana, a couple spoonfuls of vanilla ice cream, some malted milk powder, fill the glass with milk, blend! Of course I've had to build on that. Spouse loves Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup added. If we have chocolate ice cream, that subs for the vanilla. My Elvis version adds peanut butter -- either Skippy Creamy or PB & Co Dark Chocolate Dreams -- and that's practically a complete meal with all that healthy peanut protein. (Malted powder and peanut butter however are not happily compatible, to my taste buds.) This morning's version used up what was left of a pint of Haagen Dazs Triple Chocolate...mmmmmm.

Polystachia paniculata

Another pleasant under-lights surprise success. I got this flowering plant last April, and this spring it flowered on the first of two new growths to mature. The second growth is showing signs of spiking now. Neither growth is quite the size of the original, but hey, considering I never quite got around to repotting it and fed it only sporadically and my lights setup ain't exactly Waimalano, I'm fairly pleased.

Still debating what to repot it in...fine roots, top heavy, I'm tempted to put it back into sphagnum moss in a clay pot and then put the clay pot inside a plastic pot -- this system has worked well for a few other plants -- but I dunno. Fine bark mix like everything else is still most likely.

I wish more Polystachia species were easy to find. I remember seeing half a dozen different ones at Sea Breeze Orchids in the 1980s, and here and there in species specialist catalogs, but I reckon demand isn't sufficient to give growers incentive to pop seedpods or make clones. Pity. If you google the species a source of plants isn't even in the first three pages! I wish more Hawaiian growers would propagate the smaller, funkier speices. The Polys on Eric Hunt's pages are inspiring.

This explains a lot about troubles with outsourcing

CNN and the Onion intersect. Personally I think I'd want Ganesh as chairman of any US government venture into universal health care, as he is the god of expediting.