Well my orchid addiction seems to continue going strong:

Last month I went over to Al's Orchid Greenhouse again (a trip that I cannot
possibly make without buying at least two orchids, this time a very pretty
yellow Phal Bette's Peggy (Salu Leopard 'Nancy Mountford, AM/RHS x Brother
Fancy 'Pink Tong', AM/AOS)

and my second mini-catt (Lctna Happy Face 'H&R' (Lctna Peggy San x Lc Mari's
Song) -- purple, with a beautiful fragrance that reminds me of roses and
citrus fruit, and that amazingly enough continued to be fragrant even once
moved from greenhouse to condo environment).

And then a friend of ours had the bright idea that an orchid would make a
perfect house-warming gift for me (she was right of course). And then
yesterday I made the mistake of walking into the social Safeway.

For those of you who do not live in the Washington DC area: there is a
Safeway in Georgetown that is known to locals as the "social" Safeway,
because it used to be the place to go to see and be seen, and also to pick
up a date over the groceries -- I am not sure whether it still is an active
social spot, but many people still refer to it this way. There is also
another Safeway in DC known as the "Soviet" Safeway, because it was always
understocked and poorly lit, not sure whether that's still the case though.

Anyway, regardless of the social Safeway's current level of social activity,
just as most grocery stores in our area, they sell orchids now. And when I
ducked into this Safeway yesterday, I could not resist buying another two
Phals:

Phal Baldan's Kaleidoscope (with two long branched spikes in bloom and lots
of buds, and a third spike just starting; nine healthy leaves including one
new one, oodles of aerial roots and a large mass of roots visible inside the
transparent plastic pot; the flowers are a nice shade of orange and yellow
candy stripe -- how could I resist?)

and Phal Sogo Mandolin (a harlequin type with white background and very
artsy dark purple splotches) -- Al once told me that harlequins are best
bought in bloom, since then one can tell whether one likes the pattern. I
like this one just fine -- I was not quite decided on it yet (since most of
it's flowers are already open), but I took it into my hand just in case to
make sure that noone grabbed it off the shelf while I walked around the area
with orchids, and it sort of insisted on staying in my hand till checkout --
orchids are insistent and sneaky that way.

Isn't it scary that one can't go grocery shopping any more without being
accosted by orchids?

Joanna