Boredom and orchids

I have now officially been unemployed for two months and eleven days. The first month and a half were great, they fell over the holidays, I had time to bake and relax, wrap gifts and be festive. All the while job hunting on the side....the far side. I did the required inquiries and put in applications without any expectations of getting any of the jobs I applied for. And didn’t get any of them. For that month and a half, that was a good thing. I really didn’t want to be employed and be honest, who hires just before the holidays? Nobody, or nearly nobody. The woman I worked with that got laid off with me went back to work within two weeks. She isn’t thrilled with her new job, is bored silly to be frank, but as she said, she’s employed and in this economy, that’s a big deal.

So once the holidays were over I cranked up the job hunting to more of a priority and still nada, zilch, zippo, nicht, nothing. I have a couple of real prospects out there... fingers crossed... but so far it’s been a whole pile of rejections. Now I know what it must feel like to be an author attempting to get published for the first time. Guess this is practice for that.

Anyway, boredom. I know I could be cleaning out the garage, quilting that Christmas gift that was supposed to be delivered a year ago, getting my income tax ready to send in or a multitude of other projects to take up the time that job hunting doesn’t. Thing is I have no motivation to do them. I’m bored with it. Bored with house cleaning and straightening, doing projects that used to be relegated to the weekends. Bored with being home. I want some adult business interaction. Something that challenges my mind and my abilities. Not humdrum, boring projects that fill time instead of my mind.

Although I could be writing on Amber or the other story that hasn’t progressed far enough that I want to start publishing it here. That’s an entirely different sort of mental stimulation. And one that I engage in nearly daily. That story isn’t one you’ll ever see online. It’s not fan fiction and some day my co-author and I hope it’ll be published.... or we’ll get one of those dreaded rejection letters.

So, since I’m bored and my other hobby besides writing FF and non-FF is raising orchids, I figured I’d tell you about them. Orchids belong to the most diverse family of plants known to man. There are over 880 genera, 28,000 species and well over 300,000 registered cultivars currently documented. Orchids are the most rapidly (genetically) changing group of plants on earth and more new species have been discovered over the last few thousand years than any other plant group known.

Orchids are also one of the most adaptable plant groups on earth. Some Australian orchids grow entirely underground, and many tropical jungle orchids grow in the upper branches of trees. Tundra, rainforest, mountain, grassy plain, desert and swamp environments contain numerous orchid species.

I currently only have about two dozen plants, which is down from what I had ten years ago. At the peak of my (and my late husband’s) hobby, there were 1,000 plants out back in my little greenhouse. You read that right. One Thousand orchids. All different. Now I’m down to a half dozen Vandaceous orchids (Vandas). One of which is currently in bloom and in the ‘My Other Hobby’ box > . One Phalaenopsis, one Schomburgkia, six Dendrobiums, 6-8 Brassavola digbyanas (all in sheath getting ready to bloom), one Oncidium sphacelatum, one Rhynchostylis gigantea (in bloom) and one Laelia – also in bloom. That doesn’t include my Florida native orchids that are among the few species of orchids that are terrestrial; most orchids are actually air plants, with some others semi-terrestrial.

Have your eyes glazed over with just the names of them? Yeah, mine did too when I first got into them. Then I discovered that the names just started rolling off the tip of my tongue as if I was saying hello. Now I can recite names without thinking....well, some of them. Others I have to think about before I say them. Like Rhynchostylis (rink ko stylis) gigantea, reading the word is harder than saying the name. Others like Phalaenopsis, Dendrobium and Brassavola digbyana have nicknames – Phals (fails), Dens and Digbyana (or as I like to call them Diggy).



That's a Rhynchostylis gigantea. The flowers are each about the size of a quarter.

That one's a Laelia - I don't remember the cultivar for it, but just know it's a Laelia.



And this one is a Vanda - I also don't remember the cultivar for it, but somewhere I have it written down, since knowing the varieties that are crossed to get a certain orchid are what makes each plant more valuable.