warning: rant ahead.

So I moved to Montreal last fall. A coworker told me that he puts his orchids out on his mid-day-shaded balcony for the summer and they get enough rain during the summer that he doesn't need anyone to look after them. Enough rain! Mine are drowning! I've spent a good part of the last 3 weeks taking them in and putting them out.

Part 2. Last fall I bought a post-flowering NOID orchid at a plant shop. I figured $10 (the lady in the store spoke no French or English, just "orchid" and "flower") was worth a try. I went to repot it when I got home and earwigs came out! I washed the whole thing with some insecticidal soap and potted it up in new mix (throwing the old mix and pot in the garbage - I hate earwigs in the house). It has been on my desk all winter under lights with everything else, and is now on the balcony. So it spiked! And a few days ago I got a beautiful white flower with purple and violet markings, not a hint of green or brown- perhaps a Miltoniopsis phalaenopsis of some sort. And I look in one of the flowers that was unfurling and what do I see? AN EARWIG. On a third floor balcony. It couldn't possibly have survived the repotting and the washing and the winter (the thought that it was on my desk all winter is unbearable, therefore I prefer to believe in magic flying earwigs). Feh.