Blessed Event!

Once again neglect triumphs over (desultory stabs at) care! Like the triumphant once-a-decade or so blossoming of the pink hibiscus (now again quite busily green) the Christmas cactus is abruptly tipped with buds, great fat buds. Looking like a little flower show specimen it is.

It was a gift last year when I was suddenly near death and as quickly resurrected -- and how appropriate a resurrection gift this is!

However. I do not particularly care for Christmas cactus (cacti?). My mother used to have a windowsill lined with these vaguely unpleasant looking plants. They'd sit looking droopy and a bit evil most of the year and then bloom, though never at Christmas, which is when they're supposed to be in bloom. Which is why they're so named, for heaven's sake.

Sometime after the holiday they'd deign to bud and by Easter they'd be covered with pendulous and fleshy though less than impressive flowers. This would follow the considerably more impressive Valentine's Day reflowering of the poinsettias that she also insisted on holding over. The same sort of poinsettias that right-minded people dumped in the trash after the previous holiday season She'd nurse them along -- and they required considerable tsking and coaxing -- until they once again set blooms.

She was a fine plants-woman, my mother. Though perhaps because of her taste in plants, this was not appreciated by many. Astrid and Bud were exceptions. Astrid used to be married to Michael and lived in the bright, sunny, amply terraced apartment next door to my mother's on the upper east side of Manhattan. While Astrid ran off with Bud, moving around the corner to a spacious but dark one-bedroom, they all remained friends. This is how my mother came to be growing marijuana.

Which is a whole other story...