Spring flowers, the National Work Stoppage Protest May 1, and the car crash

I've been wanting a new orchid for a while now because spring means new growth and plants and I always try to celebrate spring with some new babies. Some people buy clothes, I buy orchids. But because of the hurricane the growers have not been able to supply the stores for a while.  So seeing as the Mayaguez Mall had it's bi-annual Orchid Festival. I decided to go last week and see what I could find. Well to call it a 'Festival' is reaching and stretching the truth till it breaks!

It's been getting worse and worse every year anyway, but this one was really bad. Two tables each with one or two mature flowering plants as the 'sample' and a bunch of little baby plantlings thrown bare rooted in a box for sale. I mean really now!

They simply would not sell any of the larger plants! So who wants to buy a plantling that you know was forced to grow on the mature plants with hormones and other chemicals, and that when you get it home you have to start nurturing it to bring it up to speed and it might not even make it?  Not me! Never going there again, big waste of time.

So I guess its back to the good ole Home Depot and Walmart that have so far sold pretty healthy orchids.

So I went yesterday but the pickings were small. The plant nurseries were hit hard by the hurricane and they haven't recuperated yet. But my daughter spotted about five Vandas hanging. Exactly what I had my heart set on, a Vanda! But oh my! The condition they were in! Sad, sad, sad! I scoped out the best looking one (or the least worse) it had no flowers and a few sunburn spots, so I thought if they give me a discount I'll buy it, if not no go.

I found the the garden guy and he was hesitant, but I pointed out that "my goodness look at them, they were in a sorry condition and with no flowers, how would I know if I already had the color, or it might even die, (it's not gonna die, I know it's not gonna die, but he didn't xD) and if it was the same colors as the one that had two wilted flowers on it, which he said it was, then I don't have that color, but I told him I did xD  blah,blah,blah,blah,blah!  So I  just wore him down with my logic and debating skills x*D so he went to plead my case to the manager. He came back and did accede to take $10 off the price, which is good, so I bought it. AT LAST A VANDA! Goldarnit!

Anyway I wanted Hibiscus plants but they are nowhere to be found! So I then I bought some small herb pots, white and purple Basil, Marjoram, Culantro. I wanted badly some Oregano plants but there were none. They are shade plants and very delicate, notoriously difficult to grow,   I'll just have to keep going till they bring them.

And my daughters old car, she gave the mechanic the wrong year and after ordering and waiting, they found out the mistake! My daughter can be ditzy sometimes, it runs in the family...Finally this week supposedly the part will arrive and we'll see...

AND A CREEP HIT MY DAUGHTERS NEW CAR IN THE BACK!!!  She was stopped for a light on her way to work and the idiot hit her!  So he tells the cops he guesses that he just 'got distracted'! I mean...isn't there a penalty for driving and crashing because you're "distracted" ??? At a friggin light? Yeezuz send the fire!

It wasn't much, thank God, it looks like a scratch actually, but my son says those cars have a foam and honeycomb something or other inside the bumper that might have broken, and those bumpers just bounce out again, but meanwhile it's broken inside, anyway she had a mechanic look at it and make an estimate and all that.

There will be a National Work Stoppage/Protest tomorrow May 1st in protest of the austerity measures, and pension cuts and all the rest.  So everybody's saying tomorrow there will be no gas, no light, no nothing! The universities did close, and Plaza will be closed, also the court system and many businesses, in anticipation of any situations.

Ain't got no time for this...really!