nd ntd

-General MacArthur quote: "I shall return!" (oh, come on, you know I had to do that)-

Well, last night I had a dream about watering my Venus flytraps (more on those later) really, really early in the morning. It was, predictably, dark, and I kept dropping stuff and mixing up which water I was supposed to use (again, more on that later). Also, a giant brown pustuled thing grew out of my left eyebrow...

So, that's how it is. I leave for a month, and suddenly realize that I have to bring my wonderful readers up to date. With that: I got two Venus flytrap plants! They were at the 99¢ Store, so it was sort of "Why not?". Turns out that they're some of the most provokingly picky little plants in the universe. The things grow in the wild in boggy, humid swamps in the Carolinas, where apparently the water quality is so good that VFT's in captivity can only tolerate distilled water.

Yup, you read that right. DISTILLED WATER. Well, supposedly some tap water works too, but the tap water here is so choked with minerals that the faucets develop a lovely white crusty rim if left, ahem, uncleaned. So I think I'll stick with distilled.

Furthermore, they'll die if fertilized, since their natural environment is nutrient-poor (hence, the need to catch hapless insects... mwa ha ha), all conspiring to prevent me from using the same water on them as I use on all the other plants.

The only thing that remains now is to name the two beasts. I think they need names involving their original namesake, which is Venus (duh) or (from the scientific name) Dione. The name "Hephaestus" seems to suit their appearance (he was in Greek mythology the homely god of the forge whom Aphrodite -- Venus's Greek counterpart -- married), but I can't think of another name, connected with Venus/Aphrodite that fits the other of these wee little VFT's.

Oh, and by the way, I found a really engaging website about VFT's. It's fun to read even if you don't plan on growing them.

Reality check. And no, "Audrey" is not a possibility either.