A pair-ently the right time

Last night, just before Sean posted his Change of Shift edition–you have to love how his Coliseum picture looks like the open mouth of a roaring lion, including the teeth! Hey lion, you’ve got a few cavities there–I found myself suddenly grabbing that amaryllis pot and plunking it in front of the azaleas, hoping there was still enough daylight left for some good shots. There was. That post came tumbling out of its own volition.

And I wondered afterwards who it was really for. I referenced my nephews because they’re family and they’re the identical twins nearest and dearest to me. But I kept thinking, the timing of that sudden impulse. Curious. There would be people in the medical profession who might happen to see it if they read more than just the post Sean linked to–ya gotta love Amy’s story–and I wondered if Anne’s teasing her boys or especially the amaryllis analogy might be used to help some other twins out there whom I know nothing about. I quite hope so.

As for the how many of those things do you have question, that got me to go count their pots. (No, I don’t plant them in the ground outside: if they freeze, they die, and the rampant non-native snails in California adore them, I’ve learned.) Now, I’ve got some flowering right now because I’ve gradually staggered the timing of bringing them out of their annual dormancy period, trying to stretch out the blooming time well past December. Note that the stalk on this one is very short: that’s because the bulb was kept dry so long that it needed that extra energy to stay alive–but I’m getting my favorite flowers in April for it. Next year it will be toweringly tall the way it was meant to be and will have made the full transition from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern.

I always tell my family that an amaryllis bulb or two is all I want for my birthday. Though I give quite a few away–nowhere as generously, truth be told, as I do my knitting–I do get many of the ones I keep to bloom from year to year. (Hint: start with the bigger bulbs, not the tiny drugstore cheap ones.) The current count: a nice even 50.  My age plus one.