The infirm: orchid and cactus.

This weekend’s rain offers the already sturdy flowers, shrubs, and trees in the yard an extra boost.  They’re green, flowered, and lush.

Compare them to the ailing figures in this photo, members of my rather meager population of houseplants.  The one on the left is an orchid.  Where are its characteristic blooms?  The one on the right, pancake-like, was a robust, egg-shaped cactus only a month ago.

I like houseplants; I really do.  But for a couple of unkillable Pothos, which “set the standard for tolerance of neglect,” however, I can’t seem to keep them alive for long.