Visit to North Carolina

My trips around the world not only taught me about orchids, but helped me pick up small bottles of vodka from the airline, that came in handy.
My niece, who I am very close to, came to visit.  After a fun day of eating, talking drinking wine,  she asked if I was O.K.  This was a strange question, but I said "yes, why are you asking" the retort was maybe I was a bit depressed? which I confess, leaving L.A., family, friends I had my moments here of feeling utterly hopeless.  In fact, for many years, I had a one-way ticket back to L.A. in my night stand.
I asked Stephanie why she thought I was depressed and she answered " I see all these little bottles of vodka half empty around the house.
You can imagine, I started laughing.  I told her they were for the orchids.  Really? yes.  You see orchids tend to attract meely bugs.  They look like flecks of snow on the flower and leaves.  Once meely bugs attack, you  have to take care of them because they sap the life out of the orchid.  I showed Stephanie a cotton swab that I dipped into the vodka bottle and cleaned the orchid with it.  Maybe the orchids enjoyed the drink because the meely bugs were not there after the touch of vodka.  I had these bottles around the house because I was lazy to go to the cabinet and bring it out everytime I needed to clean the orchids. 
I was able to start Stephanie on growing orchids,  we still use this method.