Spike the Flowering Air Plant

This is Spike:

I bought Spike at our local yard and garden center while I was looking for vegetables and seeds for the garden. Spike is an air plant, and I found him in the exotic plants section (while I was drooling and dreaming over the orchids). There were several air plants just hanging from hooks, and I just grabbed him and put him in the cart, almost on a whim. He now lives above my kitchen sink (near the sky-light) after a very brief time hanging from my rear-view mirror.

Kyle wouldn't let me keep him on the rear-view mirror.

I believe his exact words were: "you're not a high school girl, Leslie."

*Sigh*

Spike looked fun hanging from my rear-view mirror.

Anyway, I've had Spike for a couple of months now, and what an easy plant he turned out to be! Well, about a week ago, I walked into the kitchen and discovered that Spike had changed. He now has beautiful purple flowers.

They look like this:

The flowers have grown in twos all over the plant (which I actually think are several air plants that are bound together with the wire hanger). They are gorgeous. I don't know if this marks the end of the life of Spike (I hope not. I'm really quite fond of Spike.).

I'm not going to think about that right now. For now, I'm just going to enjoy this colorful addition to my kitchen.