This and that

Tanya blogged about a home-built ironing board her husband made for her here and it got me to thinking about ironing boards. First, they are getting pretty expensive. Tanya said that a good ironing board costs the equivalent of $130 in Japan. Amazing! Bed Bath and Beyond sells a good Rowenta board for $99, and even that still seems too much. I have a 18 inch wide ironing board my mom bought me for Christmas several year ago at Walmart. If she paid more than $35, I would be very surprised. So, why are they so much now? Does nobody iron anymore? Is permanent press and casual clothing the death knell for ironing? As long as there are quilters, there will be ironing boards sold, I guess. This is mine. As you can see, it sort of takes up the room in the kitchen where I sew, so I usually use my tabletop board, and save this one for pressing borders and full quilt tops. Secondly, I want to recruit the help of gardening quilters to identify this plant. A landscaper told me it was an amaryllis but didn't know the variety. Maybe he was right, maybe not, but I would surely like to know what kind it is. As you can see, the stalk has 5 or 6 blooms that develop sequentially, each lagging the previous by a few days. The blooms are 4 to 4.5 inches wide.

Can anyone tell me what variety this is? Or, maybe I'm wrong and it's not an amaryllis at all!