Calamity Jane.

The other day i got battery acid, bleach, and rubber cement on my hands. Just, you know, part of a day in the life.

My bike light wasn't working, and when i cracked 'er open to replace the batteries, i was greeted with a nasty white, grainy film. After removing the spent batteries, i noticed piles of the stuff, beneath, and all over the metal contacts themselves. Asked Nat to look up if there was a way to clean this stuff off, or if i had to buy a whole new bike light. Turns out i had corroded battery badness all over my hands. Yum. This fact was especially fun because i happened to have a big old fresh cut on my left palm from trying to pick up a piece of beargrass at work while i was unknowingly stepping on the other end. sliiiiiiiice.

Later, i was patching the inner tube for my back wheel–it was definitely a bad day for bikes–and while stubbornly squeezing the tube of adhesive, i didn't notice that the flimsy metal casing had ripped open (probably from my thumbnail) and was oozing "TOXIC ☠ POISON" all over my fingers. Peeled it off in a tizzy.

The bleach thing is commonplace: we have it at work, in a repurposed dish soap bottle. a few drops go into almost every clean bucket of water before we put new flowers in it. Helps to keep the bacteria levels down. The downside of this arrangement is that sometimes the bottle falls into the sink, sending little droplets spraying every which way; my clothes are spattered with scads of tiny, light spots. And, on the odd occasion, one of us will grab it to wash our hands with. Oops.

Besides all of this, my hands are just jacked in general. When you use your hands as tools, this can (and certainly will) happen. Also, i don't wear gloves at work because it impedes my ability to handle anything efficiently. In fact, at the stained glass store where i used to work, we didn't wear gloves, either. When you are moving around a four foot-by-two foot sheet of glass, you want to be damn sure that you can feel the glass in your fingers. There is not a whole lot of room for error, and i have never found a glove skin-tight enough to dispel all unease. At least one of us, on any given day, had a bandage on her fingers from a glass cut. People (customers, acquaintances) would always tell us to "just wear gloves"– ah, thank you, Captains Obvious.

Stripping the greens off of the lower stems of flowers and leafy items leaves you with shriveled, permanently dirty hands. Painting your nails is basically an exercise in futility, and no amount of lotion will drench your parched palms. The amount of time that your hands are wet makes for a chapped skin affair for the ages. Sometimes, when a really precious girl says to me, "i would just love to work with flowers", it is all i can do to contain my snicker. Girly, i think, you can kiss that French manicure goodbye (see above reasoning). And your designer clothes (hello, pollen stains!), and your high heels (concrete for 8 hours, anyone?), and your breezy attitude (seriously, we are selling people something that's already dead, and at 3x the market price). i have, in fact, worked with people like that, and it just never pans out. You either aren't afraid to get dirty, or you are. You can't work in the flower shop all day and expect to leave immaculate. It's just not part of the deal.

Although, i suppose it does have its rewards...

Notes from (relative) suburbia.

If, one afternoon while walking home form work, you see an alarmingly red-hued pile of barf on the sidewalk and an empty bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos nearby, keep your wits about you.

If you, like me, leave your butter out (because nothing is more annoying than tearing a nice hot piece of toast with a cold pat of petrified fat), please don't ever place it on top of your toaster oven in haste because you 'need the counter space'. Later, when you are toasting a Pop Tart for dessert, you will return to the kitchen after hearing the faint ding! of Deliciousness Ready, only to find a pool of melted, salty grease all over your toaster, counter, floor; best let it harden back up before any cleaning attempts. Also, if you are still like me, make sure to do this at least 4 times before you learn your lesson.

There is a lovely pair of nesting mallards in our building's swimming pool. An internet search on whether or not this was good for them resulted in thousands of hits about how to rid your pool of these loud, pooping , salmonella-infested flying pests.

Watering the plants on the balcony yesterday proved to be difficult because the watering can would only trickle, even though it was full of water. Puzzled, i sloshed the water around a bit, hoping to dislodge whatever it was, and then i decided to actually look into the spout, which yielded quite a surprise: something dark and fuzzy and symmetrical was peering out at me. Left it for the next day, as the dark was settling in... Upon inspection this afternoon, noticed a pair of antennae poking out. Doesn't take an entomologist to conclude that this is probably the moth that's been laying the eggs that turned into the caterpillars that've been chomping away at Nat's Sarracenia.

i blew on her antennae, and performed a few other cursory examinations, and decided that she was probably dead by now. Using a chopstick, i poked her back down the spout into the can. Filled it up with some more water, dumped it all out, and Nat noticed that there was some life in her yet. i almost cried. She needed to be put out of her misery. One size-13 boot stomp later, and my soul was a little lighter. But not by much. Sorry, little friend.



Red tide has hit San Diego, and there are bats flying around in the courtyard at dusk these days. There have been at least fifteen bees pollinating the flowers at my work every day for the past week. Is this the return of wildlife? If so, it's about damn time.

Elephant skulls are honeycombed, so that the gargantuan beasts may more easily move around their hefty skeletons...




(There is nothing more depressing than a pizza delivery flyer on a dead man's door.)


Worked extra hard for moms this past week. Totally worth it, of course. Discovered a new spray rose, the Mimi Eden:





...ahh, ain't she lovely? Doesn't really come through in pictures, though. Hm, i may need to start a Tuesday Rose weekly post. Plenty more where this came from.

In other news: i'm starting a jar (okay, so it's actually a box), to put money in, toward my dream of someday owning and running a flower shop. Possibly with my best friend. Time to start moving towards what to do with the rest of my days.
Baby steps.

"colorful".

Okay, i survived. But just barely.

Item: i was still taping the groom's boutonniere (in my sweatpants) when the car arrived to pick up the flower arrangements, roughly 20 minutes before the wedding was scheduled to begin. This may have been the worst part, because i was fussing over everything too much, with time against me, and my fingers were literally cramping and had to be manually moved into their natural positions more than a couple of times.

Item: at the last minute on Friday, i had a friend pick up some dahlias and freesia for me, both of which i ended up having to toss because they were total garbage.

Item: the "Circus" roses that i purchased on Tuesday were almost completely dead by Friday night. This was just poor judgment on my part. i should have known that they were no good when i picked them out. Nevertheless, it added to the panic. i had to use them anyway, which made me sad. This wedding party deserved better.

Item: After setting up the arrangements on the tables outside, the wind began to pick up. During the bride's "thank you" speech, i was over at the tables, righting the 6 or so that had completely toppled over, spilling water all over the hand-sewn (by her mom!) table runners. Luckily the sun was out, so they managed to get mostly dry. Some of the flowers were a little crushed, and after re-filling the jars with water, all we could do was place them on the ground, up against the table legs for stability. i figured we could just put them back up after there were people sitting at the tables, acting as windbreaks. This was not a fun time for me. Nat helped me out immensely.

Item: Went to pin on the groom's boutonniere. Realized i had no idea how to do it. Fabulous! Jury-rigged it as best i could, only to have it fall partially off during one of the toasts. There was a brief pause in the reception so that the bride could fix it. Mortification.



On the plus side, everyone seemed to love the flowers, and 100% of people who found out that i did them were completely astonished... i took this as a compliment, because what else can one do?

Not sure i would ever do it again, and most assuredly would never do it again without a helper. i'm not sure people quite realize the amount of work it takes to get flowers cleaned and arranged, much less picked and bunched (which i personally have never done). At the market i made sure to give the farm workers big smiles and respect. We obviously couldn't do any of it without them. i also have yet to meet any actual growers, but i hope to someday. It would be nice to see the whole line: from the pure numbers (supply & demand type issues, i.e. what to grow and when) and need (acreage, fertilizer, watering, etc.), tending and picking, sorting and bunching, to selecting and prepping, then care and selling. What a whirlwind those stems go through. And the amount of green detritus left in the wake is certainly mountainous. You should have seen my living room!

Sad that i A) didn't take a single picture and B) didn't have more time to make everything perfect. But it was nice to help out a friend and to get a little (a lot?) more experience under my belt. It's helpful when you are wondering if you could do it for a living... although the jury is still out on that one. You'd have to ask Nat, who saw me at possibly my absolute worst. i thought i was going to black out from the stress! But it sort of plateaued, and then i just rode the high. Interesting feeling. Plus the accolades were not as awful as i'd feared. Scrutiny is my number one fear, as we all know.

Some pictures of the wedding here and here. My only advice to anyone else doing this? TAKE PICTURES. Even though i keep telling myself that i "literally didn't have a second free", just borrow yourself some time. It is worth it. i regret nothing more than that. Honest advice that we all know anyway.

And now, no more about flowers. i'm boring you, i'm boring me, it is done to death. Work at 8:00 am tomorrow, ugh. Too soon. i don't want to see another gerbera daisy for the rest of my life...



The Leftovers (thought there'd be more! whew.).

breathe. breathe.

So i'm doing the flowers for a friend's wedding.

Self-destruction imminent.

Why do yellow freesia exist, but just not today?

Can i wire a brassidium orchid bloom from my own plant for a corsage? Will it hold up?

And why the hell do flowers need so much damned attention? Do people realize how much work it takes to make them sit there and look pretty?

Does any of it really matter, anyway?

...probably not.


I will report back once the storm has cleared. Right now my balcony looks really, really pretty, though :)

(no wonder every flower shop owner that i have ever met is basically bat-shit insane. (no offense, guys and gals))

xo,
h

workin' woman's woes.

Just FYI: Walking up to me at work and saying "Yeah, i need some flowers." after i ask if i can help you is NOT amusing. Nor is it clever, original, or helpful in any way. Seriously. And when i ask for the TINIEST bit of input, please don't interrupt me and say, "i dunno, that's your job. You're the expert."

Seriously. Seriously?

I'm the expert at what your girlfriend/mother/best friend likes? Wow, i had no idea. How thrilling.

Uh-uh. No. This is not how it's going down.
It can then take quite awhile to extract any minute fragment of information, such as:

a) the occasion
b) if there is any flower or color the recipient particularly adores/abhors
c) should we go tall or short?
d) should this be a one-sided arrangement (i.e., the vase is against a wall)?

i could go on, but basically: just help me out a little here. Yes, i know that it is my job to make you an arrangement, but every little bit helps. It would be like me walking into a grocery store and saying to the first employee i see, "yeah, can you just, like..... pick me out some stuff? i wanna have dinner with my boyfriend tonight, so i need some food. I'm sorry, what's that? What do we like? Oh, i don't know- you're the one who works here; isn't food like, your area of expertise?"

Yeah. See how ridiculous that is? i cannot tell you how many times a person will say, "Just make me something; whatever you want" and then 5 or ten minutes later they are coming over and hemming and hawing about something i have put in (or left out). i'm not a mind reader here, folks. Just throw me a bone.

And for the record? Putting an iris next to a stargazer with a piece of solid aster thrown in "to brighten it up" is like pairing SpaghettiOs with sliced banana, served with a glass of (sour) grapefruit juice. IT JUST DOESN'T WORK. Trust me. Trust me on this.

We're done, you may go. Think about what i've said.

Saturday used to mean cartoons and tree sap

Huh. For some reason, i really hate the people on Flickr whose profile photos are of themselves holding a camera up to a mirror, taking a picture of their own face. UGH! Why do you do this, people?!

(although, is that any less irritating than using a photo of a seahorse that you found somewhere on the internet? not sure.)

For some reason i'm in a mood today, no big surprise though. Gaining weight from not smoking; it's been just over three weeks now. i need to get out of the damn house and ride my bike, is what i need to do. Took home some flowers from work yesterday- seems like my whole (measly!) paycheck goes towards flowers sometimes... i guess it all balances out in the end? I'll take a picture and then someday far far away i will get the film developed and you can see the black beauties, freesias, tuberoses, belles of ireland, and the silver vase. It will be fan-fucking-tastic.

Got lost on this Flickr photostream today... do you ever just want to be someone else for awhile? Of course you do.

Hafta buy Nat a new chair today. Someone put a sign up in the lobby for a pretty blue stuffed office-type chair for only ten bucks! There's gotta be something wrong with it, but i don't have a car and i need a chair, so i takes my chances.

Well, the birds are chirping outside, like, "get a f*!%@in' move on!" So move i do.

p.s.) Saw a good movie last night, The Lives of Others. Made me crave more info on the fall of the Berlin Wall, or rather life in East/West Berlin beforehand... what a fucked up world we live in! Why are things so split off like that? And who the fuck do people think they are? Honestly. But yeah, it is a pretty engrossing film, i highly recommend it.
Although the main actor looked a lot like Kevin Spacey, which was fucking me up for some reason.
Toodles!

p.p.s.) Yesterday there were some damn fools in front of the grocery store selling cosmetics, of all things (to sell on a folding table in front of a health food store on a Friday afternoon). They saw me coming out and must have had collective heart-attacks to see who could savage me first... i told them no thank you, and then good luck!, but with a rude face, after they continued to hound me. Can you just please take a hint? Beyond that, can you just please fuck off and die? And as i walked away, i heard the strains of a Genesis song on their little portable boombox. hahahahaha, wow! It's like they knew exactly what would hurt me the most.

Ooh, Babe It Ain't No Lie...

So have you ever listened to Elizabeth Cotten? Wonderful stuff, that is.

Meanwhile, where the hell have i been?
Answer: nowhere special. Nat was in Canada at the 8th Annual Logic, Math and Physics conference, presenting a paper of his that was accepted there. And the poor sap had to give his talk on his birthday! Boo. He was gone for a week, and had to take the laptop with him. At first i thought i would be fine, considering that this time 2 years ago we didn't even have a computer, and i used to always think i would never even need one... but yeah. I was hurtin' for a few days there. No email, no looking up the bus schedule, checking the weather, reading the news and all of my favorite blogs, etc.
But in a way it was a break that i needed. Instead, i burned through 4 1/2 library books and went on a lot of long bike rides, drank a few root beer floats after dinner. i enjoyed sort of an inner peace and quiet that maybe i hadn't had in quite some time. Being prone to sensory overload is a hard thing to be in this mad and crazy world. Sometimes i wish i weren't so sponge-like.

Then Mother's Day was coming up, and the flower shop that i work for from time to time during the holidays gave me a call; asked if i'd like to help out for a few days. So the past 3 have been toil, toil, and more toil. When i was younger i worked (full-time) at a flower shop, one that was actually somewhat bigger and where there was more work to do. The difference is that then, i was 23 and actually enjoyed living in the city i was living in. i was tired after work, sure, because i work hard, but i was never this tired. It's possible i'm just out of shape, but i think the reality is just that i am now older ;)
Still, it's always nice to be around flowers again, even though your hands get thoroughly trashed. i already have multiple cuts on the insides of my fingers, dry, cracked skin on my hands, and perma-dirt under the ol' fingernails. But it's nice to have proof of an honest day's hard work. i only wish the flower shop had more variety: nowhere are the sweet peas, snowball viburnum and lilacs that i used to find at my flower shop back home. Instead i sell people orchids that are dyed blue, irises, mums, gerbera daisies, lilies, alstroemeria. With fern added in at the end. Don't they know that there is so much more out there? Don't they know that you don't need every color represented in a bouquet?
People always say "oh, i would just love to work at a flower shop!" as if it's all sugar and roses. But where do you think we get our giant biceps? I'll tell you: from lifting buckets of water all day long. And i already mentioned the hands. And the constant sweeping, changing of brackish and slimy water, removing dead leaves and thorns from stems, pinching browned petals. There are many sides to a thing. i always laugh at how different the flower shop looks when you are standing on the outside looking in. You don't see the girls knee deep in green detritus, feet aching from standing all day. You don't see the tired minds trying to remember what flowers need your utmost attention, and the teeth-clenching when you help a customer who says "just make me up something nice.", and then decides that they don't like a single thing you suggest. Or when you pick out the freshest, most closed roses, and they say "i dunno.. those look a little tired." Good times!
But really, we don't care. Because we're here to give you beauty. At the cost of the farmworkers who slaved to grow (usually with pesticides) and pick these flowers for you at a very low wage. At the cost of the flower shop owners who wake up at 3 in the morning to get to the market early so that they can pick out the best and most awe-inspiring flowers for you to have in your home, all the while worrying about the straggling economy and the fact that they are working with highly perishable goods. And then we get to us, the over-worked flower girls, who come to work early and go home late, trying to be stoic and enjoy ourselves while working our fingers to the bone, so that your shopping experience is not marred, somehow.
And none of that matters when i come home with the five stems i selected based on their individual loveliness: an arching, orange french tulip; a strong, deep purple tulip; a tiny coral rose, and a perfect lavender one; the yellow dahlia with pink tinge, who resembles almost the rising sun itself.

Heaven!