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Once more, for those in the back...

6/6/2017

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I was reminded today that people *still* don't understand how truly bitter and strange florists are. In the interest of public illumination, I now post an excerpt from Fresh Cut to be digested by the world at large. Hope it doesn't choke.
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​*(Disclaimer: please be advised that Fresh Cut is 1/3 funny florist stories, and the rest is sex, drugs, violence, depression, and death. So don't go blaming me if you pick it up for an afternoon of beach reading and wind up weeping in the sand).

Victoria: my friend, my enemy, my challenge, and my inspiration. It was with Victoria that I began to compile the list, the defining archive of just exactly why it was so ridiculously awful to be a florist. It took a lot of nights of Jagermeister and cocaine, but here it is...

10 Things Most Likely to Send Florists Into a Homicidal Rage 

1) The biggie: "This must be the best job in the world!" No. It's dirty, tiring, we're overworked, underpaid, totally unappreciated, and we have to deal with assholes like you all day.  Piss off.

2) "It smells so good in here." Whatever. It's a flower shop. Here's a hint: if you walk into a flower shop and it smells like fresh beef, that is not a good sign. We can't smell anything anyway; we've become completely numb. Plus, what you're probably smelling is the aromatherapy candles. Most flowers don't smell. Try to find something slightly less inane to say.   

3) "Are these flowers fresh?" Yes. Certainly fresher than your breath. My entire job is to sell you fresh fucking flowers. If they die, you're going to come back and irritate me again, so yes, they're "fresh."

4) "They don't look fresh." Oh, I'm sorry. Apparently I got confused about which one of us is actually the professional that does this for a living and looks at these miserable fucking fresh flowers day in and day out. How informative of you to educate me in this way. If you don't like the look of it, don't buy it, dipshit, I've got better things to do than stand here and fight against your ignorance. And quit saying "fresh," it's incredibly creepy.

5) "My flowers died in a week. I want my money back!" What is wrong with you people? Why don't you get it? Flowers die! Accept it and move on. What do you need, a support group?  Look, flowers are dying from the moment they're cut off the plant! Their pathetic existences are only being prolonged by artificial means. C'mon, how long would you expect a severed arm to live in a tub of water before it started to rot? Flowers are dying, decaying lumps of organic matter, but marginally nicer than a severed arm on the kitchen table, depending, I guess, on what you're into.
 
6) "So your flowers died. How much water is in the vase?" "Oooh, about an inch." Wrong! Assuming you have put your flowers into a receptacle containing water, you should look at your stems to see whether they are actually in the water. If the water level in your container is two inches below the severed stems, your flowers are not absorbing water, and are dead. Gravity. Basic laws of physics. Ring a bell?

7) "What color is the water?" "Mmm, brown."  Wrong!  Two possibilities if you have brown water:  1) It's coffee; or 2) You have created a stagnant cesspool and a breeding ground for pestilence. Okay, back to basics: we are talking about decaying lumps of organic matter left to sit in water. Hint: If the water your flowers are sitting in starts to look or smell like a swamp, dump it out and put in clean water. Not brain-surgery-level thinking here.

8) "You guys just jack up your prices on Valentine's day."   No, moron, you do. Why do roses cost fifty percent more to the customer on Valentine's Day? Because they cost us two hundred percent more, because the demand has been raised a thousand percent. Because unimaginative male morons decided to buy something on a stupid made-up holiday that popular mythology has told them will get them laid.

9) "I want eleven white roses and one red rose in the middle." So, basically, you want...a target? Very few florists can think of an uglier arrangement. Why in the name of God would you want to send such a travesty? Your lover reminds you of a blood clot, perhaps? Or perhaps you'd like the reverse, eleven red and one white, the "oops I forgot to color in this spot" look?  Tell you what: leave the designing to the professionals. And stop trying to be symbolic. It doesn't work. Just send something pretty.
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10) "I can get this for a dollar at the grocery store!" Good.  Need me to draw you a map to the grocery store? Get the fuck out of my shop. Not my fault big business buys bulk product at discount and sells it for cost, thus simultaneously undercutting small businesses, compromising quality and destroying confidence in the industry. Thanks for reminding me of my misfortune. 
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Broken Circle

5/1/2017

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Of all the funerals and tragedies I worked when I was a florist, I never worked with someone on the death of their child. After almost 10 years, I wonder how I avoided it. Maybe the owner always took those cases knowing how sensitive it would be. 

Now that I think of it, I seem to recall hearing such things whispered of in hushed, sidelong, almost reverent tones that were highly unusual for the usual group or sarcastic bastards I worked with. Someone had lost a baby. Someone's child was in the cancer ward. Oh, god, now that I think of it I seem to remember a co-worker making a casket spray that was unusually small. We knew what it was for. We were all very quiet. I think she was crying. I should not have tried to remember this.

I write a lot about the circle of life, nature's system of checks and balances and endless renewal. I can't help but feel that a lost child breaks that circle. It's backwards. Birth, growth, death, rebirth. When the chain is broken somewhere in the middle, when the growth cycle isn't completed, why does the whole system not just fall apart?
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Yet somehow, it doesn't. People go on. I don't know how they go on, but they do. So do animals. So do plants. In fact, nature's kingdom on it's more basic levels may be particularly merciless, because many of the young do not survive. A mother bear eats her young because she senses the upcoming season will not support them. A wild daisy seeds itself with abundance, knowing half of its seedlings will wither and die before maturity.
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And none of that matters a goddamn bit when you lose a child. No words of comfort, of seeing the larger picture, will suffice. The circle is broken, inside, and will never be rejoined. People go on, but a part of them goes back to the earth or air with their child.
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Maybe this is why it's folly to compare higher consciousness to animal instinct. Maybe the two have no relation to one another. Maybe I've been wrong all along.

May Day is a day of fertility and hope. On this day of renewal, my heart goes out to all those living with the loss of a child. May you be reunited someday, on some other plane of spirit or imagination.

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Oh, The Summer Nights...

6/20/2016

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Doesn't it seem odd that the longest day of the year comes right at the beginning of summer? Then you spend the rest of the season under the threat of increasing darkness. Winter, as they say, is coming.
And yet, those wild summer nights, getting longer and hotter: don't they just stir something in the blood? Some primal urge, some sense of living it up in the face of looming mortality?

​Where I grew up, in New England, the summers were painfully short and the nights were deliciously long. Oh, the mischief! Fireflies, sunburns, kisses, warm grass. Oh, the memories... Summer days, summer nights, summer loving.
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May Day

5/1/2016

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Why have we lost the tradition of May Day? Nothing like a phallic celebration of spring to kick the season off right.

​I love the restlessness of this time of year, the plants and animals waking up and stretching out, blooming and romping and hoping to be fruitful.

I advocate a return to seasonal celebrations, especially ones that can be celebrated with feasting, drinking, and f...fruitfulness. Let's take it back!

Go to work barefoot with ribbons in your hair and hit on the boss. If you get fired, run happily out the door, laughing and flinging flower petals behind you.

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Fool for April

4/1/2016

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Here I am, about to get all poetical about my deep love for spring. Sorry. But it's true. I just love it. In a mixed-feelings kind of way.
Where I grew up in Maine, early spring was cold and stormy, and is better known as "mud season." In the towns and cities, it was the time when the snow had mostly melted, revealing all the half-frozen dog poo that was conveniently buried for the winter. Oh, Mainers love their dogs. And their freedom to not have to clean up after them. Shudder. Not a pleasant time of year. Still, you knew that soon you'd have a few weeks of flowers and birdsong.
In sunny Los Angeles, spring is hardly a blink before the scorching heat of summer dries everything out to a uniform golden-brown.
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But in the southern California mountains, spring is a particular kind of conundrum. Not so cold as a New England Spring, but still prone to the occasional snowstorm. Not so dry as a Los Angeles spring, but still with the same sense of impending parched earth. To see the riot of sunny daffodils in the settled areas and the brilliant violet of wild Lunaria on the hillsides...to walk under white clouds of dogwood as the cold mists billow down the mountain streets...it's beautiful and otherworldly. Faintly sad, as though you can feel how, at any moment, the fragile wildlife could be smothered by a snowfall, or even ravaged by an early wildfire. Anything could happen. this is a place where nature is still very, very wild, and man lives only on her good graces. What a wonderful reminder.

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"Eve's Folly" the Book

3/15/2016

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Here's what I'm pondering: Can I, should I , may I, would I...be crazy enough to try and put the "Eve's Folly" philosophy into book form? You may notice there is already a version of Eve's Folly available on Amazon; I collected some of my wildest florist stories and edited them together into a fast, fun read. But I'd like to do more. I'd like to make people laugh, and make them think about what it means to really get up close and personal with plantlife.
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If I do this, it would likely contain the following sections: 

Crazy Florist Stories - Many of these are pulled from Fresh Cut. Oh, the shenanigans!
Plant Psychology - The many mental benefits of a close relationship with plants. No, really, this one's serious. You can learn lessons of patience, acceptance, and determination. It's the secret to a happy freaking life, I tell you.
Gardening Ideas - Like the Night Blooming Goth Garden (get ready to install some outdoor blacklights) and the F**king Fairy Garden (it's fun  to yell this drunkenly at your neighbors).

So, the whole thing may sound like a joke; I can't really do a philosophy project seriously. But there is a strong vein of genuine belief in here. We have forgotten a lot of the common sense inherent in a life that is close to nature. The information age is here to stay, but that doesn't mean we have to lose where we came from.

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Flower to the People!

2/14/2016

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Eve's Folly is more than just a snarky blog and a lot of jokes about flowers being sex organs.
Eve's Folly is a movement, a mindset, and a mission. Or at least, it will be soon. I hope.
​If that sounds a bit like I'm trying to start a cult, well - yes! I pretty much am. A cult of plant-loving powerhouses that aren't afraid to share the love.
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To be clear, I'm not talking about environmentalism, organic farming, or veganism. There are enough other people talking about that stuff. (And as a plant lover, I think veganism is murder. I aspire to be exclusively carnivorous). No, I'm talking about the lessons we can learn from plantlife. I swear it's not as crazy as it sounds.

Back when we were an agrarian society, or even hunter-gatherers, we understood some very valuable things that I think have been lost in our modern information age. When you live, work, and subsist on a close relationship with the world of Flora you learn patience and persistence: Plants don't just bloom and fruit overnight. You also learn acceptance and adaptability: Bugs and fungus happen, crops fail, berry bushes get all picked over or eaten by birds. But you don't give up just because things don't go your way. There's always a new season, a new beginning.

See where I'm going with all this? I'm working on a concept I like to call plant psychology. Again, it's not as crazy as it sounds. I think understanding the natural cycles of plantlife can give us poor, flawed humans the key to happiness. So yeah, I'm starting a cult. A flower cult. It will be the prettiest cult ever. Join me. Flower to the People!
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We're the Opposite of People

1/31/2016

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Sadly, it's time to put the Eve's Folly Youtube channel to bed for a while. I haven't been able to garner enough viewership to justify the time involved. And I have to say, it's just the saddest thing to be pouring out your heart and soul and have no one watching. Not that I could stay hidden forever. We acting types are, as Tom Stoppard's Player so famously said, the opposite of people. We're compelled to show the things other people want to hide.

So I'll still pop back on from time to time, and maybe resurrect it in the future. And I'll certainly continue to make more posts here on Madness in the Garden: all about plants and the people who love them. For now - so long, farewell, etc etc. Love, "Eve."
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Happy Sacrificial Holidays

12/31/2015

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I have to admit that I just love Christmas. In my own very pagan way. I love Yule, Saturnalia, Solstice, and all manner of dark and wild winter festivities. I've always felt that, historically, winter holidays had a very dark edge to them. Sort of a "Well, it's freezing cold and we may not make it to spring, but most of us aren't dead yet, so let's party!" kind of thing., Well, imagine my delight when I discovered that the humble Pointsettia could well have been used in Mayan blood sacrifice!  Enjoy this little "Eve's Folly" holiday tribute.
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It's What You Do With It...

11/30/2015

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This month's Bitter Ex-Florist episode addresses the immortal question: What's more important - How long it lasts or what you do with it? Check out my latest vlog post as I ponder this issue, and stumble into clumsy sexual innuendo over and over again.
Florists are always getting bugged about long-lasting flowers. Sure, people hate to waste money on something that's going to croak in a few days, I get that. But I think flowers aggravate people's sense of their own mortality and ultimate powerlessness in the face of the inescapable cycles of life. That may seem like a lot of burden to put on a tiny little flower, but I swear it's true. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Cut flowers are the ultimate symbol of mortality.

Only once did I meet a young lady that straight-up confessed that she hates cut flowers, because she can't stand watching something so beautiful die. I wanted to both cheer and cry at that sentiment. Hooray for understanding the larger context! Boo-Hoo for not being able to appreciate the beauty anyway.

I think that it's not all about being long-lasting: if you appreciate the beauty of something even for a second, it was worth it. Sadly, in the cut flower industry, the most beautiful flowers are often the most fragile. Don't let that deter you. Give yourself over to the pure pleasure of the experience, however fleeting. *Words to live by.*
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    "Eve A. Floriste"

    If you're on this website, chances are you already know "All About Eve." Who is really author E.J. Bouinatchova: a writer of the strange, dark, funny, and eclectic, a former florist, and a passionate plant-o-phile.

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