Flowers insolita Blog

A dintinguished florist, Cathy of Avante Gardens in Anaheim California, has asked me to write something about “Florists, Flowers, and Moms.” She asks “What are your three favorite Mother’s Day flowers and how did/does your Mom inspire you in the flower business?”

I have been struggling a bit to answer these question, because, to tell you the truth, my mother and I have not been on talking terms for a long time.

Yes, I do have a story of flowers and my mother. She used to like to plant Tulips in the tiny garden of a small house which we were sharing with another single-mother family. One afternoon in a sunny Spring day, finally a big bloom of Tulip came out. I was in the garden, looking at the marvelous bloom. Then I recognized my mother looking at me through the window.

As far as I can recall, I don’t remember her ever smiling. Naturally, as a small child, I was very eager to please my mother. All I wanted was to let her see the Tulip bloom.

I grabbed the neck of the Tulip and tilted it toward her, so that she would be able to see the beautiful bloom from top. But the next thing I knew was that the Tulip’s neck snapped and broke; my mother frowned at me and walked away from the window. I remember trying to “straighten” the broken neck in vain. This happened more than 40 years ago, but I still remember the day vividly.

Whenever the Mother’s Day comes, it is that broken Tulip in my hand that I remember, and our tiny garden, the bright sun, the sound of wind, my dirty hands, and all…

I recognize that Mother’s Day evokes different feelings to different people, just like it reminds me of one more sad afternoon in my boyhood. For many people, it may be a memorial day of their loving mothers. And for some mothers, it may be a day of remembrance of their children whom they can no longer see and touch.

Mother’s Day is one of the biggest commercial holidays in the US and we florists profit from it. And as a business owner, of course I intend to profit from it.

At the same time, I would like to be mindful of many real people, for whom Mother’s Day is not, and should not be, a day of commercial extravaganza. As a florist trying to deliver emotions, I am still trying to find out what we should be doing on Mother’s Day, not just making money, which is important for a business but not the only thing that’s important.

Yesterday (Apr 25th), ABC’s ’20/20′ aired a story about a “boy” born with female brain. That is, this “boy” is a biological male, but “he” feels “he” is a girl, a condition known as “Gender-identity Disorder” or “Gender Dysphoria.”
Read ABC’s “Born with the wrong body”

For most people like me, it is very difficult to imagine the struggle these children must be going through. They have to confront not only with their own identiy crisis, but also with their peers and the societies that are not at all kind to them. ABC’s report says that many of these children end up self-mutilating themselves.

Coincidentally, one of the most popular young musicians in Japan is a person with Gender Dysphoria. The musician, Ataru Nakamura, 21-yr old, is a singer song writer, who has a beautiful female voice, but is biologically a male.

One of her hit songs, “Friend Song”, is said to be an enormous hit in that country. It’s a sad broken heart love song that she wrote when she was just a 15-yr old “girl.” She fell in love with a band member, a boy, even though she knew this was a totally hopeless love.
The lyrics goes like this (unofficial direct translation):

“I saw the future of my love even before touching you / but kept that meaningless love for a long, long time.”
“I did’t mend my broken heart, but tried to hide it under other pains in my heart / but it easily became so obvious, it leaked out from somewhere.”
“It would have been enough for me to just hold your hands / just walk together with you.”
“But even that may be difficult / so it is enough for me to be just a friend with someone important.”
“Could I have still been with you, if I hadn’t leaned on you?”
“If I hadn’t cared, I could have just left / but I knew it was impossible at that time.”
“You laughed at me, made fun of me / but I still couldn’t hate you, kept blaming myself, so pitiful, forever.”
“It would have been enough for me to just hold you hands / just walk together with you.”
“But even that may be difficult / so it is more than enough for me to be able to just look at someone important.”
“When you forget about me, if you ever see me again / please be friendly to me.”

Here’s the music video of Ataru Nakamura from Youtube:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY83IdPJZNw[/youtube]

or

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHAw5S0kKQg[/youtube]

We would like to warn our loyal customers that there is a scam website called “flowersinsolita.com” (without a dash/hyphen ‘-’) which has nothing to do with us, flowers-insolita.com.

Their sole purpose of existence is to trap the customers who are looking for our website and re-direct them to paid advertisers, earning commissions in the process.

Does this mean that our website is popular enough so that this Internet scam artist (see below) thinks it’s worth stealing our identity?

Here’s the scam artist pretending to be us:

Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc.
2101 Rosecrans Ave. #2000
El Segundo, CA 90245

I’m sure this is just a basement “company” run by a low-life geek who probably has no talent other than taking advantage of hard-working Americans.  A quick google search for “Navigation Catalyst Systems” brough up a ton of scam reports.

The harder you an’I work,

The less and less you an’I make,

Welcome to America

In this series of articles, we would like to present a few tips on ordering a flower arrangment.

First and foremost… If you would like to send a unique, tasteful flower arrangement that can “WOW” the recipient, you should forget about “same-day” delivery. Don’t wait until 1 pm of your wife’s birthday to order her birthday flowers.

It’s not that we can’t do the same-day delivery. We can. Florists have inventories of “staple” flowers all the time, such as roses, lilies, baby’s breath, mums, carnations, etc. (we don’t use mums and carns, but most other florists do).

The problem of same-day delivery is that your arrangement would have to be made using those common staple flowers. As the result, your arrangement would look more or less the same as any other arrangement your florist does everyday, because the component flowers are the same. However pretty the arrangement might be, it would look ordinary, lacking the “WOW” factor.

If you know a special occassion is coming (Birthday, Mother’s Day, etc), plan ahead of the time. Call your florist one week before, and tell them that a very important occassion is coming to you and you want something very, very special. If you have a specific idea of what you want (e.g., special flowers), just tell them.

You might wonder… “But I have only xyz-dollars at my disposal, and no florist will take a special request for such a small amount of money.” If that’s really case, I think you shouldn’t be using that florist. You should be dealing with a florist who goes “extra” mile to accomodate your wish.

All you need to do is to give us enough time to prepare. One week should be sufficient. We do need one week to order special flowers (in our case, from a Dutch auction), have the flowers delivered to our store, and condition them.

This week has been one that everyone will remember for one reason or another. The country was hit with devistating storms which left thousands homeless. Some were more fortunate and only had their possessions ruined, others were not as lucky and lost their lives.

The true tragedy happened on a college campus  Virginia Tech. 33 people died as a result of a man on a shooting spree. These were sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and family to many. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to the families and friends of these students.

I am a mother of two. I can not imagine what these parents must be going through. My first reaction was ” My God, what if this was my child”. The tears began to flow. My heart breaks for them. My second reaction was that when I get home I will hug and kiss my kids and tell them how much I love them. Life is so short and sweet, make everyday count.

My thoughts and prayers go out to these families who have lost their children.

I hope everyone is enjoying Passover and being with their families.

I know I am looking forward to Easter and spending a day off with my family.

So, to everyone Happy Easter and Happy Passover.

Forget about Global Warming.  It’s not happening in Long Island.  It’s been so cold here, highs around low 40F and lows below freezing.  We even had SNOW flurry in the last two days.

Daffodils are shivering, tulips not growing.  All the nurseries took the “Spring” plants back into their greenhouses.  Who said it’s April?  Feels like mid Feburary.  Mr. Al Gore, sorry, you’re wrong. ;-) The Ice Age is coming.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiqiNYTpLkY[/youtube]

It seems to me , that these days the Mom and Pop shops are disappearing all to fast. It is really a shame. The “American Dream” is fading. What ever happened to taking pride in the work that we do, in the products that we make and sell, and customer service. What happened to service with a smile, or built to last or we stand behind our products. Even better, Made in America. How often do you call a store and get a live person on the phone without having to press a lot of numbers, say what language you want or you waiting time will be approximately 35 minutes? When’s the last time you went to a register to check out and the cashier smiles, thanks you and calls you by name? Everyone complains about things like this, but does anyone stop to wonder why it happens? It’s because we let it. We have created a society that has no time. Everything needs to be now, we want what we want and we want it now and we want it for less. We don’t take time, everything is rushed. It’s a one stop shopping world or let’s look on line. People don’t write letters anymore, they email. We don’t make phone calls we text message. We don’t take time to look for a special gift, for that someone special, in the cute little specialty shop, we click on line or buy a gift card. We’ve become so impersonal. We also don’t take time to sit and have good breakfast, we grab a powerbar or some canned breakfast shake and go. Lunch a quick sub or something else from someother fast food place and eat it as we’re speeding down the road to make it back to the office after picking up our dry cleaning, going grocery shopping and running 12 other errands all with 45 minutes. Dinner, well let’s see what’s in the freezer, oh, t.v. dinners!!! This whole blog started this morning when I heard that a nice little family owned business that I shopped at frequently was going to close after 35 years of business. Not because they were retiring or that their children didn’t want to take the business over, but because there isn’t any business. The big retail chains finally took their toll. Why bother going to a family owned store? Which actually had prices that were as good as the big chain store sometimes better. They new exactly what they were talking about because that was their business to know the products they sold.They always greated you with a smile, said hello, were very polite, never ignored you. It was always a pleasure to shop there. That’s why I “bothered” to go that small family owned store! It sad. These are wonderful people, who chose to own there own business and work hard, but unfortunatey had to close. I hate the thought of other small businesses that are being put in the same situation.

I work in the very charming Village of Huntington. The side walks are paved with bricks, some of the buildings and houses date back to the early 1700′s and there is a beautiful church that was built in the late 1600′s. There are little shops filled with wonderful gifts and things you won’t find in the mall. Restaurants and local pubs line the streets, during the summer tables fill the walkways for outside dinning. There is a quaint tea shop named Tea-Tiques that is filled with collectables and serves delicious scones and wonderful teas. Pat the owner greets you personally and makes you feel right at home. There are antique shops, a great music shop that specializes in oldies and hard to find movies and records. Great clothing shops for all tastes. Coffee shops and book stores where people hang out and relax and enjoy conversation. There is also our flower shop where people come in to fill their senses with the wonderful smell of flowers and visually enjoy our unusual flower selections. There are parks and beaches to enjoy.The warm summer breezes make morning walks near the harbor very enjoyable. Fishing boats take off from the pier filled with fishermen ready for a great day on the water in the Long Island Sound. The streets are decorated for each season and in May there is a Farmer’s Market, where local farmer’s sell produce. Local small business families sell homemade pie’s and jams, breads and so much more. There is the Historical Society where you look through the archives, see old photos and atrtifacts from days gone by. There are art galleries with some extrodinary works. The local art museum is in a park with a lovely pond filled with birds and kids go fishing at the waters edge and play on a beautiful playgroungd while moms sit around chatting.

Sounds like a town in a Norman Rockwell painting. Well it kind of is. The reason being is that most of the wonderful shops in the town are owned by individuals. They take pride in their stores, they know their old customers and welcome the new faces that come into their shops.

Visit a small town with all those charming little stores, support the small business thats been there for years. See what a difference there is between going to a mall or a big chain store and going to your local small businesses. You’ll be suprised and probably find wonderful treasures, great people and not come relaxed after a nice shopping experience.

Thanks for reading.