Amazing Cafe Dinner Plate Dahlias and they’re only $6.50 a stem. Come on in while we still have them!
Amazing Dahlias
Reply
Monthly Archives: June 2009
You’re Cordially Invited
Hope to see you there!
On the Chalkboard This Week- June 29, 2009
Day Dream
Funny the way I feel now
Can’t keep my feet on the ground
Ev’rything seems unreal now
When you’re not around:
Day Dream why do you haunt me so
Deep in a rosy glow the face of my love you show
Day Dream I walk along on air building a castle there
for me and my love to share.
Don’t know the time Lordy, I’m in a daze
Sun in the sky, while I moon around feeling hazy
Day Dream don’t break my reverie until I find that
she is day dreaming just like me.
Day Dream why do you haunt me so
Deep in a rosy glow the face of my love you show
Day Dream I walk along on air building a castle there
for me and my love to share.
Don’t know the time Lordy, I’m in a daze
Sun in the sky, while I moon around feeling hazy
Day Dream don’t break my reverie until I find that
she is day dreaming just like me.
Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn
11 Questions – June 28, 2009
Blogger Wretchard AKA Richard Fernandez founder of the Belmont Club and frequent contributor to PajamasMedia weighs in this week.
What fragrance provokes the most profound memory in you?
“Jasmine.”
What is your comfort food?
“A fried egg.”
Of the six senses (ESP included) which is the strongest for you?
“Sight.”
What is your daily daydream?
“Being in a cabin in a snowy forest sitting at a table looking out on a window, with a steaming cup of coffee in hand.”
If you found a hundred bucks on the sidewalk, what would you do with it?
“Buy groceries.”
What is your existential bliss?
“Walking without purpose.”
What are you hopeful for?
“Happiness for my wife and son.”
What is your greatest vice?
“Wasting time.”
What is your greatest virtue?
“An inability to be consciously cruel.”
What do you want from life?
“Some retirement money and about 20 years of good health.”
Does Heaven Exist?
“Yes.”
Sneak Peek
Che Bella was invited to provide a wedding bouquet for Exquisite Wedding Magazine’s Fall/Winter edition. We are very excited to offer you a sneak peak. Our task was to provide an upscale bouquet using wildflowers. Carla’s interpretation is in the Japanese Wabi-Sabi philosophy. Starting with a willow frame, Carla introduced Lady’s Mantle to provide a forest for the Chocolate Cosmos and Scabiosa pods to emerge from. If you look closely at the top of the bouquet the willow shapes into abstract hearts, while the base of the bouquet leaves the roots of the relationship growing. In keeping with the wood nymph theme Carla wrapped the handle of the bouquet with Washington Moss affixed with silver wire and a rhinestone pin.
Can’t wait to see a better photographer take pictures of this fabulous bouquet. We’ll keep you posted.
[book id='3'/]
Thea’s Birthday Present
[book id='2'/]
Carla had a lot of fun putting this together. We had an old display case at the shop that wasn’t being used any longer, so Carla decided to turn it into a jewelry box. Being fond of religious iconography decided that that would form the main motif of the inside of the case. St. Therese of Liseaux is Thea’s patron Saint. As luck would have it, we found a framed vintage picture of St. Therese at India Street Antiques, along with a first Communion Scapular. The scapular can be seen in the lower left also framed.
Thea has a particular interest in all things, hmmm pertaining to shall we say Ladies of the Evening. Carla thought it an interesting juxtaposition of religion and lust to incorporate old French pornographic post cards. Which can be seen throughout the background.
The Poem on the back of the case is Pablo Neruda’s Sonnett XXXIV – You are the Daughter of the Sea.
You are the daughter of the sea, oregano’s first cousin.
Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.
Your eyes go out toward the water, and the waves rise;
your hands go out to the earth and the seeds swell;
you know the deep essence of water and the earth,
conjoined in you like a formula for clay.
Naiad: cut your body into turquoise pieces,
they will bloom resurrected in the kitchen.
This is how you become everything that lives.
And so at last, you sleep, in the circle of my arms
that push back the shadows so that you can rest–
vegetables, seaweed, herbs: the foam of your dreams.
On the Chalkboard This Week – June 22, 2009
When the child was a child
It walked with arms hanging
Wanted the stream to be a river and the river a torrent
And this puddle, the sea
When the child was a child, it didn’t know
It was a child
Everything for it was filled with life and all life was one
Saw the horizon without trying to reach it
Couldn’t rush itself And think on command
Was often terribly bored
And couldn’t wait
Passed up greeting the moments
And prayed only with it’s lips
When the child was a child
It didn’t have an opinion about a thing
Had no habits
Often sat crossed-legged, took off running
Had a cow lick in it’s hair
And didn’t put on a face when photographed
When the child was a child
It was the time of the following questions
Why am I me and why not you
Why am I here and why not there
Why did time begin and where does space end
Isn’t what I see and hear and smell
Just the appearance of the world in front of the world
Isn’t life under the sun just a dream
Does evil actually exist in people
Who really are evil
Why can’t it be that I who am
Wasn’t before I was
And that sometime I, the I, I am
No longer will be the I, I am
When the child was a child
It gagged on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding
And on steamed cauliflower
And now eats all of it and not just because it has to
When the child was a child
It woke up once in a strange bed
And now time and time again
Many people seem beautiful to it
And now not so many and now only if it’s lucky
It had a precise picture of paradise
And now can only vaguely conceive of it at best
It couldn’t imagine nothingness
And today shudders in the face of it
Go for the ball
Which today rolls between it’s legs
With it’s I’m here it came
Into the house which now is empty
When the child was a child
It played with enthusiasm
And now only with such former concentration
Where it’s work is concerned
When the game, task, activity, subject happens to be it’s work
When the child was a child
It was enough to live on apples and bread. And it’s still that way
When the child was a child berries fell
Only like berries into it’s hand. And still do
The fresh walnuts made it’s tongue raw. And still do
Atop each mountain it craved
Yet a higher mountain. And in each city it craved
Yet a bigger city. And still does
Reach for the cherries in the treetop
As elated as it still is today
Was shy in front of strangers. And still is
It waited for the first snow. And still waits that way
When the child was a child
It waited restlessly each day for the return of the loved one
And still waits that way
When the child was a child
It hurled a stick like a lance into a tree
And it’s still quivering there today
The child, the child was a child
Was a child, was a child, was a child, was a child
Child, child, child
When the child, when the child, when the child
When the child, when the child
The child, child, child, child, child
Peter Handke
11 Questions – June 21, 2009
San Diego’s Local Television Station KUSI’s Kristen Cusato answers the 11 Questions.
What fragrance provokes the most profound memory in you?
“Shalimar…my mom used to wear it all the time”
What is your comfort food?
“Pasta with butter”
Of the six senses (ESP included) which is the strongest for you?
“My sense of smell, I can smell some pretty interesting things sometimes from very far away. in my first news job, on a crime scene near a marsh where they had just found a body, I told the investgiators I smelled another one. They said…not possible..they took it out of here. They went in and a few hours later, found not one but two more. True story.”
What is your daily daydream?
“that I live in San Diego…oh wait, that’s a reality.”
If you found a hundred bucks on the sidewalk, what would you do with it?
“Take my friends out for food and drinks.”
What is your existential bliss?
“Being somewhere where I feel filled with light–has happened while racing a dragonfly while beach biking. has happened while in a deep connecting conversation with someone I find interesting. has happened in a deep kiss.”
What are you hopeful for?
“Peace of mind”
What is your greatest vice?
“Forever searching for my happiness in others”
What is your greatest virtue?
“Taking care of my friends and family”
What do you want from life?
“To live a good one and take care of others and myself. To enjoy every experience to the fullest…to have endless joy.”
Does Heaven Exist?
“There is a place people go when they die. I do not know what it is called. Loved ones will find each other there.”
Hiya Mr. Dunahee
Being a florist is a lot like being a bartender. We both experience the highs and lows of the human condition. Like the guy crying in his beer, explaining to the guy across the counter how his wife left him, we too get an earful. In the seven plus years we’ve been in business we’ve sent flowers to strippers from smitten men, listened to guys explain to us how they’ve really screwed up with their wife and are hoping beyond hope that these flowers will in some small way get them back in her good graces again. We’ve had women send flowers to themselves at the office – with an enclosure card – who knows why? Men ordering flowers for their wives AND mistresses, the mistress ALWAYS gets the bigger order. Bad form guys.
Guys can be pricks.
But it is not all the dark side of the human behavior. A florist becomes an active participant in all of life’s joys, sorrows and milestones in a person’s life. Be it helping the gawky teenage boy pick out a bouquet for his prom date, expressing someone’s sorrow over the loss of a loved one, or the joy of birth, marriage and just because. We articulate the “inarticulate speech of the heart.”
And like Tita in “Like Water for Chocolate” we internalize the emotions the sender is trying to express. We like to think it comes through in our work.
A short story from yesterday…
We have a customer – a Dominican Nun who lives in Tijuana. She drives up from TJ to buy flowers from us, about once a month. She’s been doing this for 7 years now. Let me back up a bit now.
Carla was feeling low as business has not been stellar this week. In her bathroom is a portrait of the Sacred Heart of the Virgin Mary that she prays to, you know while brushing her teeth, placing a hand on the heart and praying for a good day, her blessing and peace.
Fast forward back to Sister’s visit, she tells Carla she’s been dreaming all winter long of our beautiful flowers on her dining room table. Now it’s spring and she’s just flush with excitement to buy spring’s bounty. She points to the peonies and asks how much. Carla tells her, “Well in the winter they’re very expensive but now they’re a reasonable price (incidentally “reasonable” to Sister is really quite expensive, she doesn’t make a lot of money), she says “Okay, I’ll take it”. Then she points to the Yves Piaget Roses, these roses have the most lovely fragrance one of the few floral quality roses that hasn’t had the smell bred out of them.
“They’re $9 dollars a stem Sister”, Carla says.
“Okay, that too.”
Then she sees the Heart Roses – a lovely new breed of blood red rose with frilled petals; and asks Carla about them.
“Well I love those Roses because it reminds of the Sacred Heart”.
“And today is the Feast of the Sacred Heart”. Sister replies.
“Really? The Sacred Heart is a talisman in our family”
Being touched Carla takes 3 roses from the vase and gives them to Sister. One for each of us.
Sister says, “Did you know that when you give a red rose you’re passing on the Sacred Heart of Mary?”
Carla is tearing up now.
Sister extends her arms in an expansive way and says “You see she is all around us today”.
Isn’t that something else?
Many a tear has to fall
But it’s all in the game
All in the wonderful game
That we know as love
You have words with him
And your future’s looking dim
But these things
Your hearts can rise above
Once in a while he won’t call
But it’s all in the game
Soon he’ll be there at your side
With a sweet bouquet
And he’ll kiss your lips
And caress your waiting fingertips
And your hearts will fly away
Soon he’ll be there at your side
With a sweet bouquet
Then he’ll kiss your lips
And caress your waiting fingertips
And your hearts will fly away
Tommy Edwards
The World’s Largest Caprese Salad
In honor of it’s first year anniversary, the Little Italy Mercato (our Saturday Farmer’s Market) is going to create the world’s largest Caprese Salad and submit it to the Guiness Book of World Records. It’s today, so come on down and check it out. Then come by and see us.
Here’s a clip from the news yesterday describing the event.
Gawd! I love my neighborhood!