As the first flakes of snow fall here in Chestertown, I am preparing for the yearly trek to Philadelphia to help my parents with their booth at the Philadelphia Flower Show. As a “freelance artist”, I have the “luxury” to spend some of my “time” scraping together “money” doing various things like standing on a stepstool in a cramped booth for two weeks hawking family wares. I suppose the occasional 7-11 (that’s am to pm, of course) is better than the regular 9-5, though (or so I’ve led myself to believe). As you can see, it makes me giddy with delight.
For those of you not in the know, the Philadelphia Flower Show is the largest indoor flower/garden event in the United States (and, apparently, one of the top 100 events in North America in 2010, according to the American Bus Association) (evidently, those bus people know their events). Each year there is a theme around which arrangements are made, small-scale buildings are built, indoor gardens are planted, and contests are put forth. This year the theme is “Passport to the World” – which is pretty much like having the theme “Anything Under the Sun”. I’m sure it will be spectacular regardless.
The best part about the Flower Show is the weeks preceding it, when the gallery downstairs (read: the entrance to our barn) looks something like this:
and then this:
Meaning it’s even more of a treacherous maze to get into our home than usual. I always say, things have to look worse before they look better, and it is very true in this case. This year I am happily missing out on the part where we assemble the booth in the frigid and dusty convention center for two fun-packed 12-hour days.
I used the ever-helpful excuse, “But dude, I just had a baby!” Which actually isn’t the real excuse. The real excuse is that the baby I just had pretty much has to travel with me, strapped to me, if I’m going to go anywhere. Moving boxes full of pottery and lead (yes! we sell lead! lead, as in the element Pb (thanks, wikipedia!)!) is just plain hard to do with a baby strapped to your chest. So, I have been excused. But hopefully the carefully labeled boxes are getting unpacked (for those of you not in the know, Seiko labeled this one, and is, incidentally, Japanese):
and the booth is coming together into the buying extravaganza that is this:
I will go up tomorrow with Kato strapped to my chest, and we will man the deadliest part of the booth, the part where we sell the little lead pieces with brass nails sticking out of them (called “kenzan” or “mountain of swords” in Japanese). Kato just needs to learn from the start that we aren’t a bunch of pantywaists in this family. Even Alden pitched in at the ripe old age of 11 months:
So for those of you who are dying to see a little spring, head on up to Philly and soak your senses in the likes of this:
or this:
but, obviously, with a more Passport-y to the World-y sort of theme. And while you’re up there, make sure to stop by this shop, right behind the convention center, for pretty much anything that you can’t find at the Flower Show:
