Mark’s Bloomin’ Journal

Appears at long last, an aircraft seemingly designed for those that pay to fly the oh so uncomfortable and unfriendly skies. One might be justified in thinking that the powers that be in engineering at Boeing or Airbus might slip something like this past their bean counters. Reading the business papers you would think they are the only games in town so it is a real revelation upon rooting around in the seat back pocket for the safety pamphlet to discover this wonderful aircraft is an Embraer 170… (more…)

Sweating as if starring in a commercial for a sports drink…is this town behind its fortified walls. I fair not one drop better sitting in a lovingly, if only modestly refurbished colonial house dating back to the early 1600’s that is at least twenty times longer than it is wide. It is entered by a very large arched doorway, off a narrow street, off a lovely square, where locals are playing board games and chatting as all the while some body part or other keeps time to one or more of the competing latin rhythms wafting around the streets. This house has dark places and only slightly more light places, arches and alcoves, running water in numerous courtyards and ballustrade after ballustrade decorated landing and window. Dark wood louvres cover every window…and all are closed.

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I have just stepped off the Lufthansa flight from Venice to Portland via Frankfurt after fifeteen days of peddling a bike in, over, down, around and damn near under the Dolomites…as fast as was possible. I certainely spent many a day there feeling washed up, wrung out and in having been hung out to dry.

In my mind I am mostly still in Italy, wending my way from one tiny alpine village to another, listening to a myriad church bells marking the passage of time, drinking in the sights and smells of meadows now choked with the autumn crocus and noting the cracks in limestone walls sprouting tiny cyclamen. People appear industrious and gainfully employed in these pastoral settings. Much too busy to be petty.

Awaiting me at home is a mountainous pile of mostly junk mail and unread newspapers. Better it all should be tossed into the recycling bin. In the doing so I catch an article on the front page of the WSJ dated 9/18 and begin to read further. Perhaps it is because I have just spent fifeteen days washing my cycling kit every night and hanging it out to dry from various hotel windows and balconies from Castelfranco to Cles to Cortina d’Ampezzo and many another lovely village, that my attention is captured.

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In this case, with this woman, it was length that was the issue. Lack of it to be quite pointed. Same old story, right ! Lack of length on my end of things was accompanied by an abusive harangue with more than a touch of entitlement from the shorted party. Poor wee thing, laboring under the impression that a verbal assault leads to improved performance. A cheap victory maybe, but that is all.

This phone call that almost queered an other wise good day had an interesting provenance, stemming from a generously discounted bunch of Casa Blaca Lilies some weeks ago. In the many changes we make on a daily basis to the dynamic pages on Flowerbud it had escaped all our attentions that the estimation of size for Casa Blanca was in fact an image dating back to inception and therefore had not, or rather could not keep up…with updates. It also harkened back to the days that we shipped a far longer box than can be afforded on FedEx these days thus leading to a longer stem at times. One should note here that overly long stems have a propensity to droop, especially on large budded varieties such as Casa Blanca.

In this time and space we inhabit as a company the oversight left me wide open to those that would take advantage. As it turns out there was just the one in what must have been years (It is fully rectified now) but was she ever sour at being “shorted” the all important couple of inches. Naturally you understand that the missing inches automatically led to a host of other nit picking complaints ranging from dirt to small buds at the stem ends. However it was plain to deduce that the flowers had been enjoyed regardless. Nothing like kicking the dog when he’s down.

Customer service at Flowerbud had already been dealt a tongue lashing from My Lady Frustrated and I was caught flat footed when the call came to roost with me, one normally equiped with reasonable coping skills. Faced with such vitriol and cheap skate virtues I came up short…again, when faced at the very climax of the discussion with my scofflaw self, violating the trades description act, false advertising and all other manner of sordid and nefarious activities stemming from running Flowerbud.

The end result ,to my chagrin was that with tail semi tucked between legs and a refund instituted I could not wait to get off the phone to try and reclaim some of the day by talking to someone more pleasant. It doesn’t even take the fingers of one hand to count my losses to people that are little more than cheats. This one got me though and got to me at the same time. I still am thinking of what better to do when faced with missing inches … as a refund merely satisfies the one party.

My kind of a day, being the last day of the month, on the cusp of Mother’s Day and the May issue of Good Housekeeping giving us a much appreciated accolade. It is to be found on page 130, in a section titled “The Goods”. The long and the short of it being that GHRI tested four big name delivery services with the help of consumer panelists and Mille Fiori Flowers in NYC. Purchasing bouquets as similar as possible and within the same price point the article concludes with the following;

Bottom Line: The only service we recommend is Flowerbud.com. Its bouquets arrived in good condition and lasted for seven days.

Short, sweet and to the point. I love it, while at the same time thinking I might give my eye teeth to know the identity of the three also rans. Remember, my mission is that you do not have to find out!