Loose Ends
If it looks like a duck…
Susan Nienow

There is nothing like watching a pro to remind me why I am not one. Another flower arranging class and this instructor made radishes look like the ultimate creative touch. If I put radishes in a table decoration, it would look like I spilled my salad.

As I slink out of the garden club program, I am still awed by his ability to make celery stalks without the leaves on top look like elegant curved linear statements. He has a successful business making broccoli look inspirational. I usually forget to put the celery in my vegetable soup.

Obviously I need a quick fix for my deflated ego, so I stopped by the library to see if anyone has written a book like, "Looking like a Pro for Dummies." Clearly, this sweeping kind of advice is beyond the scope of most self-help books.

Maybe it's my recent "landmark" birthday hovering over my head like a cloud, but I really need to find brilliance at something somewhere. My other half is out of town, but I can still hear him, as he looks over my shoulder, saying, "No one ever finds success by looking for it. You have to work at it - practice."

The problem with that suggestion is that it is entirely too practical and time-consuming. At my age, I don't have time to waste time practicing. I want to find my "light" by accident. The list of things it isn't is growing longer as I sit here. Arranging veggies artfully to celebrate the season is most definitely beyond me.

Everyone at the program did a floral arrangement. I put gourds in mine. Someone passed by and said, "Cute duck." Cute duck? It's a gourd that gives line and weight to my creation. Anyway, I thought it looked more like a swan.

Who would think radishes would require such creativity? We grew them in the garden one summer, and then discovered we had to eat them. It's not easy to give away radishes. If I had known they could be used in "flower" arrangements, I could have peddled them to flower shops.

While I am searching for my light, maybe I will find that button I lost on my desk last week.

Why is it I can hear a voice saying, "Why don't you store your flower arranging supplies in the same place? Then it would be easier to get them out and put them away."

I gritted my teeth. Nothing irks me more than advice that makes sense.

My other half returns tomorrow. I want the house to look like I was busy while he was gone. Actually, it looks like I was too busy. I mean I want the house to look like I accomplished something great in his absence. Probably the best I can do is for it to look like I had a lot of fun gathering sticks, rocks and gourds for an arrangement that looks like a duck.