Years ago, when I worked at the MITRE Corporation, two of my reports started courting.
He had a house on the Cape with a garden, and one day, she walked in with an armload of flowers.
That made quite an impression on me.
The person with the flowers was, perhaps still is petite, dark-haired, big-eyed. The kind of person who gets armloads of flowers out of simple appreciation for her prettiness.
I, on the other hand, am mannish-looking, with small eyes, a broad nose, flat cheekbones, a prominent chin and a too-small mouth. The kind of person who gets abuse from men and hateful stares, or gets called “sir” in public meetings.
Ron had given me some lovely flowers a few days ago, and I coddled them along for as long as I could, but today I had to send them to compost.
Ron sighed a bit about that, he loves flowers and growing things generally, so I promised to make an arrangement from our garden.
This is the result. An armload of cut flowers. From my garden. On the Cape.