Julia had gone to bed, and I was tidying up the apartment before I settled down to a quiet “me-vening” at home. David was coming home from a long trip to Asia the next day, and I realized that the apartment didn’t look particularly welcoming. I had been spending so much time on the renovation of our new place that I’d let the old one get a little shabby. The stacks of architectural plans, paint chips and tile samples on the dining table were interesting but didn’t exactly say “welcome home.”
Time was tight, though, so I had to be efficient. In about a half hour the next morning, I ran to the flower district on 28th Street and picked up a three 4-inch pots of yellow crocuses (pictured above) for $3 each. I put them in a 9 by 4-inch round concrete-like resin planter that I got at Jamali Garden Supply for about $15 (a souffle dish would work well too) and dressed up the top with some dried moss, also from Jamali. For the coffee table, some pots of bright orange tulips for about $6 each brightened up the scene.
But nothing brightened up the scene like the look on Julia’s face when she saw that Daddy was home again.
