Time to start whining about Garden Walk

Here I was on Saturday, in a good mood, having just purchased a coolerful of Magic Hat #9 and some batteries as necessary supplies for a delicious country wedding we were getting ready to attend. (More on that in another post.) The phone rings.

“Where’s the Garden Walk map text? I needed it two weeks ago!”

Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god—nobody had been bugging me about this, so I had kind of let it slide. And here we are, a mere two weeks before the rally. The maps have to go to the printer this week. Damn!

So, after the wedding, and after a rather grueling stint shilling for my place of employ at the Allentown Art Festival, I prepared to enter Garden Walk hell. This year, there are over 240 applications; each needs to placed in its street and its description edited for consistency and clarity. Keep in mind, many of these people may be great gardeners, but writers—not so much. Some say too much about what the garden was—weed-choked wasteland, etc.—and forget to describe the attractive changes that have been made. Some proselytize too much about how they live in the city, and how they celebrate city living, forgetting that their visitors may, in fact, be aware that they are visiting a garden in a city. Others, and these are the worst, don’t write anything. That’s when I have to make shit up. One has to be rather cautious about that. In the past, I have attempted to call people to ask them for a few facts about their garden, but it’s hit or miss. Generally, “A bright, cheerful urban oasis characterized by a mix of annuals, perennials, and flowering shrubs,” though sadly generic, works out OK.

The Garden Walk map, though it did take about twenty hours of my weekend, and kept me up well into the wee hours last night, is nothing compared to this summer’s real project: the Garden Walk book and DVD.

I just hope I have enough time to get my own space halfway decent looking.