Today was probably the most fun day I've had in the garden. It was the day of the party, so the pressure was on to get things done on time! Luckily, there wasn't much to do besides cosmetics. Cosmetics for the garden, that is...we left the garden just as sweaty and gross as ever. Our first job was to pour lighter fluid into old, sooty, rusted, tiki torches, which meant spilling lighter fluid all over the grass and ourselves because there wasn't a decent funnel anywhere on the property. Caroline sported flammable pants and oily facial streaks all day after that task. Personally, I was happy to get out of the heat and into the shade, even if it meant inhaling fumes.
We then put up Christmas lights on thin ropes hung all over the garden which would light the path and look "rustic" and cute for the party. We also filled mason jars with sand and tealights and placed them around the garden marking each row and hung them from the ceiling of the pavilion. It was little details like that which took a surprising amount of time, but made all the difference for the garden's atmosphere.
A few of us were tasked with one last round of weeding. By that point, I'd gotten used to it, and almost enjoyed it.
LeeLee was in the garden all day today, giving orders and decorating while also taking calls from the restaurant she owns. She was so nice to us and very grateful for our help. To show her appreciation, she brought us lunch from her restaurant, which is adorably named Lyn's Gracious Goodness. It was certainly a nice change to have big chicken saldad and turkey BLT sandwiches and homebaked brownies and cookies instead of our wimpy WalMart sandwiches. Because she ordered in lunch, we stayed in the garden all day instead of going home to rest. This meant we got things done pretty early, and were able to go home at 2:30...
...Which was GREAT because we were invited to the party! Lee, LeeLee, and Karen pulled some strings and convinced "management" that after all the hard work we had done there was no reason we shouldn't get to go. All they asked was that we come back cleaned up and an hour early to help sort out the pre-party chaos.
We wore our Alternative Break shirts with cute shorts and sandals and did our hair and make-up for once. It was a good thing we were there. Even with all the restaurant staff and volunteers, there were a lot of odds and ends that needed to be done, like lighting all those tea lights and tiki torches. I was in charge of garnishing all the delicious food with flowers and putting out napkins.
Then the guests started flooding in. It was a little awkward at first; we were definitely the youngest ones there, and I felt a little bad about eating their food when we had been added last minute to the guest list, but everyone was very welcoming, and we ended up having a lot of fun. The food was delicious. They had vegetable and chicken kabobs, watermelon salad, gazpacho, salsa, rosemary popcorn, cheese crackers, and lima bean salad, as well as some tasty chocolate tarts. (Again, a nice change from our WalMart mac and cheese). Everywhere we went people were stopping us saying "I heard you're responsible for all of this!" Or if they didn't stop us, we could here them say "Those are the KU girls who cleaned up the garden." The ones who did talk to us thanked us over and over. One woman said she had never seen the garden look so good. Another offered to buy us all lunch, and the CEO of the Botanical Gardens invited us as her guests to the park. People couldn't believe that a bunch of 20 year olds would give up part of their summer to weed someone else's garden. We sort of hinted that it wasn't what we had expected, but we were happy to help a good cause and genuinely appreciative of the experience.
One gentlemen went and spoke to the band and made us do a "line dance" for everyone because we were from Kansas. Of course, none of us know how to line dance, so it was pretty embarassing, but funny. It was nice to just be silly in the garden for once.
A perk for me was discovering that Chester, the man who had been forcing us to weed all week, is the father of the woman who runs Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, which is one of the most famous theatres in the world. He found out I was a theatre major and said, "I have to talk to you!" and told me his daughter's whole story...how she was an unhappy accountant who quit and joined a dance team which tanked, how she went back to grad school for arts administration, and how after several internships and a lot of hard work, she was offered a position at Steppenwolf. I asked how she did it, and he said, "That's Rachel, you know, she just does things. I tell everybody, 80% of anything is wanting it. And there's no such thing as cain't. Whatever you do, you gotta find your niche in the world and want it." He went on with his encouraging, adorable, Alabama aphorisms, and I was so appreciated I almost cried. He was so encouraging and supportive of me and his daughters and the arts, which was exactly what I needed. It just goes to show, you never know where you're going to find a friend, or a possible "in" in this world. If I hadn't done all that weeding for Chester, I'd never be able to say I have a connection to Steppenwolf. I'm not saying gardening wouldn't have been worth it without that happening, I'm just saying what goes around comes around, and hard work always pays off.
We left early, knowing we'd be on clean-up crew the next morning. But that didn't stop us from having fun back at the church. We played sardines and wore ourselves out with laughter after a long hard week. It was definitely worth all the pain of the garden to go home satisfied with what we had accomplished. We didn't get to work with the elderly, but seeing 200 people there in that working garden, and knowing they were all buying tickets and sponsoring rows and buying raffle tickets, I knew we had helped raise the money that would really do some elderly citizens some good.
Ciao for now.
