The Contrary Ammarilis

I'm not sure if Claudia, my ex, has ever seen her ammarilis in bloom, live. She gets to see the flower stalk reaching maturity but every year when she goes home to Germany to visit her parents I keep an eye on her house and get to photograph the flower for her. Somehow that plant knows when she's out of town and refuses to let the flower open before she leaves. I shot a bunch of nice flower pictures with a 90mm lens on my Leica, then switched to a 15mm lens so I could get myself in the rest of the photos. When Claudia got back from her three week trip the flower was already dead and wilted. I gave her a stack of 4 X 6 prints along with the negatives. She was thrilled!

For my efforts she brought me three packs of cigarette tobacco. Her dad and I both roll our own, and they sell brands in Europe that you can't find here in the U.S. These days Fritz is smoking TURBO, a mild "American Blend", but nobody imports it here. Last year he stuck a few pouches of Miami Style in Claudia's Christmas package. I really liked that tobacco, and people here would really notice that pouch when I'd take it out to roll a smoke...LOL