Romance for SaleHumorist Ogden Nash, the old...

Romance for Sale

Humorist Ogden Nash, the old reprobate, once wrote about courting that “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” For those of a less cynical turn of mind, nothing says romance like flowers, according to Maria Crismani, who knows about these things.

Crismani makes her living selling roses in local nightclubs and restaurants. Like her predecessors whom you see in 1940s movies on television, she goes from table to table offering her floral tributes.

And many buy.

“We don’t say anything to people, we just stroll by and make sure they see the roses in the basket,” said Crismani, who works for the Flower Exchange. “We don’t do a sales pitch or anything.”

She doesn’t need to. Evidently there are enough romantics, or at least celebrants, left in the world so that Crismani makes a better living with flowers than she did as a waitress.

“Men buy the roses for their girlfriends or wives, and the girlfriends or wives buy them for their men, and people who are celebrating anything are always happy to see me coming,” she said.

Some of her clients are not the establishment’s customers, but the staff, she adds.

“At one of my places, one of the bartenders used to send a bouquet of roses to a waitress almost every night,” she said, adding that they are now happily married.

Crismani, who lives in Glendale and is married to a musician, is enthusiastic about her nightly rounds, which take her from the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills to Bobby McGee’s in Burbank. But a couple of years ago, when she was expecting, she wasn’t sure how her customers would react to a pregnant flower girl.

“I talked it over with my boss, who said to give it a try. I worked until a few weeks before I had the baby, and the tips were terrific,” she said.

“People would say, ‘Here’s something for you, and this is for the baby.’ One man even paid $175 for my whole basket of flowers so I could go home early.”

All Night Long

When Michael Troth decided to try to raise money for the troops returning from the Middle East, he batted a few ideas around in his head and came up with a game plan.

Troth went to his friends at the Lancaster West Rotary and the Antelope Valley Kiwanis clubs and suggested that they run a marathon with each person getting financial sponsors. This isn’t such a unique fund-raising idea, except that Troth wanted the marathoners to do their running while playing on a softball diamond.

The result was a recent 24-hour extravaganza with 30 players on both teams. The players all had gotten pledges of up to $1,000 an hour from corporate sponsors.

“It started out as a crazy idea that made everyone laugh,” said Troth, an Antelope Valley Realtor, “but then people started seeing the possibilities and just ran with the ball.”

Between noon Saturday and noon Sunday on an April weekend, the teams batted and battled on and on, until all the pledges had been honored, and the participants were dropping like pop flies.

No one remembers much about who won the game, but everyone knows the financial score.

“We have already sent our first check, in the amount of $13,000, to Fran Stewart at the local Red Cross office,” Troth said, “and we hope to send the rest of the money, about $3,000, in the next few days.” The Red Cross and United Way are administering a fund to help the families of returning troops facing a money crunch.

No one is more pleased and surprised than Stewart at this community outpouring of time, effort and money.

“It was just one of those incredible things where everyone wanted it to succeed, and it did, way beyond anyone’s expectations,” she said.

Overheard

“Sure, we have something in common. Your weight has fluctuated a couple of pounds in 20 years, and mine has fluctuated 20 pounds in a couple of years.”

--Woman to her husband at Le Cafe in Sherman Oaks