I think tulips are a very Dutch flower. Somehow, the fact that tulips grow in Holland seems very appropriate to me. Tulips are very no-nonsense flowers. They're beautiful, but they are not silly flowers. I think they're even masculine as far as flowers go. Holland is similarly an amazingly beautiful place, but it is also very to-the-point and dispenses with superfluous niceties. I know that there's about a million varieties of tulips and some of them are ridiculous, but the kinds you see growing in the fields generally have a plain, clean stalk with a single-colored bell-shaped flower. I think they're super. I also think the way they grow is very Dutch. Neat little squares in fields, properly tended, but they're so bright I can't even capture the color with my camera. They're very sensibly and logically laid out, but they're flowers! With no function other than beauty. Dutch furniture, houses, and housewares are also very geometric with bright colors. It warms my heart to see traditional Dutch farmers in wooden shoes and overalls carefully tending their crop of really good-looking flowers. Mom doesn't think that farmers who grow red tulips feel any more manly than farmers who grow white or purple tulips but I don't believe her. I think if I were a farmer with a field of intense red tulips I'd feel so superior to my neighbor farmers with their pansy little girly purple fields.
I think the word "meld" should be introduced into English. I don't think there's a translation, and it works perfectly. I told mom we didn't need to meld at the reception if we were just staying for five minutes and she knew exactly what I meant. I'm all about melding.
