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It's the day before Mother's Day, and Market is packed... with vendors. At least twenty people are still standing when the lottery runs out of 8x8 booths. Some of them may have taken 4x4s, the rest get a priority point towards next week, provided they stay until their name has been called.
It's an issue, this year. We're still operating at 50% capacity, because of COVID, so every second space is mandated empty. Market is currently not accepting new members, because there's nowhere to put them. If Lane County can ever get back to Moderate risk, we'll be able to shorten the distance between booths to four feet, which will bring 30-some spaces into play, but right now we're still at Extreme.
Meanwhile, we set up hoping for last-minute Mother's Day shoppers. I get out all of my mom-and-kid-themed plates for the bench display, and a bonus real mom and kid card (featuring Nubian goats from the Lane County Fair) heads up Denise's box of greeting cards. The selection was getting a little thin, so she spent Thursday and Friday gluing up another forty cards to fill up her display.
The day starts out a little bumpy. I'm very sensitive to chemicals and scents, so am not delighted to find my neighbor for the day is a soap-maker. Even eight feet away, a plume of essential oils so strong I can taste it drifts into my booth. I moan quietly to Vanessa (of staff) about it, and discover that Market actually has a sensitive vendors list, and tries to steer soap/lotion/scented candle vendors away from their booths. I'd never heard this before, but at least I'm now officially recorded as a frail (unscented) flower, and will not have this happen again in the future.
Also, sometime around 11 am, the wind shifts around into the west, and the scent is blown over to Effie, on her other side.
Sales start slow, but pick up eventually. I do sell a lot of presents for moms (and grandmoms), but some from moms, too. A mother picks out a chickadee-pattern stew mug to go in a CARE package (along with packets of instant soup) to her daughter in New York. A mom with ten-year-old boy in a dinosaur-print hoodie totally makes his day with a T-Rex bank.
A young woman from two weeks ago stops in again. She and her friend had each bought a mug, and we'd bonded over our favorite science podcast, Ologies. (She'd picked a bear mug, and that week's episode was Ursinology.) We visited a bit (boy, is that a midwestern phrasing), and I showed her Denise's paper. Later that afternoon, she came back and picked out a packet of note sheets and a couple of cards, including the one with a snoozing Alaskan Brown Bear.
Best mask today: it's plain olive drab, but emblazoned with the word, Wash Your Hands, Ya Filthy Animals!
Preach, brother, preach.
It's an issue, this year. We're still operating at 50% capacity, because of COVID, so every second space is mandated empty. Market is currently not accepting new members, because there's nowhere to put them. If Lane County can ever get back to Moderate risk, we'll be able to shorten the distance between booths to four feet, which will bring 30-some spaces into play, but right now we're still at Extreme.
Meanwhile, we set up hoping for last-minute Mother's Day shoppers. I get out all of my mom-and-kid-themed plates for the bench display, and a bonus real mom and kid card (featuring Nubian goats from the Lane County Fair) heads up Denise's box of greeting cards. The selection was getting a little thin, so she spent Thursday and Friday gluing up another forty cards to fill up her display.
The day starts out a little bumpy. I'm very sensitive to chemicals and scents, so am not delighted to find my neighbor for the day is a soap-maker. Even eight feet away, a plume of essential oils so strong I can taste it drifts into my booth. I moan quietly to Vanessa (of staff) about it, and discover that Market actually has a sensitive vendors list, and tries to steer soap/lotion/scented candle vendors away from their booths. I'd never heard this before, but at least I'm now officially recorded as a frail (unscented) flower, and will not have this happen again in the future.
Also, sometime around 11 am, the wind shifts around into the west, and the scent is blown over to Effie, on her other side.
Sales start slow, but pick up eventually. I do sell a lot of presents for moms (and grandmoms), but some from moms, too. A mother picks out a chickadee-pattern stew mug to go in a CARE package (along with packets of instant soup) to her daughter in New York. A mom with ten-year-old boy in a dinosaur-print hoodie totally makes his day with a T-Rex bank.
A young woman from two weeks ago stops in again. She and her friend had each bought a mug, and we'd bonded over our favorite science podcast, Ologies. (She'd picked a bear mug, and that week's episode was Ursinology.) We visited a bit (boy, is that a midwestern phrasing), and I showed her Denise's paper. Later that afternoon, she came back and picked out a packet of note sheets and a couple of cards, including the one with a snoozing Alaskan Brown Bear.
Best mask today: it's plain olive drab, but emblazoned with the word, Wash Your Hands, Ya Filthy Animals!
Preach, brother, preach.