Who minds a little wet?

[offcntr]

Not us! 

Weather prediction was a lot worse than we actually got. Sure, it was showering when I left home, still spitting downtown, but I managed to get the booth up and shelving assembled with space inside for all the boxes. Of course, unpacking pots entirely inside the booth is a bit like getting dressed in a sleeping back--lots of wriggling, squirming, and reaching for that sock (or piece of bubble wrap) that's gotten down into an inconvenient corner. I kept the sides down almost all day, only pinning up a corner for the hour around 2 pm when the sun came out. Parking was light all afternoon, so I brought the van down at 4 pm sharp. That way I could get produce and bears out of the booth and transfer boxes as soon as they were full, which made load-out much easier. And the rain had stopped completely before I brought the roof down, so everything got put away dry-ish.

Didn't expect much of a turn-out from the customers--the vendor selection was certainly thin--but my first sale was at 10:10 am, a teapot, to a woman who'd bought a wolf tumbler for a friend two weeks ago, and said she came to Market today, "Just for you." 

Later that morning, a mother and daughter stopped in. College-age daughter immediately settled on an octopus stew mug, admitting, laughing, that she'd been eating Indian food out of a red plastic solo cup. We bonded over a love of butter chicken while her mother looked around, and finally settled on a $55 serving bowl with a squirrel, provided I'd be willing to ship it to D.C. for her. Got her address, and email to send the shipping cost for her to PayPal later.

After that, sales were steady. Three banks, three pie plates, another stew mug. Coffee and tall mugs and a honey jar. 

And then there was the couple. The kind you dread. They want something--in this case, a two-person salad bowl--but they're not sure which. She liked the sleeping fox pattern batter bowl, but didn't think you could use it for salad. He liked the fox small salad bowl, but it was too small. The horses bowl was probably the right size, but not excited about the pattern, did I have anything else?

So I opened up the serving bowls restock box, pulled out bowls two and three, a flicker and Canada geese, respectively. The geese was a little bigger. The flicker had an oxidized spot on the bottom curve that bothered him. She was leaning toward the geese, but wanted his opinion, but he refused to commit. She wasn't sure. Finally, she settled on the geese, and I packed the flicker away. Just as she got out her payment card, he asked if he could see the flicker again.

I said I'd just put eight bowls on top of it (I exaggerate a little; it was in a stack of nested bowls, under two colanders, three small serving bowls and a small covered crock.), so they paid me and I wrapped it up.

Two hours later, they were back, saying it wouldn't fit in their cupboard. They also brought the broken bowl it was replacing, a nice thing with goldfinches that may have been made back in the day by Portland potter Bill Brun. My small serving bowls were about the right diameter, but weren't deep enough. You know what was perfect?

The fox batter bowl.

I took back the geese in trade, and gave them $6 back in change.