Happy New Year!

[offcntr]

Crafters new year, that is: the opening day of Saturday Market. Feeling particularly fortunate, this year. It's the first year since 2019 that we opened at full capacity. Food court booths and music stage is back. And the weather was fantastic. A bunch of my artist friends who'd taken leave of absence during the pandemic have returned, so it was a hug-full morning.

Vendors and staff are still masked, though the board will be reconsidering that this week. The state mask mandate expired about two weeks ago, though about 20% of the public were still masking. Realized when Cara and Jeremy (the couple who've been replacing their boring wedding china a piece or two at a time) came in to pick out a soup bowl, that I'd never actually seen their faces before. They'd started during the pandemic, and even though they stopped by nearly every week, this is the first time I knew what they looked like.

The day started out kinda slow, and I was beginning to worry if I'd make booth fee. First sale was at 11:04 am, but then I made five or six more in the next half hour. I turned the page on my little pocket sale book at 1:30 pm, so yeah, things got busy.

Sue and Tom Hunnel (of the Fiddlin' Big Sue Band) parked in front of my booth early afternoon, came in to say hi. Sue said they were performing on the music stage in about an hour, and all their instruments were in the car, so if I saw someone breaking in, I should hit them with my heaviest pot, and she'd pay for the damage.

Forty-five minutes later, she came back to drop something off in the car, so I came up behind her with my biggest cookie jar, raised it up, tapped her on the shoulder, and when she turned to look, I said (disappointed), Oh, it's you.

Snerk.

Had some very nice conversations with college students; the girl who squee'd over my heron squared baker, because she'd just done her first painting, of a blue heron (I asked her to send me a pic, and talked about how much practice and repetition would help her art work). Then there was the guy who referred to my large colander as a "Pasta Dryer." To which I had to reply with my story of Stop Macaroni. The more things change...

Had several people ask if I took Apple Pay or Venmo, so I did a little poking around in the Help section, and found that Square's contactless chip reader would also accept Apple and Google Pay, so I ordered one. Still need to research Venmo; I've got a PayPal account, so it shouldn't be that much harder?

It was apparently roadkill pie day: I sold both a possum and a skunk pie plate. Also a lot of mugs, a couple of tumblers and stews, a small mixing bowl. I also sold two banks at the new, higher price (they went from $40 to $50). And a cat food dish that looked just like someone's cat.

Strangest question of the day: After asking what my plates were made of--stoneware--the woman asked, Can you engrave on it? I don't think so?

Best t-shirt/hoodie motto: Respect Existence or Expect Resistance.

Oh, and I wound up on TV! KEZI came down to cover the opening day, and Grace remembered me from last year, so stopped in first to talk with me.