Spring

[offcntr]

It could have been worse.

The weather forecast was dry at load-in and load-out, but 40-50% chance of showers in between, highest probability around 11 am. Typical spring day in Oregon. All it lacked was robins.

As it happened, we had about three spots of rain, around 12:30. The rest of the day was wind blowing intermittent clouds through an otherwise blue sky, warm in the sunshine, but dropping a good 10 degrees when a cloud blew through. "Bipolar clouds," my neighbors Max and Alicia dubbed them.

More like a BiPolar Vortex.

It was kind of a kids' day at Off Center Ceramics. First me and my bear--newly unmasked, per Board decision to follow the Governor's lifting the mandate--helped out another vendor waiting for her booth assignment. Her baby, dressed in a fetching teddy-bear onesie, did not want to be there, and was making his displeasure known. Enter a dancing teddy bear almost the same color as his suit, peekabooing over Mom's shoulder. Cue immediate cessation of waterworks, followed by a bubbly grin.

Win one for the good guys.

I also assisted a frustrated Grandma, struggling to unfold the stroller for her grandson. After a couple of minutes watching from my booth, I came out to the curb, asking, Can I help?

Please! she said. Eventually found the latch up in the handle, "Slide and Press," though the words were nearly worn off. Got it open and snapped, and later helped her fold it up again to put away.

At least three families with small kids stopped in the booth to look and banks, and you know what? Not one of the kids was willing to stick a finger in the elephant bank's trunk to see what happened. Kid's are so untrusting today. (I managed to convince all the parents, though, whereupon I made elephant trumpeting noises. It's the simple pleasures of life...)

I field-tested a new tool today, a Square contactless chip reader. After three different young women asked about Apple Pay last weekend, I hit the "Help" menu in the Square app and discovered that, yes I could accept Apple Pay, with the help of a $49 device.

I was a little leery; the previous Square chip reader, a plug-in device, took forever to work, having to handshake with the bank to pass data back and forth, and would choke when the local wifi was crowded. In addition, it needed to be charged to work, unlike the simple slider, and at least once or twice ran out of juice before the end of the day.

The new system? Much smoother. Connects wirelessly, processes chip cards almost instantly, and also took Apple Pay and a couple of tap cards with no hiccups. And at the end of the day, was still almost fully charged. I gotta say, despite being spendier than my usual (I'm notorious for $29 fixes, from my first cell phone to my--now obsolete--mobile hotspot), this was money well spent.

Unlike last week, today was busy from the start. Sold a large squared baker, two medium cookie jars, five painted mugs all from the same spot on the shelves (a butterfly, two dragonflies and two hummingbirds). Denise sold a bunch of cards again. One of the women buying some said the price was too low--$4 each. Hallmark doesn't even sell cards for less than six, she said. I'd totally pay that much for these.

Considering we sold fourteen in all, we probably will raise the price, though maybe only to $5.