Home stretch

[offcntr]

It started out a very froggy morning, but I had hopes things would be hopping by the end of the day... Last weekend for the World Athletics Championships, and I wondered whether I'd get more drop-ins than last weekend.

It did start out foggy—overcast, grey and cold. I ducked back into the house to pull sweats on over my shorts, and wished I'd grabbed a flannel shirt as well, as the wind cut right through my jacket. Sun finally came out a little after noon, but it was a chilly set-up and a very cold morning.

I almost had company in the booth this morning. Came out to the van to discover that I'd forgotten to close the driver's side window Friday evening, and the feral cat we've been feeding in the car port had made herself at home on the passenger seat. She was quite unhappy when I opened the door, bolted for the back, so I had to open the back door to convince her to go out the window again. Quite miffed, she was. I wish she'd get more people-tolerant. It'd be nice to convince her to come inside the house, rather than the van.

Sales picked up a bit from last weekend. A few were related to the Athletics Championship, but they were also people who came to the track meets every year, and so bought from me before. Donna got four toddler bowls to match her 8-place table setting, specifically for the grandkids to use. And the Eperjesi's, mom and son, stopped in to get baking dishes. Mom got two, Large and small squares, and Nick called dibs on a large square coming out of the kiln, which I'll ship to him in Pennsylvania. I was talking about how I used my bakers--lasagna in the large, potica in the small, and he said, You have a recipe for potica? I directed him to check the recipe tab here—Hi Nick!—and I may print out a copy to send when I ship his baker. And then Donna's husband approached me, asked Are you Slovene? I confirmed it; turns out he's Croatian. So we had a small South Slav bonding moment there in the booth.

Two young Asian women cooed over my bear of the day, Bella (that's her in the icon), bought a rhododendron card, then asked if they could take her picture. Of course she said yes.

Had a young guy with a guitar case who was rather taken with my frog bank, asked if I could make one twice as big that he could use as a tip jar. He knew it would take more clay (though less than you'd expect due to the square/cube law), and when I quoted $75, was surprised it wasn't more. Took a card, said he'd get in touch after he'd accessed some accounts that had money in them. Apparently, he'd intended to get into cryptocurrency, but was having so much success doing regular trading using the I Ching that he didn't bother. I may have looked skeptical, because he went on to add that he'd been reading his Tarot since he was seven years old.

Eugene, man.

Speaking of crypto, had a guy using Apple Pay for his purchase ask if I accepted cryptocurrency as well. I quoted Rooster, from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "If you can't smash a window with it, I don't accept it."