Bunday

[offcntr]

It being the Saturday before Easter, my theme at Market was fairly obvious. I featured as many bunny pots as possible. Even sold a bunch: dinner pasta bowl, gravy tureen, covered casserole, two colanders. Weather was somewhat more cooperative than last week, or at least consistent. Grey overcast all day, chilly in the morning, but gradually warming up and actually showing a little sun by load-out. I felt safe leaving the walls off of the booth and putting my empty boxes behind, making for much more space behind the counter. Denise came down around noon again, and it was very helpful having her record sales while I wrapped and bagged and talked to the customers. Sales really good, though about a third off last week's spectacular total.

In slow moments, we amuse ourselves nominating "Hair of the Day" to particularly creative dye jobs. There were lots of candidates this weekend, but we had to go with "Feet of the Day" instead. This may be the most Eugene set of stompy boots I have ever seen.

Had a couple of stressful moments in the morning. First, around 8:00, a vendor drove past the crowd at Info waiting for booth assignments, shouting that a white van was on fire in the parking lot.

Now a lot of folks I know, including several potters, have white vans: Wayne has a white van, Linda has a white van, I have a white van. I was ready to run for the Overpark to check when I realized the van in question was in the bank parking lot over across from West Block. Shannon, our newly confirmed General Manager, headed down with a fire extinguisher, but it wasn't enough. Pretty soon, a pumper truck was threading its way through the set-up crowds, horn and siren and lights going. It took a good half-hour to put out the fire, and the van was pretty much totaled. I later found out it belonged to my woodworker friend Dave; the fire marshal (who was onsite for booth inspections) told him it was probably an electrical fire that got out of control. When he opened the door to pop the hood, the backdraft cause flames to shoot up through the dashboard and up the inside of the windshield, at which point, nothing could have saved it.

One of the things the Fire Marshal was onsite for was a visit to the Courthouse Square, where the non-Saturday Market vendors set up, to start enforcing code requirements there. Apparently, one of the folks wasn't happy, and decided to blame us, so he came over to our side, shouting about the no-dogs requirement, saying it was a public space (it isn't on Saturdays--we pay good money to the city to rent the Park Blocks), we were phonies, were all in the pocket of The Man (beholden to Big Craft I guess?), and got into a shoving match with a Market staffer who tried to calm him down.

I missed the initial excitement, as I was over at the Farmer's Market, but I caught round two. He came back for more shouting, and eventually headed off down Oak Street, still audible two blocks away.

Sure glad I had these guys to hug...