Wimdy

[offcntr]

That was a... challenging Saturday Market. Started out lovely, sunbeams streaming through the clouds, mild temps. Had some long-time customers stop by and pick up some new works, finally delivered the special order ladybug soup bowl I've been holding since the end of July.

Had another family shopping visit, this time parents and two college-age daughters. Daughters each picked out a piece, parents looked at dinner plates, but couldn't decide on a second pattern. Said they'd come back later; didn't actually. But they did take a card, and we talked about shipping, so I may eventually get an order. You never know.

About ten minutes before opening, a man stopped in, asked if I had an order to pick up for his wife, Jane. You know, Jane? he asked in his Russian accent. In fact, I know both of them, Yev Russian and his wife, Jane, Chinese. I've done some really wonky specialized pots for her over the years, steamer crocks to fit various electric kettles and cookers. The last one was just over a year ago, and I'd left a message on his voicemail, since she wasn't answering my email reminders to come collect her pots.

I guess he doesn't check his messages often; he only just got this one.

I'm used to getting recognized from elsewhere, Empty Bowls, Tsunami Bookstore, Great Harvest Bakery. My work is distinctive and memorable. This time, they came from an unexpected direction: Valley Arts Gallery in Forest Grove.

I first started selling there a decade ago, and did small but steady business, except during the Holiday season. It was always a bother to keep them stocked, though. There's no short route, you have to take the freeway to Portland and then head west through miles of strip malls out into the hinterlands. Alternatively, you can take the winding back roads northwest of Corvallis, which is all lovely and rustic until you get stuck behind a combine harvester going 15 mph.

Still, I kept at it until fall of 2021, when I realized I'd been selling so well elsewhere that I hadn't any extra stock for their holiday sales event. So I told them to keep whatever inventory they still had to sell, but I would no longer restock. Sooner or later, I figured, they'd run out. It still hasn't happened, apparently, since this couple at Market knew my work. (And I also just got a check for the sale of two cookie jars and a canister.) It's a small world, I guess.

Denise did a major restock on greeting cards, and it seems to have paid off. She sold twelve of them, and a pocket journal as well. I sold the usual mix of plates and mugs and bowls, but also my biggest serving bowl, an eight-pound monster with snowy owl pattern for seventy bucks.

Around 2 pm, clouds started rolling in, and the rain began around 2:30. A little after three, Market security came through, warning us that the forecast was predicting 50 mph wind gusts in the next fifteen minutes, and we should secure our booths. I wasn't worried about the booth--25 lb. sandbags on each leg ought to hold up just fine--but I've have pots knocked off the top shelves by wind gusts in the past, so pulled down and packed the cookie jars and pitchers, then the top shelves of mugs on the other side.

By 3:20, the forecast included half-inch hail, so I just kept on packing up pots. Rain was pouring down, thunder and lightning right atop one another, and everyone was closing shop. I got the van down to the curb a little after four and got the boxes in without too much extra moisture, but the walls and roof were soaked, and by the time I'd taken down the shelves and canopy, so was I. Squidged home by way of gas-up at Costco to discover that the Legion's Chicken Barbecue we'd been anticipating for supper had all sold out by 3 pm. Denise braved the rain and got us KFC instead, and once I'd gotten into dry clothes, we had an early supper and crashed on the bed.

We never did get the wind or hail, and sales were nearly at $700, so on the whole it was a successful day. Sunday dawned sunny and breezy, so I was able to get the tarps and canopy dried out again, though the sandbags will probably be waterlogged until next weekend.