Edmonds, day 2
Jun. 21st, 2015 07:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrI had to send Denise out of the booth this morning.
I'm one of six children, so I'm good at ignoring distractions. The guy at the corner selling CDs noodling on his keyboard, music from the main stage (thankfully far away at this show), conversations from our neighbors coming through the walls, it's all pretty much background noise to me.
Denise is an only child. Worse, women are socialized to pay attention in ways men aren't. The voices coming through the back of the booth were driving her crazy.
It's two women, right on the other side of the wall, with carrying voices. Complaining about the food, the sales, booth fees, vast swaths of their personal and professional lives. I'm tempted to have a word with them about it, but I'm already that guy for asking them to move a chair and dresser that were projecting into my back booth. (Canopy walls are not rigid.) So I'm doing my best to ignore them, and sending Denise on frequent sanity walks.
Even the best days--and today was pretty good--have slow moments, and we were entertained this afternoon by a visitor.
This is a bold jumping spider. They're fuzzy and black, about the size of my pinky tip, with three white spots on the abdomen and iridescent green mouth parts. I happen to know this because one of them showed up a few weeks ago in our backyard where Denise was making paper, playing hide-and-seek among the pulp containers on the tabletop. I greatly fear we may have brought her along with us, as we were using the same canopy for shade, and had left it up for over a week before folding it up and putting it in the van.
In any case, long about the slow part of the afternoon, she shows up, strolling across my phone and down the length of the bench, before losing herself among the soup bowls. She must have climbed to the top of the mug shelves and leaped onto the booth frame, because several minutes later I felt a tickle on my neck and when I brushed at it, discovered a spider hanging from my hand. She dropped to the ground and crawled under the pie plate shelf where I figured she'd be safe.
Two minutes later, she was exploring the pitchers on the top shelf, having apparently climbed all the way up the back of the frame. By this time, she'd attracted a crowd, Denise and I and several customers and a neighbor (the nice one, with the hand-sewn bags) all trying to photograph her. She was hanging from a stew mug in my hand when she made a jump for my camera, startling me, and wound up rappelling to the restock boxes under the counter, where I figure we'd finally lost her.
Five minutes later Denise spotted her climbing over the soup bowls and mugs again. At one point we saw her try three times to jump from the top of the mug to the underside of the shelf above. Twice she bounced off, but the third time, she made it. When we closed the booth, she was curled up for the night inside a moose mug.
If we're going to have a booth pet, think we should name her. Denise suggested "Spot."
I'm one of six children, so I'm good at ignoring distractions. The guy at the corner selling CDs noodling on his keyboard, music from the main stage (thankfully far away at this show), conversations from our neighbors coming through the walls, it's all pretty much background noise to me.
Denise is an only child. Worse, women are socialized to pay attention in ways men aren't. The voices coming through the back of the booth were driving her crazy.
It's two women, right on the other side of the wall, with carrying voices. Complaining about the food, the sales, booth fees, vast swaths of their personal and professional lives. I'm tempted to have a word with them about it, but I'm already that guy for asking them to move a chair and dresser that were projecting into my back booth. (Canopy walls are not rigid.) So I'm doing my best to ignore them, and sending Denise on frequent sanity walks.
Even the best days--and today was pretty good--have slow moments, and we were entertained this afternoon by a visitor.
This is a bold jumping spider. They're fuzzy and black, about the size of my pinky tip, with three white spots on the abdomen and iridescent green mouth parts. I happen to know this because one of them showed up a few weeks ago in our backyard where Denise was making paper, playing hide-and-seek among the pulp containers on the tabletop. I greatly fear we may have brought her along with us, as we were using the same canopy for shade, and had left it up for over a week before folding it up and putting it in the van.
In any case, long about the slow part of the afternoon, she shows up, strolling across my phone and down the length of the bench, before losing herself among the soup bowls. She must have climbed to the top of the mug shelves and leaped onto the booth frame, because several minutes later I felt a tickle on my neck and when I brushed at it, discovered a spider hanging from my hand. She dropped to the ground and crawled under the pie plate shelf where I figured she'd be safe.
Two minutes later, she was exploring the pitchers on the top shelf, having apparently climbed all the way up the back of the frame. By this time, she'd attracted a crowd, Denise and I and several customers and a neighbor (the nice one, with the hand-sewn bags) all trying to photograph her. She was hanging from a stew mug in my hand when she made a jump for my camera, startling me, and wound up rappelling to the restock boxes under the counter, where I figure we'd finally lost her.Five minutes later Denise spotted her climbing over the soup bowls and mugs again. At one point we saw her try three times to jump from the top of the mug to the underside of the shelf above. Twice she bounced off, but the third time, she made it. When we closed the booth, she was curled up for the night inside a moose mug.
If we're going to have a booth pet, think we should name her. Denise suggested "Spot."