Slightly Off Center

Saw this post on Tumblr lately, and it called to mind a situation we've had to deal with at Holiday Market for at least three years.

The thing is, a lot of us Market vendors are getting older--I know, shocking, right?  So the Market has marked off some "alter-abled" parking spaces near the side door, put up signs that read Reserved For and the Market member's name and permit number, with a big ol' Handicapped icon in the middle. And all the time, we find non-members parking in them.

I have to deal with this on the regular because we have a space, on account of Denise's arthritis. If we come in together, I'll park the van there, which is handy when I need to run out for restock, but not critical. If we come in separately, I'll park elsewhere and let Denise park the car there. Only last Sunday, once again, she found the space full, had to park at the far end of east lot. Wound up calling me to come out and support her so she didn't collapse halfway to the building. I kept an eye on the space, and no less than three different vehicles parked there before it finally cleared out around 3 pm so I could go bring our car in.

The one thing they had in common? All of them had handicapped hang tags.

Now there are large swaths of handicapped spaces designated around the front of the building. The vendor spaces, however, are closer to the entrance, so are overwhelmingly tempting, even though farther from the doors.

Staff were perplexed; I thought it was simple. They see the Handicapped icon, and think they can park there.

But it says "Reserved for [Vendor]."

Doesn't matter, nobody looks. We had this problem years ago, and the only we fixed it was by putting a "Holiday Market" sticker over the Handicapped icon.

Maybe if we redesigned it with the Vendor name or Reserved inside the icon...

That's when I quoted the Tumblr post.

Yesterday, when we came in, we saw this new, redesigned sign at our space. Don't know if it's cause-and-effect, or just lighter traffic (doubtful, there was a Gun Show and the Piccadilly Flea Market going on in the other buildings), but our space was available all weekend.

We've gotten in the habit of point-to-point, linear travel when we go back to the midwest; no loops, no returning to origin point. This time, we flew into Minneapolis, rented a car, drove across Minnesota and Wisconsin, and flew back from Milwaukee. Spent the first couple of days visiting my sister and what of her family were around--one kid is away to college in Winona, another dancing in a ballet of Dracula in Las Vegas, a third in residential treatment. Plus her wife has picked up new responsibilities in her job as an Episcopalian priest, so we hardly saw her before oh-so-late.

But it was lovely spending time with Maggie again, just talking and cooking together. Gabrielle was as attentive as any high school junior--ie totally distracted, but we did get to meet one of her friends, over to study. And Sarah and their husband Mark joined us for breakfast at a little Vietnamese place on our last day in the cities, where we discussed the proper term for the non-binary child of one's sibling. I nominate "nerf", because they're squishy and huggable, but bounce back from everything.

Because of Maggie's busy work schedule, we had an afternoon to ourselves, so we looked up longtime friend lydamorehouse who lives over in St. Paul. She offered to take us to the newly reopened Uncle Hugo's Bookstore, but shopping would require making decisions, and I had maybe one left in my poor brain (besides which, our house is so full of books already, we're mostly borrowing or buying digital anymore). So we hung out in her back yard, talked sci fi and new Star Trek and all kinds of geeky pleasures--she's a published author of SF and paranormal romance. Then went out to dinner at a nearby Ethiopian restaurant that had outdoor seating. Where they put us at the perfect table.

Yup, 42. The ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything. We think this should be her new author photo.

Also went for a morning walk around the neighborhood. There's always something interesting to see in Nordeast Minneapolis, including these lovely berries...

New-laid sidewalk, grafitti'd by squirrels and what looks like a very tiny kitten...

And this intersection, which seems like it ought to be a back road to Hogwarts.