In Which There Are Trials, Tribulations, and a Happy Ending

[lillian13]

Saturday. Saturday was WINDY, OMG WINDY. And since we haven't had any significant rain in approximately 500 years, that meant dusty. The wind was blowing straight into my tent, too. It was gusting randomly, and one particularly vicious gust came very close to taking my tent and flipping it over! Thankfully I have amazing vendor-neighbors and customers--the tent was grabbed and wrestled back into place, the knocked-over tables were righted, and a couple of adorable little girls picked everything up off the floor for me. I only lost 2 pair of cufflinks, 1 crystal pendant (they aren't selling anyway), 1 earring, and the tuxedo studs all came apart (they can be fixed).

So that was my excitement for Saturday. Sales were pretty flat, nowhere near last year. Lots of people, they just weren't buying, at least from me. I did trade one of my enamel steampunk bracelets to my favorite handmade soapmaker for a large amount of soap. We were both happy with that one!

I hit Target on the way home to get some more lights, since I thought mine had been killed in the Great Tent Take-Off of 2011. I went home and when I washed my face, the washcloth was an interesting brown color. Eeeew. Evil Knee was very very unhappy with me.

Sunday, I got up early and decided to get to the show super-early and Clean All The Things. Here I am, driving along, when I hear a "THUMP!" under my car. Not a good sound, so I pulled off to the Dunkin Donuts. Walked around the car, saw the passenger side rear tire quickly deflating. Fuck. Called AAA, they said it would be about an hour, but she promised to put a rush on it. I went inside to console myself with lovely fried donuts, as you do. Not 15 minutes later the nice AAA man pulls up! Got the tire off easily (big hole in it, yay), and put my little temp spare on and even aired it up for me!

Got to the show to discover that there had been a brief rain shower. Great for the dust, but my tent does crap-all to keep out rain. Went in. Yep, lots of water, but not too serious. I Cleaned All the Things, put the buttons on new cards, set up the new lights (old ones only needed bulbs!) and did some more rearranging of the layout. It was windy again, but much more bearable, since it was cloudy, cool, and the dust was kept mostly in check by that earlier rain shower.

Again, sales were kind of meh. Decent, but just not what I expected of this show. Saw tx_cronopio and The Engineer! Yay! Another LJ friend exists outside of the internets! My friends L & J showed up in the afternoon, to wander around before they helped me pack up.
 
I had a really nice young lady who buys from me every year come in and make a beeline for my silver chased/enameled pendant that I made last year. I had $400 on it, but she just said, "Hmm. That's tempting..." I suggested that she walk around and think about it, because if she was still thinking about it in an hour, that meant she really wanted it. She and her friends took off and I didn't think much of it. A couple of hours later she came back, but she and her friends were looking at my larger enamel pendants with spaceships on them, so I figured she had decided against it but was getting something else. Hey, a sale's a sale! So, she walks up with one of those pendants, nods to the earrings she had me hold, and then says, "You know, I really want that pendant. Let's do it." I almost passed out. I sold her $500 in jewelry and turned my meh weekend into a really decent one! And if anyone bought it, I was glad it was her, because I know she will treasure it forever.

L&J got me packed up in record time. I took surface roads home and kept it under 40 the whole way, which took a while, but I just didn't want to risk that temp spare on the freeway with a full show load. So, now I am home, with my annoying cats. I've unloaded all that which comes in the house, and tomorrow I'll get up and unload the rest at the storage unit before going over to the tire place. I did pay the tire insurance, and I'm sure glad that I did. Other errands include the bank and the laundromat, since all of my table covers are absolutely filthy. Again.

And I'm in the Wheatsville show, I'm doing some shows at a local gallery in December, and my bonus check comes in tomorrow. I will take it as a win.