Where has the time gone? At this rate, I’ll be opening my booth at the Portland Saturday Market before I have time to make any new jewelry! Or update my display, both of which I have plans for but have not yet started. It has been a crazy couple of weeks, heck, a crazy 2008, but I’ve talked about how busy January was in previous posts so I won’t do that again.
But the Trade Show! Let me start by saying that setup went smoother than we had any right to expect. We arrived in San Francisco at the end of the worst rainstorm they’ve had in ages. So bad that the airport in LA was closed! Thats bad! We thought we were going to die on the drive in, so many cars on the road, and so little visibility in all that rain and kickup from the other cars. Scary. So we get into town, and have to find the Moscone Center, which isn’t well marked, and especially hard to find in the driving rain. It sucked, but find it we did, and they were kind enough to let us in and unload without driving out to the staging area, wherever that was. We never found out, I guess I’ll have to figure that out next time. We got in, got unloaded, and setup in like two hours. It was awesome.
Then we found our way to our hotel, which is no where near the Moscone center, but had free parking, and alot of great little resturants nearby. If you want to go on vacation and just eat at little holes in the wall with great food, than San Francisco is your place. The hotel we stayed at was called the La Luna, and while loud, it was great. Comfortable beds (someday I want to live in a house with a bedroom large enough for a king size bed, they are the best for those who don’t like to touch when they are asleep, but like to spread out. I see why my parents have one.), cable (yay animal planet), and a desky thing that was perfect for working on bottlecaps on. Also lots of hot water in the bathtub, which we needed because by the time we made it there we were soaked, tired, and angry at the roads for never letting you turn left when you need to. I swear, there are like six places in all of San Fran you can turn left. We almost ended up driving out of the city on the Golden Gate bridge because we couldn’t turn left!
The show was quiet but fruitful. I swear, just once I would like to be at a show that isn’t quiet. I always seem to miss the busy one, or the show is “getting slower every year.” I know the economy is in the shitter and that people are scared of spending money and whatnot, but com’on people, I’m trying to make a living here! And pay of some debt! And send my chickens to college! Anyway, what I am saying, is that shows are difficult. I am not a natural salesperson, and if I go to long between potential customers I get desperate and angry, and forget how to talk to people. I did make back what I spent to be down there, and thats good, and I did make alot of contacts some of which have contacted ME after I got home, and thats good too. My favorite contact is someone who right now is specializing in bringing small japanese artisan’s work to the states and making it easy for stores here to order directly from them (which I’ve been told is hard to do right now). He is wanting to do the same thing for artisans here, bring them to the Japanese market. I want my jewelry to visit Japan in a big way. Japanese tourist girls love my jewelry. Brandon’s been after me for a while to get my stuff over there, and now I may have found a way! Its very exciting, and I really hope this works.
So four days of hanging out in what amounts to a huge basement selling my wares, and then one day of shopping before the drive home. Brandon amused himself by getting drunk saturday, then spending sunday working for me, then monday at MoMa and tuesday at some other museum. Tuesday night we moved on over to Jessie’s (college friend of ours) apartment in the Mission, which is a great apartment despite what they say (Corbett, her husband, doesn’t like it so much). Jessie and I hung out in her ‘hood and drank and ate mexican food. Brandon met up with another college buddy Martin and drank downtown. It was fantastic seeing Jessie again, its been a couple of years, but with her even though we hadn’t spoken in a while it always feels like I had just seen the week before. Shes just one of those people that you feel immediately comfortable with. Her husband is too. They are great people. She just finished up her masters in painting six months ago and I have a link to her website on the side of this blog somewhere. Check her out, shes great!
Wednesday, my day of rest, I had one goal: the H&M store. I knew that I had to go there, not just for my own personal edification, but because I honestly think my friend Christina would never speak to me again if I didn’t go there. She was so excited that I would be in a place with an H&M that she e-mailed me both store locations! That morning was beautiful, like 50 degrees and sunny. We strolled around Jessies neighborhood and got tea and chocolate corossants while Brandon nursed his hangover and watched cartoons. Then we collected him and took the BART downtown and hit up the H&M. I got a brown squiggle patterned sweater, a pair of buttony plaid trousers, and a totally rad plum, velour mou-mou. Its not really a mou-mou, its a cute house dress, but its fun to say, and makes Brandon wince when we say it, so me and Jessie said it alot. She promised to go back and get one, since she passed up on it to get neon blue leather gloves, which were also pretty awesome.
We headed back for portland on Thursday, we left town at seven, and were up to Redding by like eleven. We were kicking ass. We knew we’d probably need to chain up, and we did just past Redding. we were still kicking ass at 35 miles an hour. But then around one, the krap hit the fan. It keep snowing harder, and we got hung up for a while due to a semi getting stuck. Then we heard the news: I-5 was being held up at Yureka. It was closed, and the storm wasn’t letting up. We saw signs for Mt. Shasta, we needed to pee, we needed gas, so we took the exit. Once we were there, we realized that we weren’t getting out until Friday. There were plows all over town. HUGE piles of white white snow everywhere, it was a frigging winter wonderland up there. It kinda made me happy in spite of myself, what can I say, even when it costs me another $100 in hotels I still love snow.
So we checked into a hotel there at about one thirty in the afternoon. Nothing we could do, so we turned on the TV, I got out some bottlecaps that needed glittering, and we spent the afternoon working and watching cable. I believe it was “Romeo must Die.” Then we watched the Barak and Hillary debate, which was pretty fun. I liked seeing them be nice to each other. What can I say, I’m a sucker. And I learned that Obama is left handed like me! It didn’t really help me decide who to vote for, I still really like the both, but Brandon hates Hillary’s laugh. I think it may just be a male reaction to the laugh of a strong willed, middle aged woman. I’m not bothered by it, but then, I know about a million of those ladies, and they have some crazy ass laughs. After the debate, it was time for LOST! Yay for the new season! Being somewhere we could watch it and not on the road was almost worth it.
Friday we left early again, ate on the road. I-5 had been opened late the night before, and we didn’t need chains because so many cars and trucks had been on it and broke up all the snow. We made great time all the way back, got Marcus at Iris’s house (made poor Rosie sad says Iris, she really liked having her boyfriend staying with her all week) and were home by four. And I have never been so happy to pull into our driveway in my life!
Saturday morning came and I started feeling sick. Which was uber-crappy because I was due to leave for a bachalorette weekend in about an hour. I made some calls, and it was decided that I should go anyway, which I am so glad I did because even sick, I had the best time. The beach house we stayed in was beautiful, the girls all fun and sweet, and the bride excited and nervous and so happy we were all there. And they all smoked like chimneys. And I think only two of them are regular smokers. And they took my definitly now sick ass to a smokey hick beach bar were we had a great time and I breathed in enough second hand smoke to kill me.
The next morning I was definitly worse for wear. And it just got worse from there. We got back mid afternoon and Iris had to drive me home, I was too sick to pick my car up from Rasa’s house. I went to bed at four to sick to take my clothes off! Brandon came down with the cold too.
I can honestly say that this was the worst head cold I have ever had. My head felt so stuffed with Ick that I could hardly think. I was sick enough that Brandon when grocery shopping by himself and didn’t even complain, and he himself was SICK. That is freaking sick. And it didn’t go away until Thursday, when Rasa and Charlie dropped of their furry little bundle of joy Lukas to be watched while they fly off to a tropical island to get married. Thank God my head cold was gone, cause Marcus and Lukas are hilarious together, but they are not quiet.
So now my house is full of dogs, my studio is full of orders in various states of finished, and I am on the mend, and life is settling down for a little while. Oh, did I mention that I discovered that we have a leak somewhere in our underground water pipe system? I discovered that on day three of my head cold. I don’t know where it is, by my water bill says its there, and so does my water meter. So be looking forward to that post in the coming month….
Toodles! Maggie
And Me and Peter, for Mom and Dad. Someone thinks they will be getting this picture for Christmas…
My finished tea towel with my own embroidery patterns on it. Yep, I’m gonna pat myself on the back and say I’m pretty good at designing them. Gonna work on more today!
And the boys doing what the beach is for: Reading Stuff. Check out the brown carpet and rad wood paneled walls. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore!
And finally, some action shots of the dogs. They got the hang of playing fetch this week. I think it helps that they were playing alone, usually they play with Riley and Rosie, and Rosie is a world class fetcher. The rest of the dogs just have to run along, since they aren’t gonna get the ball anyway. And if they do, they just drop it and she brings it back. Not this time, Opal had to learn to bring it back herself! Marcus only completed the circuit once. But hey, that ain’t bad, cause he isn’t a fetching dog. Look at the air Opal gets!
Doesn’t Marcus look freaky running at you? We were lucky this week, hardly a person or dog on the beach the whole time we were there, so no one for him to scare. Not that he means to, cause he really doesn’t. He’s just happy to see you!
This is a double post, cause here is Friend’s Thanksgiving! The day after we got back from the beach, we took off for the weekend to Iris and Forrest’s house in the country for a 14 person thanksgiving. With Pot roast instead of Turkey. Mmmm, pot roast….
After dinner came the games, That picture is of me, iris, and Wes playing cribbage. They tried to teach me, but well, math and the evenings makes me sleepy. I played one game, then broke out the embroidery and hung out. Next to me is Steven, he was playing Rummy or something with Dean and Roxanne. At the end of the table were the rest of the crew playing Poker. Wow, what a difference the years make, even a few years ago it would have been drinking games and dancing, now its card games and wine and crafts!
