The Weather

Changes. Today was sunny and cool until the clouds blew in, and now it for sure feels just like rain. Last night after Market I was scrambling to get in the last of the tomatoes (at least they were red instead of green this year) and putting plastic on the rotten porch corner that I didn't get fixed. I would have picked the pears if I had any...not a great year for pears. I'll try fertilizing them more often next season.

Market was so full of people yesterday! Between the UO parents who had dropped off their kids and the Furthur crowd, things were the way they are supposed to be. Busy and happy. I personally did not have any kind of record sales, but it was satisfying enough overall. Some people did really well, even getting big sales at closing time. It's nice to go into the iffy weather season with a really good, hot day to remember. Maybe it won't be the last, but chances are it was.

Looks like the farmers are still working on the 8th St. closure, with a customer petition. I'm guessing they couldn't make the move happen so are thinking about next season and their need to bring in more money, which they can only do by adding vendors, since they have no percentage. They also probably don't want to move to city property, which would cost them a lot more than the county property they occupy at present. I don't get why they still think the closure will be a good idea. Were they not noticing on EC weekend when customers could not get to their market? Do they think any number of customer signatures will make us change our minds? Besides, the petition question is narrow and in the inflammatory language they so seem to love. What about the process of addressing the real objections to the plan with real solutions, if there are any?

But this is just another part of the continuing saga. I have resumed shopping over there, of course, but certainly not at the supportive level of last year before this all started. I used to go out of my way to support them, spending a ton of money every week, and counted so many friends among the farmers. Some of that is still in place, of course, but that synergy of two organizations working as "sisters" is certainly not there. We don't even speak to each other as organizations about our common issues, as far as I know. They didn't help at all with the plaza situation, even though they will of course benefit as well. It is sad to me that because we had different opinions about one issue, everything was permitted to hinge on that. After working to support them for decades, I don't feel good even going over there now. Guess I will work harder on finding ways to settle it for myself, and appreciate the friendships I do have, and be patient.

And frankly, I can't afford the prices any more. I've even been compromising my strict choice of organic only just to be able to eat seasonal fruits. At the same time the Kiva seems to have fewer local choices, not sure why. So instead of increasing my food security, this need for expansion of theirs has restricted mine. Feels ironic.

If I could afford a CSA, that might be a good solution. Maybe I will look into half-shares or something. It would be tough to commit though, since food spending is one of the few ways I can be flexible when times are lean. I will have to get more creative about trading, maybe, or gleaning. I do not want to get food stamps. I do not want to be a poor person.

Getting smarter about selling my products to increase my income is probably a better place to put my energy. Guess when the rains are here it will be a good time to work on my website, and get some online sales action. Except my silly cat knocked things off shelves last night and the period and comma keys on my laptop got broken off. They still function, but if I keep typing my two fingers used to hitting those keys are going to get sore.

So I'll just write long run-on sentences that don't use periods or commas even though that will surely annoy my readers and make them stop checking my blogs and avoid me altogether and turn me into a crazed old lady just needing attention and increasingly irrationally trying to fix things that can't be fixed and make progress in areas that don't allow progress and make more products that won't be taken seriously or can't be turned into money without offering them for peanuts and that will just pile up in the shop until I can't work in there anymore and will have to just set it on fire and start over which might be a fun project since I could borrow lots of money and build another dream house and this time remember to write enough things down in detail that I can write a compelling book about it like I always wanted to and buy a new laptop with all the features I need to do online sales transactions and solve all my problems at once! At least I will always have exclamation points! Bye!

Spontaneity

Yesterday at Tuesday Market I had more fun than usual. I had more sales than usual too, and those two things might have been related. Customers definitely like it to be fun, vendors do, and of course the people-watchers really do.

The best fun was brought by that iconic (he said so) troubador, Rich Glauber. He has formed the habit of stopping by my booth at Market to sing a few songs with me, not a planned thing, just what happens sometimes. Occasionally he comes without his guitar to check the mood, and he does come without his guitar regularly, as I am one of his stops at the Market. You know how it is when you want to connect with someone you know, not just wander aimlessly amid people you kind of know, or have seen before anyway. So he visits me.

I wouldn't say we know each other intimately, but we have an easy friendship, read each other's blogs, and have known each other a long time through the Radar Angels. I'm not one of the performing angels, I always say, but Rich has this special quality that he carries with him wherever he goes. He is a catalyst for music.

He sings with kids, he sings with old folks, he sings with anyone who likes to sing, and he is super good at setting everything up so people enjoy themselves, loosen up, and remember lyrics they haven't accessed for decades. I suppose I am in the category of kid-like old folk, and the songs he chooses for me are usually old standards, like "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" (the tomato-tomatoh one) and "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," songs I learned in chorus or from my parents or at family reunions.

My Mom is a singer, as is her whole family, and we sang all the time as kids. We sang when we were cleaning up the kitchen, in the car, on the boat, up in the trees. I used to climb the clothes pole and channel Peter Pan. ("I've gotta crow..."). I have three sisters, and we used to get wonderful harmonies, though not very strictly. My voice is second soprano or something, alto, I don't know. It's a bit low and I don't have a broad range, and I'm not very disciplined about it. I do love to sing, though, and Rich figured that out.

The first time I performed with him was just on percussion during one of his shows at Family School. All of the kids were astonished to see that side of me, and that Rich called me McD was a crackup for them. I am kind of inhibited in front of a real audience, but when no one is watching, I can enjoy myself a lot.

So Rich comes by, he transposes everything into my range, and he comes up with wonderfully obscure songs and leads me through them. I get about half of it usually, out of my memory. Yesterday we did Heart and Soul (I only know it on piano, apparently), Glory of Love, You Make Me Feel So Young, and Dancing Cheek to Cheek, which I have almost learned now.

The most precious moments for me were at the start, when he launched into "Let's Fall in Love." We were standing in the empty space next to my booth at the Tuesday Market, with no one around but my fellow vendors, and we got pretty cute. We were sort of flirty, smiley, joyful. I suppose it could have been imagined that we were falling in love, but we were just playing around. I felt young and cute and really comfortable and happy, so I sang out.

I'm pretty sure Rich and I aren't falling in love, just to be clear, but we are liking this game a lot. He's very sensitive to my sales and customers, even joking them up some if it seems like a good idea. When we are forced into too small a space it sometimes gets in the way of commerce, but on Tuesday, sitting on the bench or walking around in little circles in the dappled shade of the trees, it was perfect. When I don't have an audience I am perfectly happy to be on stage.

I'm a solitary person, as you might have noticed, and I don't have a lot of intimacy in my life, but this level of it, with him being the encouraging mentor that he is, letting me feel just special enough, is really nice. I am going to miss him when he goes to Thailand for four months. Hopefully it will be during the Market off season so we won't lose this little practice of ours.

I don't think it will develop into a performing career or anything like my writing opportunity, but this musical opportunity is so sweet. I like it just the way it is. I like not counting on it on any particular day, not evaluating it on any critical scale, not working very hard at it (though I am going to learn some songs). It's just a regular type of life experience that friends have all the time, making music together, never getting quite enough of it, never wanting it to end. Very special.

Rich is a one-of-a-kind. He's invented himself and cobbled together a living encouraging other people to enjoy music and let themselves participate. He gives permission. He fits right into my culture down at the Market. In fact, he and I are doing this because the Market exists. We probably wouldn't have found the opportunity without our community gathering place. Cool. Guess this will go in the book too. Thanks a million, Rich, thank you very much.

And P.S: Mike Wilhelm, who often comments on my posts, is a similar musician in that he can encourage anyone to sing with him and he can make them sound good. He's the first person I sang at Market with, a few years ago on a quiet Saturday in October. He plays in The Buntles, and Cello Bella among other activities.

Kerfluffle

My new sidewalk extension is wonderful. Thanks John and Kat! See, I can turn the trailer around and wheel it wherever I want.

Plus I weighed the entire amount of Jell-O Art I take, and it's about fifteen pounds. Makes quite an impact for that weight. Of course the shelf it displays on weighs nine pounds just for the board, etc., etc., but it is still relatively weightless.

Still ridiculously excited about the essay, though taking it to Market was illuminating. When sharing it with the real human people I talked about, I quickly realized I could have done better at showing them in their best light. Every word mattered, and I hadn't been very careful with the beginning.

So I rewrote it and quite unprofessionally sent in one last edit. I guess I just have to swallow my embarrassment at being such an amateur and learn this stuff, either the hard way or some other way. I will apply myself to reading up on the expectations when one does this sort of thing. It's way different from just taking things to my writing group, and I'm old enoughto be smarter.
Not that those two things are related.

Writing good nonfiction is a big responsibility, and I want to do it right. Offending my neighbors and contemporaries is foolish and can mostly be avoided. Only a couple of people raised objections and I think they were right in their observations. One fellow writer helped with a couple of things I had overlooked, just sentence structure and clarification which were spot on. Most people were too polite to point out the inadequacies.

But thankfully I noticed some of them immediately. It's one thing to write my little blog that gets read by a couple dozen people and quite another to put something out into the big big world. What I say about myself is my problem, but what I say about others is my responsibility. Even though the essay is not about them, I owe them the level of friendship and loyalty I expect from them, at the very least. Anyway, fixed, but not without a night of anxiety.

I am gonna have to find a way to deal with more anxiety in my life. Quite likely I will launch into writing books about both the Market and my Jell-O Art community and experience, plus I would love to polish up some of my fiction and get it out there. I guess the anxiety is the real reason I have avoided the writing spotlight, not that it has ever hovered very close to my position on the stage before.

I have gotten better at recognizing the altered state I call the narcissistic souffle. I get so caught up in it sometimes, I lose all perspective and forget that I am only the star of the movie running in my own head. Having a strong imagination can be turned against oneself too. So more calming work, exercise and housework and more journalling. And more self-care and quiet for recovery from these public days.

I think the essay shows how vulnerable a position it is to be standing in the park each week. That's kind of the point. Just pretending I am not vulnerable isn't going to work, I'm going to have to cultivate more self protection in active ways, not just staying home and being quiet. I will say things to myself, like "this is not about you" and "just don't say anything for a minute." I will think more before speaking up. I will edit and edit and ask people for input and edit.

At least I forced myself to figure out gimp and convert some pictures to greyscale. That was a good and easy skill to pick up. I will put myself on a dedicated course of action to increase skills in an area I have just been playing around in. I will be serious about it.

Tomorrow. Today I need a day off, to get some painting done before it rains. Which is more scary, my imagined debut as a writer, or the very real winter that is approaching? I hate to be cold and wet.

Love My Kids!

My essay was chosen for the anthology! An actual book! It will be published this winter by Serving House Press and is called Winter Tales: Women Write About Aging. I am overly thrilled and of course at the same time terrified that I will be exposed and what?

Laughed at? Things don't usually work out the way I fear they will. Everyone I told about it was thrilled for me and said nice things that somehow I heard as if they had never been said before. Maybe this will help me work on my confidence level. This will be my first real publication, so I won't be able to keep myself in the "unappreciated and unseen" box I like to put myself in.

Self-sabotage, the easiest fall-back position. Self promotion seems so easy, but brings all the fears of overdoing it, or sounding obsessive. Dither dither lalala. Quit it.

My son and his partner Kat have been here for a few days working on various projects. We extended the sidewalk project around the corner, which really needed to happen. They worked together famously. It was good to hear them trade ideas and ask for confirmation, negotiate for agreement. I doubt I taught him much of that, but they are good at it. I'm proud of them.

Got a picture with John's dad, Mike, who took them out for sushi. He will be moving to Ecuador soon and that will be weird. I'm used to seeing him about once a week or so and asking him about technical issues. He will be building a health services resort there so stay tuned. You might need a hip replacement or something someday. I'm waiting for them to build the bathrooms before I go.

They're off to Crater Lake today and I won't see them for another month, so I'll get in some last conversations now. Talk to ya later.

Too many things at once

I skipped Kim's etsy workshop last week because this website building takes a lot of time. Just photographing things is a chore...I'm getting better at it though. At least I know how to manipulate the photos a little finally.

The Facebook page was a good idea but I'm spreading the sauce too thin. Now when I make a new Jell-O piece I have three or four places to post the pics, after I remember to take them. I had to iron all the scarves and then take two sets of photos; the first ones were too bright. I didn't even haul out the other scarves but I'll have to do that too. The Weebly site is taking shape, but I have a long way to go to be really online in a functional way.

I'm having a hard time deciding what to put up for sale, since it means I have to have some steady supply of them, at least it means that to me since I don't want to put up things that will soon disappear. Probably etsy would be great for that but I just can't add one more variable right now. My shirt stock is getting spotty and I have to build up a few things for HM, even though it seems early for that. It all adds up to overwhelm.

My son and his gf are coming down for a friend's wedding, and they want to work for money, so I will have some help getting things tied down for winter around the place. I have painting to do, work on the sidewalk still, and lots of projects I've considered but don't have the energy to launch. One of the houses needs a new roof pretty soon, thanks to that raccoon that tore it up. I don't think the patches I put on will leak, this winter anyway, but they will at some point, because roofs leak. Skylights too.

Everything breaks down, and having two houses means something needs fixing all the time. Just remembered one thing is my vacuum cleaner. Guess I had better do that one first. With every project I think "I'll save that for John, he'd enjoy it." In past times he usually didn't even like the idea of my projects, but he is much more game to try now and I'll let him have the pick of the list. Some things are a lot more fun than others.

I'm hoping we will even do some of that famous "spring cleaning" that I never do in spring. Everything needs a good wash and wipe. I haven't really thoroughly cleaned in many years, and I used to be so judgmental about other people's housekeeping habits. Now I would like the surfaces to be clean, but I'm not very interested in making it happen. Oh well.

Need to work a little hiking or something in there too. I almost never vacate when the vacating is good. I got a little trip up and down the coast a couple of weeks ago and it had been maybe two years since I had gone. I know it was before my surgery in 2008. Pretty bad for such an amazing place that is only an hour away.

At least the wedding is out at the Fair site, so we can get in a little walk out there. It's always a pleasure.

And Market keeps me going week to week. What a great routine to sell twice a week. I really like being able to have clients meet me there to see what I have, or to drop off art or whatever. Convenient. And seeing friends is easy and casual there, except when it is too busy to visit.

Last week Rich came by and we had music again, getting to be a fun thing. Too bad his schedule usually means he comes right when buying is hot, if it is a buying day. I hope customers enjoy it, even if it means they have to wait a minute for the chorus to be over to exchange money. I know my neighbors on the Park Blocks enjoy it, or else those smiles just mean they're grinning to bear it. Willy even joined in on harp last week, on his birthday. That was a special moment indeed.

Board meeting tonight, oh boy. Have to get away from the keyboard and let my neck muscles relax for awhile. Yoga would be good, if I would have fixed the vacuum cleaner so I could get the cat hair off the rug where I would do the yoga. Maybe it will have magically fixed itself...I'll go check.