Load-In System for HM

 Here's the contents of the color-coded important packets for everyone for HM. There were three new big orange flags at my loading zone, not sure if that was true for all of them though I assume so.

I hate how much plastic crap we buy. Just not sustainable. And we all know these deep-dyed paper colors are not recyclable, really. Nor are gloss-finished papers I don't think. Of course we are not doing the sorting and recycling at HM anyway. 

I miss our values. 

Oh, and my row all got moved out from the wall a foot so the backs would line up, as some people did have bumpouts on their back wall. We got a notice that if we used that extra foot of space for anything, we would be charged $15 a week. My booth got moved down so my corner is actually in front of the fire extinguisher on the wall there, but of course we have 350 or so fire extinguishers in the building to supplement the sprinkler system.  

We also got a little piece of orange paper to put on our dashboard to prove what zone we were supposed to be in. 

*Someone* got a lot of praise for coming up with a brilliant solution that fixed the problem she created last year, by suspending our load-in system for the duration of HM, only to give it back pretty much the same as it was, this year, with just a bit less personal choice and a lot more attempt to control. 

All while we are seriously broke and in the red. 

I'm having panic attacks about the finances. I don't have official information I can share, but we should be getting a financial statement at the Annual Meeting on Sunday, December 14th, 9:00 am.  PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE FINANCES! 

The Short Week

One day off in a week is definitely not enough...and a couple of partial days is not the same thing. But this is a season of overwork and I know there are a lot of other people experiencing the pressure of that. I am lucky in that my efforts generally do pay off, within the limits of things I can't control. I don't celebrate Thanksgiving Day in a traditional way but I'll try to make it through the 3-day market with as much patience and compassion as I can gather up. I do have plenty of gratitude. I enjoyed giving to all five nonprofits lined up in front of the Evergreen Hall...I'm glad they were there. I'm looking forward to extending more support. Plus The Kareng Fund got some promotional materials! We're trying to transition to being The Caring Fund, just a tiny change, so we got stickers and QR codes and flyers thanks to the generosity of  DeLenn who got them designed and made for us within our quirky consensus process. A big thanks to her and to everyone who supports the Fund. 

I can control most of what is happening to me, but as I age I certainly realize that is just a decreasing list and grace will always be required. Reflections of myself in the public interface of retail craft selling are usually quite gratifying, restoring, and pleasurable, which is why I keep doing it after 50 years I suppose.

It's kind of a funky life. Many of us at market are healing our various traumas, working to stay afloat, and doing our best to maintain some safety and a glimpse of prosperity and fun. We reaffirm every week with that little song Raven and Yana gifted us. We genuinely want prosperity and fun for everyone.

But it gets harder and harder as the trust and collaboration fade from our culture. We are used to making all of our decisions and facing our challenges through group process...seeking a consensus about how to move forward, being as inclusive as possible, trying to speak for and protect those who need it the most. We're struggling to keep that as our set of values as real compassion and sensible business practices fade from our lives to be replaced with a power structure that admits that their strategy is to make us pay for everything it is possible to charge us for, to maintain a top-heavy structure that is abandoning those of us who can't keep up. 

Fortunately we have each other. This week I had some intense back pain on Sunday and tried to be stoic but ended up telling a few people as I tried to manage it. One person gave me an ice pack, another a lidocaine patch, and quite a few had gentle advice that I reluctantly followed. By mid-afternoon I could sit again, had a handle on what it was (SI joint and not a slipped disk, pretty sure) and the ibuprofen worked enough to get me painlessly through the load-out, so I could do it without help and just within the two-hour framework that I have to stretch right to the limit. Because we no longer have any storage, without paying an extra $50 a week for it (!) I have to go home to get my tubs before I can pack things up, and it rained between 4:00 and 7:00 which made it a little harder. But I was able to eliminate half the lifting by packing into my tubs right on my cart without blocking the aisle and that made the difference. I did as little as possible to use my back and it was fine yesterday, so if I am careful I think I will be okay to load it all back in tomorrow. Lowering the stress level is a big part of the management of the whole holiday retail experience.

Sales were down for me, but I had some great customers so I think I can weather a drop in income. We are getting almost zero promotions. No ad in the big fat Emerald Holiday Gift Guide, which hurts, only the flawed Weekly centerfold on the 13th, and not a lot of FB presence. I'm hoping there was more elsewhere, but there is also a lot of consumer reluctance to spend money on top of our admin priorities which don't seem skewed to member support.

We're getting a lot of admonitions to support staff (um, they make way more than we do in most cases) and the false narrative that we are mean members caused the board to send a broadcast email to tell us to be nice to each other, which just gives us the message that they don't see the longstanding community of very nice, very supportive members as we are. We check on each other, we offer lots of help, we are in it together. 

I had a nightmare-like dream with people weeping about market being bankrupt and destroyed, and I confronted some of the people to ask what they thought was happening. What were the problems? Overspending and some people don't like other people? Nothing new, I said. Over 50 years I had seen it all before, and I knew we were not going to fail from that. I said we would just recreate the market if needed, which worked for the FSP folks...persistence and a refusal to go away. There was a big empty house that we could use as an art center. Houses usually represent relationships in my dreams, so there was a big empty space for relationships and a lot of different rooms for them to thrive in. I had an answer for every concern. I was met with quite a bit of silence in the dream, from people who didn't agree, didn't understand me, or didn't believe me. I wasn't bothered by it. I knew what I was speaking from, which was the core of my being. This is my 50th season, a full lifetime. I know us.

A lot of what I've had to do this season is work to recapture my joy. It's obvious that some people don't like my style, my writing, my willingness to communicate with a lot of words, and some of that is the change in the culture. People don't like long emails or letters, want things to be simple, and on the market days, people do not feel safe with each other. If you disagree with the "we must support staff at all costs" cult, you will be reported and face some kind of retaliation. Punishments are built into policies that were never necessary when we were a real community. The honor system had value, and the point system was sacred. Now the model is more authoritarian, and it doesn't work very well to maintain a membership that feels it has rights. I fear the loss of our mutual benefit membership structure altogether. 

Getting the joy back means working to lessen the fears, but of course as a traumatized person I have some inability to make that happen sufficiently without the conduit of information I have previously had. I have no faith I am getting the information through the archiving. I guess a new Handbook was written, which I have not seen yet and isn't posted online, so it's possible some policies have changed that I don't even know about. Glad I am not in a position of direct accountability for them. Communication with the members is a key failing of this power structure...they just aren't prioritizing it for all of the necessary things. The priority is a high degree of control from the top, and punishment for those who won't comply with it.

The Annual Meeting is on the calendar for the wrong day, and nothing has been in the newsletter about it. It's on the loading schedule, so if you know where to look you know when it is, but you had to make an effort to get a schedule because not all the individually handed out packets got to the people. If you didn't attend market and ask for your packet, you missed out. I had reservations about the load-in process, and since I don't drive a car it didn't really apply to me, but there was a lot of confusion and some hardship around it, which fortunately was alleviated by the extra load-in day on Thursday, but you were supposed to get special permission to come that day, and again, people weren't told about it. The changes were made to fix a situation that didn't need fixing, that paradigm where the person creates a problem so they can get a lot of praise for solving it. Load-in happened much as it has traditionally happened, but a lot of people had a lot of anxiety about it. Anxiety is probably our number-one problem regarding Holiday Market in particular, and any given Saturday. What we do in a day is not easy.

The website, predictably, is not yet fully functional. I know one person who is not in it, so people who inquire where she is in the new map are told she is not there (and she is right next to the info booth!). She hasn't gotten her points or the promotion she is paying for. And the costs went up a lot! Generally people like the new map, and the addition of the Atrium, but people got moved without getting to choose spaces in point order as we had always done before. We're moving to a model of assigned spaces like the farmers use, and that will not be a good transition for us if we go farther in that direction. 

People might not remember we threw $10,000 at the website in 2018-2019 and it wasn't sufficient for the things we went through in 2021...it took some skills to book Holiday Market when we got back inside and we barely managed. Now we seem not to have anyone on staff who can do anything on the internet, so not only did we spend another ten grand from our savings, we had to supplement it by hiring the designer at an hourly wage to keep working. I'm sure he is a good person and he's been helpful to me, but the way we spend money is terrifying. Paying a few people by stripping out promotions for all of us is painful. A few people getting top wages and benefits while most of us are below poverty level has a lot of us really scared for basic survival. If sales drop significantly at HM, there are members who may not make it through the winter. The idea that they will get sales from the artisan directory is ludicrous. Hardly anyone is even putting up their profile details, because you can't do it from a phone and few people still have other devices like laptops. Helping each one of hundreds of members individually is not something we can afford at all.

Stripping out the savings of decades for short term goals is not financially sound practice and again, we are going to pay for failing to hire professionals in our staff. I know people are afraid to speak up about it and no one is stepping up to do the hard task of addressing it, but it may solve itself by bankruptcy at some point. I didn't enjoy having a nightmare about it, and I enjoy the constant reality of it even less.

For myself, setting the boundaries of not being in a position of service and responsibility for it has been life-affirming, but my level of caring has not diminished so it's pretty much a new set of problems. How do I fix what I can see but not work on? How do I have faith in people who dislike me for having different opinions and probably the highest level of historical knowledge of any of our community? I offered the Board the 2019 archives but haven't heard from anyone who looked at them, so just offering the history didn't work. I know my writing is seen as a threat and therefore my concerns and possible solutions are dismissed, as they were before I resigned.

One person did ask me a specific question, regarding the role of Standards Committee historically and in relation to the role of Food Court Committee. It's pretty complex really, and changed over time in complicated ways, but the overall answer is the culture of consensus-seeking and setting aside self-interest. Group process. We sat at that intentionally round table and worked out solutions for the most people possible, involving as many stakeholders as we could, and moved carefully and slowly when changes were made. It was clear that only the Board could make policy, and they made sure to get a lot of different viewpoints before taking any actions. That looked like resistance to change, but it was really careful shepherding of what we had built so we wouldn't lose any of our basic values or make any major mistakes we couldn't fix. 

If a jewelry issue came up, sometimes all the jewelers were asked to attend a meeting. Taste tests for new food booths were done in a full committee. Standards were changed only after months of discussion.  

But now it's all move fast and break things. I fear for us. More than at any time in our history we need to be the safe place for a lot of vulnerable people. Maybe we're going to end up with two blocks of the FSP and only one block of Saturday Market. Might not be the worst thing to have to recreate a people-centered market. It would be a lot cheaper, but that would not be a history I would want to document.    

With the Farmers

 It was so interesting selling with the farmers and talking with them about our relationship. First, I had another superb selling day, as many people from the community, people here for the Ducks game, and farmers themselves shopped my hats and tote bags. Many of them discovered me for the first time, and everyone was full of thoughtful compliments and appreciation. The absolutely stellar weather didn't hurt. (Except I never knew what a glare that building creates on a sunny day! Good thing I had a hat.)

Looking over at the Park Blocks, just across from where I have stood for thousands of market days, I saw it as a well-loved park and not as "my" home, broadening out my view. A person was set up on the East Block, with an array of things, and a flute he kept noodling on for attention or from boredom, not sure. He got little attention, though there were still booths in the FSP and the drum circle was in good form. A lot of people rested on the benches, strolled through, or played with their kids around the fountain (which was off.) Last week there was a flock of turkeys. A lot goes away when the market is closed.

 I spoke with many people who find it somewhat overwhelming to cruise the craft market after buying their weekly produce and breads, or walking to their cars with the bags that they need to stop carrying asap and then needing motivation to come back. Those who do shop there are either intentional, looking for specific things, or what might be called a craft shopper, people who just enjoy crafts and seeing what people have thought to make. Craft appreciators. But probably the majority come across the street to visit their friends.

It makes me realize that to be successful on any given Saturday, we have to have more than one type of selling going on. A practical item like a tote bag or a hat on a sunny or rainy day works really well, which of course I already knew, but I learned more about some of the people who walk slowly and browse, and don't seem to be rushing off to other places. They enjoy the whole experience: the meandering paths we like about the southern blocks, the spontaneity of the day being different every week, the ever-amazing enticement of what we all imagine and create. They find that type of thing at the farmers' market as well, so when we are blended like we were the last two weeks, they are quite happy and it helps with their disappointment that the "fun stuff" is gone. There were no buskers this week or last week! I guess the perception is that the crowds are too thin to make it pay. But they were needed.

So everything we provide, the prepared food, the seating, the entertainment, the variety, and the color and life, is what they want. All of it. They want to see their friends if they are local, have interesting conversations if they are not, and do all the things people find available at community gatherings like ours. They want to touch creative lives and connect with them, find the juiciness in life, and they like to spread it to their families and friends. Of course this awareness is not new, and I've been writing about it a long time, but since the two markets separated over the past decades, I felt that not enough of us had the multiple layers of relationships we get by actually supporting each other. I spend a  good amount of my income yesterday, buying plants, bread, meat, pears, many of the things I have searched out over the season as what I need and want across the street. And I know many of us do that, but I was surprised a little at how much support we are actually getting from the farmers. Someone wrote a lovely essay about crafters in their customer newsletter. We've been building on that support thanks to Sonia and maybe next year there will be more openness to cooperative selling opportunities, depending on the priorities of the new ED farmers are hoping to hire. I really hope people speak up for that to them as they get settled in. It may not seem as important as it is. I don't want our November markets to be cancelled. I personally don't want to sell in February or March, but it would certainly be mutually beneficial if the opportunity were open for those who do want to. Everyone benefits when all the types of selling are happening.

I heard one of their staffers say they started in 1919, which of course is false, but I can see why they repeat that, as it gives them legitimacy and a stronger legacy, but I hope I get another chance to share their archives with them someday. I think it would strengthen their legacy and our community if they acknowledge our shared roots. It was such an important part of what Lotte wanted to establish here. The previous farmers had moved inside a building and lost their market in 1959, so there was a solid 11-year gap where there was no farmers' market downtown. They began again within the Saturday Market in 1970, and there were a lot of ins and outs about that shared history, which I documented and lived within, and made my contributions to as well. So I want it to matter, real history, but I get why they don't prioritize it as the truth. They are hard-working individualized strivers like we are, and it's just not our habit to remind everyone how connected we are. 

But as in the greater effort to dismantle the white supremacist power structure in the US, people are stressing that individualism is a lie, and working for the common good, for justice and for each other is a much stronger and more real legacy of humanity everywhere. Showing up for each other, even when it is scary, fighting the separations. Time to let the lies go and do this life together, despite the messiness of it and the amount of discomfort it requires to restructure how you think about things. Many, many people in our community and everywhere are working on this together, and I have faith that the wheels are turning. But it's hard to wait, and to watch all the collateral damage as it is happening. And I know I won't live long enough to really see America change all that much. 

But we who are working on it can keep going in that direction and reaffirm our connections, so I am grateful and happy that I have that opportunity every Saturday. It matters that the market is there. It's better when both sides of the street are full.  

But it isn't about how many booths there are. It's simply about the people who put up those booths and stand in them. The soul of the market is us, the makers, the ones who show up to sell or buy, to stroll or just pass through. The community members are people who bring the meaning to all that we do. Poor Fred brought down his shaker for the second week in a row, searching in vain for the weekly parade, just wanting to say Happy Thanksgiving to as many people as he could. His people just weren't there, and nobody told him. 

It was so disappointing to see the Weekly centerfold of an empty HM map of numbers. Nothing about us, just an ad for a website bought with out hard-earned savings, that isn't even complete, and a list of the "fashion days" which are just a little diversion for people who like costumes. There was no soul in that very expensive ad the members paid for. It was an indulgence of ego for the narcissist and those she supports, and a show of the complete lack of professionalism in our current organization. It was a cold shoulder to all of us who built and maintained this market so it would be here in the present instead of in an archive. They didn't even proofread it after spending all that money. And this is the first appearance of our corporate sponsors, something I do not think the members got to vote on. 

Yeah, we need professional promotions. Yeah, we need professional management. And boy, do we need heart and soul. Stripping it out is going to hurt us for a long long time. I'm glad I still know where and how to find it.

Turns out the Park Blocks season was not over after all

 I had such a good day selling with the Farmers yesterday. Maybe because my usual space on the West block looks over at them, I shop there a lot, every week, and I have friendships over there, some going back decades. They're such solid and friendly people, those farmers and their employees. Growing food and plants for the community is a very righteous way to make a living. I admire them. I guess because Mom grew up on a Nebraska farm, and made our backyard into a tiny Delaware farm, I have always felt like I belonged with the farmers.  

Sure, their prices are high, but the fruit and veggies I get over there are just peak quality and so gratifying to eat. I try to just not look at food prices, as it is pretty much the only type of thing I consume, so I can afford to pay more for organic, healthier food and it has paid off in my life. I was quite able to stand there all day and be the last one to leave (too many conversations...) and enjoy the sunset on my way home. Farmers starts an hour earlier, at 9:00, so I had to leave here by 6:30 am and it was cold and foggy pretty much all day, but I was finished by 5:30 pm and made a ton of money. 

My sales were at the level of an excellent summer day. I had many customers who rarely come across the street, because once they get all their food they are weighted down and not that interested in browsing the craft booths, but also many brand new customers and plenty of returning ones. Lots of people did miss the craft market, the hot foods and the music and fun of the Saturday Market. It was a surprise to most that it was not there. I think it was a huge mistake, and I am glad I opted for the challenge of crossing the street. 

It's different in lots of ways. You are assigned a booth space, instead of getting to choose, and somehow I got the best one, in my opinion, and I think location matters more over there. People don't tend to wander around seeing everything except at the final hour when those groups of roving young people did show up to delightfully choose their hats. Despite the obvious need for bags I didn't sell that many. 

Cost wise, it was way cheaper. Instead of the $100 I would have paid, I paid $45, of which market got $20, so that's $80 bucks less for market. And I had no opportunity to donate to the Kareng Fund, so they lost out a little too (though of course I will make that up at HM.) However, I would have paid that $45 no matter what I sold, so if I hadn't done well it would have maybe been expensive. I don't think the booths on Park Street did that well, out of the main flow of shoppers. I might find that out next week if I get shuffled over there. I wish it were a more viable option to sell there every week but they just don't have enough room, and Tuesdays, while better than they used to be, are probably not going to be what I want. Maybe, though. 

It was such a relief to be free of the hostility I get from my market neighborhood now that I have been labeled and dismissed by a lot of people who were fine with me when I was being used. I didn't get to make any new products or work on my business for all the time the narcissist has been in power...but now I can, and I am much happier as well. I don't need those people who only liked me when I was useful to them...I'm still mad about it as it made me look back at all my years of service and wonder what life would have been like if I had prioritized myself instead of giving so much. It's the downside of being a dedicated volunteer...that you are also subject to being exploited if you are not careful about how your loyalties are assigned. It was always a pleasure to be on teams with people who had ethics and really cared about the common good, and I am happy to have experienced that. It's hard to let go of it, since I'm such a worker and have so many useful skills, but I'm getting more used to it as time goes by. 

Now that my body is letting me know that my productive days will come to an inevitable end, I'm working harder than ever to get things in better shape in every way. It's hard to accept limits but your body is something you can't dismiss. I've been having a blast cutting down trees and buying new perennials and shrubs so that my yard will require less maintenance. I got an elderberry and am planning some new areas where filberts had taken over. I collected all the neighborhood leaves as usual and will be spreading those around with my beloved hay fork that I got from Virgil Cortwright years ago. It's such a pleasure to use it. I keep it in the kitchen. He even told me the very tree it was from, a white oak in Daniel's OCF booth, the booth that was rumored to have an underground hideout for his friends to escape the sweep in. It's masterful and I doubt it would be easy to find another these days. 

 It's another golden day and those leaves are calling for me. I love spending Sundays outside and even though it is kind of cold, I'm going to keep at it. I plan to make grape arbors with the filbert poles I cut, and will never run out of projects, only time. 

Sunday Essays

 

I just remembered that once Holiday Market starts I lose my Sunday day off for a month...Mondays just don't land the same as a day off. But I hope I will still find time to write. I need it. There's always a vast amount to write about that goes in my journals but I don't have to compose within any kind of structure there so this is about the most useful way I keep my skills in practice these days. I haven't felt interested in writing fiction in a long time, and maybe won't renew that interest. I've always been more drawn to the various types of narrative nonfiction and I never have enough time to explore it. 

My latest obsession is taking out trees like filberts that have volunteered in my yard and are demanding my control...I'm sawing them down. It's not hard, and I use hand tools, but there are some stumps like the big holly I took down a couple years ago that do kind of need a chainsaw. Lower priority. Yesterday I bought an elderberry which is exciting, for this one space that used to be dominated by the holly. 

Taking out the filberts so I can maintain my yard independently is fun for me, planning ahead for when I can't do it all myself. I love yardwork. It is the way I process my emotions...the air beckons me, the birds have learned to accept my wanderings through their feeding grounds, and the squirrels jump around in an amusing way when I scare them. Even burying the smelly dead possum was fun for me.

Yesterday, the last market on the Park Blocks this season, was lovely. My neighbor and I warmly said our appreciations to each other and gave gifts...we got a little wet but that didn't matter a lot. I will have to unpack everything and dry it out again, but I have to repack to have a lighter load for the next two weeks selling with the farmers, so that's fine. I'm hoping for decent weather over there so I don't have to take the popup and weights. Guess we'll see about that. 

The wonderful chats I had with many of my friends were sadly offset by a couple of disturbing ones...one of my friends told me the exact same things about six times, so her cognitive loss is getting much worse. I will refresh my knowledge about how to speak to people in that position with the highest respect for what they are experiencing. I think there are several good tactics to handle it so they don't get more confused or isolated. She's beyond the stage of helpful conversations, and now just needs support. I feel for her so much. This is one of the terrifying things about aging that we try hard to deny and pretend about. 

Reconnected in  a delightful way with one of my buddies from the old days. I told him this vivid dream I had about him decades ago, that in his basement was a river, a deep, living one with rocks and moss and everything, and I was envious. In my dream language at the time I identified his house as his relationship, and I was still searching for that kind of a relationship at the time...so we got to talking about our lives in detail and his was astonishing. He writes, too, so I'm looking forward to reading some of that. He's smart, fearless and strong...just what I need in friends right now. So that made me happy and that kind of thing is emblematic of the slower days at the market...we have time to be ourselves outside of our sales personas and connect.

Sales were low for me. I don't think most of Eugene realized it was our last week, as everyone is so focused on HM. I personally vastly prefer the Park Blocks markets to the indoor ones. My income indoors has stalled at the same level for the past four years, and although my outdoor income is down, I think that is because of things like early football games, poor promotions and of course, our current mismanagement which is just killing our market. We're looking at another fee increase to cover her overspending and the high costs to carry out her selfish goals. Every fee increase loses members. We feel that as a message that we don't matter. 

We need more people in our membership to wake up and be willing to get involved, and even with that it will take some years to reconstruct the type of thriving success we had in 2019. We even did well in 2020 and 2021 due to community support, but the lack of skills in our management has squandered that in so many ways. There is no disagreeing with the power structure, without retaliation and closing of access. Every time I write an email to the Board members I get punished by restriction of my access, and this last time I got bullied for writing this blog, by someone who hasn't read it, and says she never will. My email was about letting them know I had finished up the 2019 archives and wanted them all to take a look. She was kind of brutal, and I wrote her privately that it was wildly inappropriate and deeply disturbing to bring up my writing this in the context of my archiving, which I take seriously in a professional way. I've been a writer all my life, and in here for 15 years, so it was way out of context but she has learned that I am someone who only complains and is negative, something that has been constructed out of nothing to take away my joy and voice in the market community. Trashing the reputation of anyone who complains is an activity of quite a few of the leaders, who take the information dished out as truth, as they are seemingly unable to apply critical thinking to what they are told by the management. When criticism happens to them, they punch down.

I've not had an easy adjustment to this false portrayal of who I am, but her letter was kind of illuminating because she and I were friends...I even printed for her for a couple of years to help her get her business started, and even though it didn't go perfectly, she wouldn't have had as much success without my help. And she has asked for archival info many times and I've always given her very useful info. But some unknown people have told her things about me that she has not bothered to verify herself, so I let her know that it's acceptable that she doesn't want to know me as I am, but I won't be interacting with her after that putdown. That's likely to be inconvenient for her.

I also blocked several people on Facebook even though that is a bit meaningless, just a gesture. I'm on the verge of leaving FB anyway. A lot of the bullying is done on there, by people who consider themselves leaders, and by the regular bullies, and I'm not up for any more bullying, period.

The narcissist violated my boundaries yesterday when I let another staff member know I was not speaking to the narcissist. I don't think the other staff person knew what to do with that, so she probably just reported it more or less as I said it. The narcissist came right over and said she only had one thing to say, that she has never had a problem with me, and was ready if I wanted to talk, or if I wanted another staff member to mediate, and had this very sad innocent victim face. I mean, when someone just said they won't be speaking to you, how is it you go right to them and speak? Super controlling. 

And this is from the person who just last week trolled me with her costume as the Wicked Witch with a Flying Monkey (I hope it was expensive) and was delighted when it caught my attention and overheard chortling about it. She was joined by another "leader" who went as "The Board Chair's Wife" and also went out of her way to make sure I noticed. Trolling the members is bullying the members and it's just one of the items on my now four page list of unprofessional behaviors. Trolling is not leadership. 

Trying to gatekeep my free speech, deny my free access to the market leaders, those are not healthy actions from a manager, and in fact they're appalling. I know her enablers don't see that side of her, nor the other members of her mean gang, and until her control tactics are turned on them, most members don't even believe it is possible. It has taken some people several years to believe me. So much easier to trash the messenger. Fortunately I'm not the only messenger and others are much more brave than me.

And I'm human. I try to limit the abuse that I don't have room in my now short life for, but it isn't going away any time soon so I am also not allowing my joy and satisfaction to be destroyed by it. The truth will come out...facts don't lie. Eventually the archives will show it all, which I suppose is why they are all so determined to make me give up my work on them. I've been told more than once that the archives belong in the office so all members can access them, but before I started organizing it, no one could access them. So I will not let these temporary leaders steal what belongs to history. They can lie, misrepresent and try to control, but I will continue to simply tell the truth as I see it and let the facts speak for themselves. If I could finish the project today I would, even though no one to my knowledge has accessed any of the archives but one person who also tried to bully me to turn them over. When I refused and told him not to write about me, he did anyway, in an insulting way, so that isn't going to engage my cooperation.

I could hand them over, but it would be a small tragedy for the organization and for the future, and for the city as well. When I finish them I will. It is not my desire to keep any of it from anyone, as I think the warts and mistakes should also speak for themselves as history. I think it is a crime to try to change history to enable control and domination. I actually don't trust that they are that safe in the office. (Visualize a photo of the Mar a Lago bathroom with stacks of office boxes.)

Watching market follow the macrocosm down the aisles of authoritarianism is frightening, but we also have our inflatable frogs and if the narcissist is the Wicked Witch, it is good to remember she was destroyed by a common bucket of water. I guess she thinks I am Dorothy, but I have to keep in mind that I am actually Glinda in this warped scenario. I'm in this shiny bubble of kindness and truth, but when people come out for me, I just fly away in it. You can't take my glitter. I am shiny in my natural state. 

And now I will rake leaves and get that day off. I hope all is well in your world, or if not, you find the means to make it so. In times of crisis, community is what saves us. We know how to do good. We know how to be kind. We know how to rise above. We are naturally shiny.

Rain It Did

Years ago, I was "Madder Than a Wet Hen"

 I had a good time yesterday at the market. There's something about the rainy days that makes them special: maybe the extra effort it takes makes it more purposeful. Let's get those property taxes taken care of! Customers also seem to have extra purpose, supporting us and being happy to find us down there.

Of course there were only maybe 40-50 booths, I think 15 on the west block. I enjoy the comraderie of us working together for our mutual benefit, making a market so we can make more. You don't get to your 50th season of selling without a few stormy days. I enjoyed breaking out the story of the day it rained 5 inches, in I think 1981, which was such a wet year it almost destroyed the market momentum completely. There were 9 of us huddled under an overhang, watching the rivers of water run down that parking lot to the center drains, wondering how we would even get packed up to leave. Howard must have been there, but I don't remember any Info booth, or other staff, and we didn't last long. With weather predictions like we have in this day and age, probably none of us would have showed up, but back then I didn't have a TV and rarely listened to the radio, so I'm sure I didn't know it would be like that. My little flimsy setup was not built for that, and all my crafts were made of paper. But it makes a good story, and I looked it up. It really was 5 inches, as I remember.

 The best story from yesterday was when I was chatting with Dave, coffee in hand, just outside his booth, which is one of the old wooden kind with a regular tarp. It is challenging to get those tight enough to shed water, so they puddle up and you have to have a regular dumping plan off the back where it won't get on anyone. He was apparently not sticking to his plan, because a gust of wind came up and his tarp dumped a bathtub full on the two of us. He was just in a cotton hoodie because work in a food booth keeps you warm, so he got thoroughly drenched. I, however, had on my rain pants and two jackets, the outer one being a hooded Carhartt that another member gave me because it was too small for him. I had not worn it before, as we had a really dry season, but wow is it worth whatever it cost. I was not one bit wet on the inside from that deluge. I would have had to go home dressed any other way. The funny part was how we all screamed and then laughed, and Dave was impressive in handling it. I had to rush back to my booth to make sure everything was still holding firm, which it was, but it's always fun when history is being written. Now we get to laugh again when we reminisce. 

The upside of rainy days is the sunbreaks when people rush out to buy things and sales were pretty good. Plus the "pie theory" kicks in that with fewer booths, the sales are spread more evenly and are generally higher than on a day when there are a lot more booths. It's hard to not have water damage and other problems, and I will have to go out to the shop and unpack all the tubs today, as everything will be damp. Mostly nothing got soaked, except a few things, and of course I have to dry out the popup and the sidewalls. And the weight bags. And I am not anxious to go outside of the house today although the yard is trashed and I would have fun.

I bought new boots last week and those were also a resounding success. It was the first day in years that my poor little right foot did not hurt at the end. I got bigger men's boots so that my toes had room and I could put some extra padding in there, and they were wonderful. I could even stand most of the day, which I prefer to sitting. I did not walk around as much as usual, but I really think the boots are going to be a game changer, much more so than the Hokas which everyone praises so much. 

I had a nerve conduction test this week, and I biked all the way to Springfield for it, which was mild torture except for the wonderful bike ride. Weather was cooperative although the results of the test took some adjusting to. My plan is to keep a lid on the speculative anxiety and keep going through the process as if all the outcomes and procedures will be good ones with positive end results. Guess I'll see. Anyone who goes on a daunting medical journey knows how it is, a bit of a roller coaster some days, a resignation to the ravages of aging, and actual work to maintain some normalcy. I'm trying. It's going to cost, of course. Glad I've been saving.

I hope my roofer comes through soon. I think I'll go up in the attic and make sure I don't have leaks. The only upside of having a very old roof is that my property taxes went down...with the valuation of my structures. The neighbor next to me used to have the worst house on the block and now I think I've taken back the title, as she fixed all of the stuff on hers, even the stuff that didn't look like it needed fixing. Her plan is to get it all done at once, my plan is a never-ending list of things to manage one at a time. If you could call that a plan, which really,  it isn't.

Being able to hear the stage is another fun aspect of the rainy days, and the Kudana set and the Miller Brothers were keeping us dancing all day. They played that Redbone song, Come and Get Your Love, which is a favorite of mine. Moments of joy are a big part of my Saturdays, and dependable. 

However much fun it was, I sure hope we get better weather for the next three weeks. Next week is the last outdoor market on the southern blocks, but I will be selling with the farmers for the next two weeks, Nov. 8th and the 15th. I have friends over there, too, and am kind of excited about stocking up on the good meats and things for the winter. I don't look at food prices, mostly. I shop for quality and health and to keep those farmers alive for the strength of the community. We are so lucky to live here in the abundance and thoughtful practices of our local farmers and food producers. But do look for me and come out even though the Saturday Market side will be gone...and I'll be at the Holiday Market as usual, starting on the 22nd. I can not do a general strike, but I respect you if you don't buy things during that period. I've always respected Buy Nothing Day. We need that to counter all of the consumer nightmare we are living in. Sure is a good thing to have a place you can go and see people standing proudly with their creations, ready to tell you all the good stories about how they got to today and your conversation. People are good out there. I still have faith in us. 

And I am not the only one who loves possums! Sold two. I'm going to add more color to the frog, which I was hoping to sell as a one-color hat, but just doesn't have the punch it needs. Also I will work on the Hummingbird a bit, as it needs more impact. I'll bet I have some iridescent paint.

 

The Meadowlark design came from the drawings I did for Mom's book. That has plenty of punch. Should draw some little musical notes up by the beak. 

I hope I get more designs done for HM. I have a long list of ones I want to do. So many projects, so little time.

A Glorious Day

 Many of my fellow market members were selling for their last day of the season yesterday. For them it was a great finish, I hope. My sales were high. It is supposed to rain a whole lot in the week coming up so it does not seem like we will experience another day like that anytime soon. I'm still coming every week for the rest of my life if I am able, but I am cut from some old cloth I guess.

Hallowe'en isn't that fun at market, for me. I won't buy commercial candy and have tried a couple of alternatives, but it is candy that people want and they are disappointed by whatever I have tried so far, including quarters and healthier treats (which are too expensive to buy a lot of, unless it is something I want and need to eat, which would mean vegan cookies or something.) Costumes are hard when you bike and when it is cold and if it is rainy, there aren't too many good ways to dress unless you have a rainproof onesie large enough to wear a lot of layers beneath. I'm planning to attend, but probably won't play the game. 

As I said about the Elf Game, I have lost interest in it. We've been doing that promotion for more than 5 years now and it was intended to draw new attention to the first weekend and boost sales. It never did boost sales, though people like getting prizes and searching for the elves. But after a certain time without new energy, those things just get disappointing. Instead of the hand-colored ornaments we used to hand out, in their impressive creative entirety, (thanks to volunteers, mostly Mary Newell) we give out stickers. Yeah, people like stickers. And there are always new people interested in doing the elves, so it's still happening. But imagine if we had new promotions! 

Before the Elf Game, we had a promotion where artists decorated canvas tote bags and we gave those away after displaying and promoting them, and that was good for two years. I set aside my objections to giving away the exact products I was selling, but I was glad it was only two years. Free stuff is very popular but it doesn't pay the bills. Everytime farmers' corporate partners Kaiser Permanente and On Point give away hundreds of bags my bag sales crater, so that happened again yesterday. If I do sell at farmers on Nov. 8th and 15th, I won't bother to bring many bags.

The best moment yesterday was when I remembered to look across at the first maple tree that turns color every year on the Park Blocks, mid-block on the Oak Street perimeter of the East Block, and there it was at peak color! I was mostly facing the other way and could have missed it entirely. My focus has narrowed as I deal with this foot pain. I can only take limited forays so haven't walked all around the blocks in a long time. I suppose I could give in and take painkillers. All of the other days I can stop walking around if it hurts too much, but Saturday I just have to keep going and it is 7:00 am to 7:00 pm for me. I'm learning things about how to cope with these aging things. 

My ex-partner (we split in 1993) had a heart attack which was scary. I refrained from telling him things I know about heart issues and it was a small one with a "procedure" performed to fix it. It was weird to not find out for 2 weeks, but that's my fault for keeping a distance from him generally. I did notice he wasn't at the market but he came by yesterday though he was really cranky! He's scared, I know. Heart things and brain things are the hardest to process. 

Sadly, although probably most of my friends and acquaintances went to the march, only a handful came through the market, as the admin successfully gave our town the message that we don't really welcome free speech interfering with our commerce...so predictably they passed on supporting that, as they should. We are not the center of the universe as we like to think. Commerce is taking a back seat to this world-changing time of speaking out, and while we are not capitalists at the market, this admin has positioned itself to be about sales and not about being the community gathering space. There were barriers on the corners like are used to discourage the X-tians, and they didn't show (thank goodness) but it told the costumed legions they were also not welcome with their signs and opinions. Those people set themselves up across the street on the two north blocks and we just look peripheral and out of step with our community. 

I admit I am at the market to make money, but I am also there to hear about what is going on with the thousands of people I know and have interacted with in the last 50 years downtown. I am there to see the trees and the changes and eat the foods and admire the crafts and creations of so many cool people. I am there to be part of what I live within. The only thing about the protest that would have made me happier is if it came down Oak or 8th Street instead of circling a few blocks away where I couldn't see it (I could hear it.) If I were younger and had more options for income and wasn't fearful about my longterm survival, I might have taken the day off to march. I only get so many paydays though, so my priority has to be selling. So yeah, rainy market or not...I will be there.

I spent the week finishing up the 2019 archives and playing in the gardens. I prioritized the 2019 archives because the market was peaking, though we didn't know it. We were celebrating our 50th season as OCF was too and we had a real, professional manager who could do it all. She knew marketing, and trained the person who ended up doing it, she knew financials and kept us all going and adding to our savings, she got us a 5-year contract with the city, and we were successfully navigating the Park Blocks remodeling project which took a ton of energy. She focused right away (she was hired in 2017) on building up the volunteer sector and we had so many positive and hard-working volunteers in 2019. So many committees, so many task forces, so much member communication and getting things extra functional. She wasn't perfect, but it was obvious that she had what we needed and it was not a surprise that she jumped to a better-paying, more challenging job when the opportunity came by. 

Speculating what would have happened if we hadn't had the pandemic is hard but she handled things well through it and didn't leave until mid-2021, which hurt us but we were able to cruise for awhile until things really broke because we had what we thought was a management team but they were not doing those management tasks and were hiding that. We had gotten a moment of relaxation with a strong GM and many of us dedicated volunteers were trying to step back and replace ourselves, but it turns out we didn't have as many natural and strong leaders as we thought we did. I hope to get myself to work through archiving 2020 and 2021 rather soon (it's painful) so people who are interested can see why we are here and what we were doing before to keep us from getting here. 

We spent months onboarding that GM at the time, and she studied us carefully before she changed anything, and tried to be respectful, cautious and to keep everything working when she felt changes were needed. She did a temporary rebrand which turned out to be more or less permanent, with the 50th logo. Promotions and advertising were dynamic and are still being copied now which is resulting in our marketing doldrums as we have no expertise there right now. We look weak and tired instead of being able to build on what we did in 2019. 

We are perhaps in the weakest position we have been in for decades. We're heading into a second year of overspending and being in the red, and we only know that because we have a powerful volunteer looking at the financials. He's doing the GM job for free in that area, while on the outside it looks handled and the GM has excuses for everything that doesn't look so good. Not many people can look at the financials and track trends, though there are maybe 5 of us who do that. It's more than obvious what not hiring a professional manager is costing us.

Not supporting volunteers has cost us the functionality of nearly every committee. Standards has fallen apart and can't get enough people to screen new applicants, so filling Holiday Market is a dream that won't come true. People are deserting the market for other selling opportunities as their sales fall off and they are getting pressured with administrative errors, like lost and misappropriated payments, a lack of keeping up with the weekly attendance so spaces are not sold and customers are not directed to members they ask about. Numerous members have left or are fighting termination of their selling rights for asking questions, trying to give helpful feedback, or persisting in trying to do what they have always been welcome to do. Nearly everyone has a story. 

We are in a bad slump, and with a recession and what is happening globally to commerce, we are really challenged to respond. I worry about it most of the time. In the past I would already have done a few things perhaps in trying to move things in a better direction, as I did by creating the merch that brought market $2000 a year in donations (from me) for the years 2020-2024, which I have now shelved. I have always pitched in before, but I'm on the sidelines and don't expect to be listened to, so I'm not sure how to help. No one seems to remember or value my previous leadership, so like anyone would, I have gotten quiet. 

I handed off the 2019 archives to a Board member yesterday and I will ask them all to spend an hour of their time reviewing them, but I am not confident they will. They think we have new problems that aren't related to previous times but our problems are always the same ones. We are very hard to manage. We are strong and independent people who are used to doing things for ourselves and we are not always forthcoming about our frustrations. We just stop coming, stop participating, stop giving our energy away for free. We find better ways to get our needs met. 

I don't know how much more can crumble without solutions. Driving out the people who try to question and improve things is just the exact wrong thing to do. Tighter control will speed it up. Seeing everyone as an opponent and troublemaker is such a grievous misunderstanding of our members, who are a distinct and complex type of people who know how to be efficient and purposeful with their time. Many of us do have professional skills, but we're not bringing them. Stonewalling people is not a good way to get them to speak up. 

I hope people will hang in there and continue to search for truth and honesty and accountability. I know most people are doing their best, but that doesn't make them right. I'm not insisting I am right. However, I have read (and participated in) our history. Some things are clear as day. We can only thrive with real, skilled, professional management. Every time we have taken the easy way out and hired someone we liked or knew or settled for, we failed. Sometimes it was fast, sometimes easier, sometimes the person resigned when things became apparent. This one is going to be slow. What will be the tipping point? I wish we didn't have to find out the hard way.