#FUCKBLACKFRIDAY

Day; 223. Very windy and cold...
Temperature on outside kiln; 38 degrees
kiln firings; bisque firing to cone 04 ( 1,942 degrees)
Music in the studio; Democracy Now  with Amy Goodman

At least a week has gone by since I last surfaced... A tough one...
Today is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the kick-off for all the crazy consumerism that blots the holidays... I saw  the hashtag above somewhere on the Internet and I like it so I use it for my own means today...

Still have a congested chest and sore muscles... after about two weeks I give up laying in bed and trying to heal... that clearly isn't working so I am in the studio very briefly today, where I am happiest,  loading a bisque firing and punching out a few commissioned tiles... 50 down, 250 to go...??!!

 I haven't worked since the beginning of last week when I was prepping for  the Clay Fair that occurred this past weekend. As I run/produce the show, and have a table selling  my own ceramics, being sick at the same time was very hard. I hid for two days behind various doors, couches, and in the kitchen, so that I didn't have to talk to any customers,  I just didn't have the energy. It was the only way to get through it... I saved my energy for putting out fires, helping the cashiers, assisting the other potters. Some how I managed to sell quite a bit of my work but I can't figure out how as I was never at my table. Thank god the show runs itself and has a central cashier station. If I had to stand in my own booth and ring up sales I would have been in trouble...
As it was, the show was record breaking in both attendance and sales. We had over 1,400 people show up!? The average would be around 1,100. The same number of folks showed up on Sunday as they did on Saturday which never has happened in the history of the show, 12 years now... We also sold thousands of more dollars in pots, go figure... and the Recycled Santa Fe Show was the same weekend, major competition, but it obviously had absolutely no ill effects. I don't know why this weekend was so huge, but I do know that as treasurer I am having all kinds of fun writing out hefty checks for all my potter friends.

One more big show to do next weekend, and I am done for the year... Thanks God! Just going to make it in inventory and energy. I do have two Sundays at the Railyard lined up before X-mas but if all I bring are buttons and earrings, that is enough. I might cancel the first one and only do the one right before X-mas, it depends on next weekend's Holiday Open House...
The rest of December I have two large orders to complete and look forward to just focusing myself on that... and singing of course.... ! I miss the Magpies!!...