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Another Weekend Down
I hate colds. Especially colds that get worse over the weekend instead of better. My voice is just about shot and sleeping has been very dicey, and if my nose gets any redder I can be Rudolph. Blecch.
Friday was the office's holiday dinner, and we returned to the same place we went last year. We closed it down for the second year in a row too, although it was the lunch shift we closed. Dessert was a chocolate/hazelnut concoction to die for. But...French restaurants should not be making crab cakes, especially French restaurants in Maryland, where everyone knows a good crab cake and knows darn well when the cake has been done improperly (and in this case, also overdone, period.)
This Saturday was my last show for the year, and the easiest one in terms of loading in & out. I was parked close enough to the room my table was in that I was able to lock the van with the keychain while at the table. Plus you only get a 6 ft table there, and they provide the table, a chair and a table cover, so I had a lot less to bring in and not far to bring it. Turned out I could have brought even less - I sold 1 large plaque and 1 greeting card, and the rest was all logo ornaments. I rushed all week to do Giants, Redskins & Dolphins, then didn't sell a single one of any of them. This was strictly a Ravens/Steelers crowd. And a cheap crowd. 1 person spent more than $15. For the first time in my showing history, a customer broke a product. As always at St Pius, there's packs of 7 to 10 year-old boys who are obsessed with my ornaments, and this year, one of them knocked a whole tray off the table. I was lucky enough to have stowed my travel bins under that edge, and 3 of the ornaments landed on the bin, saving them; the fourth hit the ground and is now quite deceased. It was the Texans, so not a sales disaster, and the kid immediately paid for it, which was a relief. But since Mom & I both had colds, we left the show a bit early, went straight home and spent the rest of the day catching up on Dexter.
Sunday I had a project: find ornaments for next year. I took CJ with me for reasons I can't begin to surmise and hit the road. Over 150 miles worth of road. First stop was Bel Air, where they still had ornaments but not the right kind. I did pick up some presents for my nephews, and witnessed the odd sight of two women shopping in their pajamas. Granted, they were nice, fleecy Ravens pajamas, but they were pajamas. Right then. Annapolis was next, and most frustrating because Michael's web site said the store was on Forest Drive. It was a lot harder to pin down Forest Drive than I expected, and I wound up on a tour of historic Annapolis. Yay. The store turned out to be in the Festival at Riva - if the web site had said that, I would have found it no problem. It was also packed and had no ornaments at all. Last stop Bowie, where they also had no ornaments - but the entire store has been redone, from the logo on down. A bit of a shock and kinda hard to find things, but on the other hand they had a lot of new things there as well.
Then the football game. Exciting, nail-biting right down to the end and then...can we throw shoes at the refs? I'm perfectly accepting that Holmes had his feet down, but that ball did not break the plane of the goal line. Every replay showed it didn't cross or was inconclusive. That should have been 4th & inches, not a TD. AAAUUUUGHHH! The one saving grace is that I picked up two games on Jeff in the office pool. My goal is to finish 5th out of 7 people this year, and Jeff is only 2 spots ahead of me with 2 games left. I have a chance yet.
Friday was the office's holiday dinner, and we returned to the same place we went last year. We closed it down for the second year in a row too, although it was the lunch shift we closed. Dessert was a chocolate/hazelnut concoction to die for. But...French restaurants should not be making crab cakes, especially French restaurants in Maryland, where everyone knows a good crab cake and knows darn well when the cake has been done improperly (and in this case, also overdone, period.)
This Saturday was my last show for the year, and the easiest one in terms of loading in & out. I was parked close enough to the room my table was in that I was able to lock the van with the keychain while at the table. Plus you only get a 6 ft table there, and they provide the table, a chair and a table cover, so I had a lot less to bring in and not far to bring it. Turned out I could have brought even less - I sold 1 large plaque and 1 greeting card, and the rest was all logo ornaments. I rushed all week to do Giants, Redskins & Dolphins, then didn't sell a single one of any of them. This was strictly a Ravens/Steelers crowd. And a cheap crowd. 1 person spent more than $15. For the first time in my showing history, a customer broke a product. As always at St Pius, there's packs of 7 to 10 year-old boys who are obsessed with my ornaments, and this year, one of them knocked a whole tray off the table. I was lucky enough to have stowed my travel bins under that edge, and 3 of the ornaments landed on the bin, saving them; the fourth hit the ground and is now quite deceased. It was the Texans, so not a sales disaster, and the kid immediately paid for it, which was a relief. But since Mom & I both had colds, we left the show a bit early, went straight home and spent the rest of the day catching up on Dexter.
Sunday I had a project: find ornaments for next year. I took CJ with me for reasons I can't begin to surmise and hit the road. Over 150 miles worth of road. First stop was Bel Air, where they still had ornaments but not the right kind. I did pick up some presents for my nephews, and witnessed the odd sight of two women shopping in their pajamas. Granted, they were nice, fleecy Ravens pajamas, but they were pajamas. Right then. Annapolis was next, and most frustrating because Michael's web site said the store was on Forest Drive. It was a lot harder to pin down Forest Drive than I expected, and I wound up on a tour of historic Annapolis. Yay. The store turned out to be in the Festival at Riva - if the web site had said that, I would have found it no problem. It was also packed and had no ornaments at all. Last stop Bowie, where they also had no ornaments - but the entire store has been redone, from the logo on down. A bit of a shock and kinda hard to find things, but on the other hand they had a lot of new things there as well.
Then the football game. Exciting, nail-biting right down to the end and then...can we throw shoes at the refs? I'm perfectly accepting that Holmes had his feet down, but that ball did not break the plane of the goal line. Every replay showed it didn't cross or was inconclusive. That should have been 4th & inches, not a TD. AAAUUUUGHHH! The one saving grace is that I picked up two games on Jeff in the office pool. My goal is to finish 5th out of 7 people this year, and Jeff is only 2 spots ahead of me with 2 games left. I have a chance yet.