Maybe I Need a Truck

(so many topics for this picture, thanks U-Handbag!)


Da-da-da-DAH!! Groovy Rhubarb is my new occupation, and I even considered ending the blog, because the 6 months of post-Borders life is behind me now, and that's how I started writing here. Re-inventing myself, the dreaded Mid-Life Crisis, dumped for a younger business plan, etc. Boo-hoo.

But, this is the first stage of this whole process, I think, and it now has little bearing on Borders, or bookstores, or being a manager. Publishers' Weekly online reported the 6 month straight decline in bookstores' sales for 2007, and 2006 was not great. My former industry is undergoing some ruthless anorexia nervosa right now, will they survive? I think I got out at just the right time, and would be dancing on eggs right now if still running my old store. So I'm trotting my extensive skill-set on to this newly hatched project, and we're going to fire the second stage booster rockets and leave orbit. The Hawthorne Street Faire is this coming weekend, and we'll have great weather and mid-80s temperatures, so lots of foot traffic. I want to sell insane amounts of stuff, and charge ahead into September in the black already. (should be sewing, not writing, dang!)

One of the great archive pieces of my overland migration was hauled to the booth today, my 1880's domed-lid steamer trunk, that I've had since high school, and am wanting to be free of it.
It's emblematic of the clinging to the past, the stockpiling of treasures, antique ideas needing airing, and besides, I can barely move it by myself anymore. Someone will give it a good home and take over from me as the New World guardian of this sturdy wooden chest, and I can look forward, into the light wood of my future. It doesn't need to be Ikea, it can be Mid-Century teak or birch, whatever. My old trunk would make a great scary Halloween prop for a haunted house business (hint hint hint) and you could re-sell it afterwards! Wow, smashing idea!!

There's a seductive stack of freshly washed linen tablecloths whispering to me and I must go. The sink of dishes is trying to get a work in edgewise, but my hearing is selective today, in spite of the aroma of Mrs. Meyers' lemon verbena, one of my favorites. And that new Martha mag arrived in the mail this morning...hmmmm. NO. Load the bobbins and grab those scissors, girl.
Time to make money.

Official Re-Invention Chapter 3: Create Your Job

I'm job hunting.

Seriously job hunting.

As in "just a decent job I like to do" instead of "this is my next expedition up a corporate ladder."
(sooooo lucky that there are so many jobs out here right now)

What kind, where, what hours, what money, who with, how long, gotta get away at the holidays.

One of my friends suggested that I float on Groovy Rhubarb and not distract myself with another group of associates and workplace politics, just "do" the GR 60 hours a week and it would make money. And that is probably good advice, and partly true, just not enough money to live on yet. My strength is in idea formulating, conceptualizing, and BIG PICTURE stuff.

My weakness is in the details. "Where's My Staff?" Too much Martha, not enough Assignment Editor. My astrologer would say it's the Venus in Gemini, a double helping of an Eye for Beauty, more Snow White than the 7 Dwarves. Collaboration is great, I love it, but it has to be with the right person, and I do better with a layer between me and the masses. I can't do barista again, or even busy bookstore.

I am a Maker of Things.

Hopefully, of beautiful things, delicious things, useful things, descriptive and unusual things. Not so much a Seller of Things, although I have been known to fool people for a long time that I was. A Seller. But never, not really. I was rather a Provider of Place for Things to Be Bought. The Maker of Place, I am very very very good at. Provider of Selection of Things, again, very very good at. Hostess, Cheerleader, Girl with the Fan, not at all so much. I honestly don't want to be involved in making people buy just anything, as much as making something they feel they have to buy, or have to go to. What they do then is up to them. But I'd love it if they told everyone they know, "You've got to go get ______ at ________!!!" There is the perfect situation for me.
Completely pleased about making my living this way. Thank you, see you back soon.

Once upon a time, in a land far ago and away, lived a pretty but shy girl who loved books. Being in a village full of bookstores, she soon found the three that she loved more than anything else in the whole small world, and she made a wish. "Someday, I want to have my very own bookstore! It will be just how I want it, and I'll be able to unpack all the UPS boxes of new books, and read everything, and meet cool customers, and live so happily ever after!" The young girl had made some friends at one of the bookstores, run by a friendly beautiful Jewish Buddhist Witch, who let the girl learn things and volunteer at the store, and order cool incense and crystal necklaces, and invited the girl to participate in her Crafty Buddhistic Fairy Witch Circle. For some years, not enough in a row, the girl was happy to do this, and felt closer to her dream. But the girl had to leave the magic village by the river, and found herself somewhat closer to Hades, and very much farther away from her dream, or so she felt for a long time, too many years in a row.

One day, the now not as pretty and not as young woman found herself in a coffeehouse filling out an application to a bookstore, which back in the village had been only one tiny store, but had magically grown in size to encompass the entire whirld these many years. It was a serf's job, but she thought it would be a beginning. Unbeknownst to her, she was soon sucked into the gruesome, grinding Managers' Maw of the Underworld Corpse-oration the little bookstore had become, and she lost her soul, her name, her youth, her girlish figure, and her mind. How ironic, that this place had once been one of her favorite three bookstores back in the little village by the river.

Grasping at a glimmer of light she desperately hoped was the sun and not another red eye of the Beast, the woman slung herself across the land to another less grinding Managers' Maw of the Beast, and then soon again after to an even quieter eddy pool of swamp she called My Own Store. At last, gathering every fiber of beauty, kindness, laughter, magic, wit and whimsy, the woman wove a nest of wearying but entertaining labor of a noble sort, the bringing of magical books to the souls who wandered in while caught up in the Swirl of the CrassMall, the marble Tomb of the Unknown Salesgirl. There was, for a short time, a momentary Oasis of Knowledge and Wonder. Insanity and illogic, of course, still being an appendage of the Corpse-oration, but then suddenly, at the most insane, at the most frantically intense, the fairies were all set free.
The spell was broken, the ring of fire became gentle rain, passing to the clear blue sky and happy sun above and plenty of hours to sleep and be rested. There was much rejoicing.

And the woman had a large View of Realization---having emerged from this tale of enslavement and enchantment, two of her biggest wishes in her entire life had been granted. First of which was to have her very own bookstore, that had her stamp upon it, and she had completed the fulfillment of that wish. The Second Wish, well, meeting Robert Plant in her very own bookstore was pretty much the Sword from the Stone kind of event. She was completely and deliriously satisfied how miraculously the second wish had been fulfilled. And called everyone she knew. And cried.

And the Third Wish? Obviously to the woman, embarking on this was the next part of her journey. And, curiously enough, it was not instantly revealed to her exactly what that Wish was. She had been a stranger to herself for so many years, there was an awkward small-talk and getting reacquainted phase to accomplish, getting to know and trust this bold and free person she was becoming. Some mornings, she awoke excited and ready to live the rest of her life as this creative and fearless person. Other times, it was all just too much, she was shy and completely at a loss, alone and afraid. Her Fairy Stepsisters were off in far off lands, cranking out their own Realization Magic, and sent their love and sparkling encouragement, hugs, emails, and cackles. One afternoon, the answer to her seeking, the Vision of the Third Wish bloomed in her mind, and she felt a relief to her many questions. There was now a direction to head into, a place to look towards for her bearings. And she knew it was the right thing to do, completely.

Anything else was a path back to bondage, a compromise and distraction from her clear sight.

"All of my power, all of my gifts are in the Making of Beauty, the Creating of Beautiful Space. These years deep in the earth have shown me how to make something from meager tools and ingredients, to keep it alive and finally succeed. The Masters I have served pressed me into a Diamond of Light and from now on, I have to keep shining, keep making, keep sparking the fires of creativity.

My Third Wish is to live as an Artist, at this age I will not sell my soul again, I won't give up on what I value, I am eager to live my Genuine Life, bring to life what I see in my mind, and give it to the world. And do it again and again, as long as I live. And I'll continue on even after that."

Cha-ching!

I'm so happy, all cashed in and no one around to celebrate with.
Linsey is driving to Denver.
Jolie is in FLA.
Steven is driving to the Coast for work.
Betty is in FLA.
Peg is at work.
Kathy is on Whidbey Island.
Can I bug Harvey? No--too many service vans in front of his house installing stuff. I need some more friends. Okay, so back to work it is then.

Edina left me a note, congrats that my first month was good, it's only the beginning! Now I see why people sell furniture there, more bang for the buck. Gotta get on that this month. Also raise my prices, because after surveying the other booths, my merchandise is on the lower end. Plastic is good over $10 purchases, so round it up when in doubt. I'm so excited!

Since it isn't reaching 100 degrees this week like it was predicted, I can actually get some things done in the house, like almost completely setting up my home office yesterday. Everything except moving the computer, so that will be today. I also found out that Southeast is fully out of reasonably priced tomato cages, so we'll have the Martha-esque look after all, wonderful slender bamboo stakes and sisal tastefully tied off, to bear the precious burden of the heirloom Zapotecs, Black Prince, and Black Brandywines in my future. In the Race to the Fruit, the four cherry tomatoes are surpassing the three slicer plants significantly, so it's time to work some Green Magic out there. A wind chime, some crystal pendants, Baroque music in the morning. I've been dreaming of a tomato surplus for years, and I want it to happen this summer, I can sell them on Saturday and Sundays at Groovy Rhubarb. Think of the lycopenes...

One of my former colleagues emailed me yesterday to catch up and say "Hi", and told me a bit about the old sales team, who's ahead so far, summer sales blockbuster preparations, the politics of old. It all seemed so far away. Has it been six months since Christmas already? Six months since we began shutting down our two stores in the midst of holiday insanity crowds and life uncertainty? Six months since I felt a tad panicked about not being a store manager for Large Chain Bookstore after over ten years, who am I now? Knowing I had a lot of time to figure it out and not to panic?
Yep. My separation process is just about complete, I've made great progress in finding out who I am after all these years in the machine. I didn't melt, fall apart, run sobbing to beg for my old job back, or walk around twirling my hair and 'saving' people in shopping malls. Life has been good, and I truly believe will continue to be. Money details are in process of being worked out, and the whole "status" of my "career" has been abandoned for the much more worthwhile purpose and over-all quality of life exploration. Not to veer into being maudlin, but it's been a meaningful six months. I miss playing with cool new books, trading one-liners with Linsey and the crew, and the money was okay. At the end of the day, it wasn't my store. But Groovy Rhubarb is, and the sketchbook is full of ideas for new money-generating items to spread into the world for some cash, and the beginning is in the black. I'm in total Groovy Gratitude.

Farmer's Market Time

Which in Portland, really fires up in earnest about now, almost July. This week's Willamette Week listed some of the most well-known produce and Farmer's Markets, along with hours of operation, type of selection, degree of carnival atmosphere, and how to get there. One that they forgot, is the Asian Produce Farmer's Market out Division and 92nd Ave, a smaller, recent start-up market, with no carnival touches, but vendors happy to talk to you about the vegetables and herbs unfamiliar to you, and what to do with them. Oh Happy Day! Free parking and bring cash. I'm already thinking of the slender eggplants to grill, and the choys---grilled choy is amazing!

The Montavilla Farmer's Market will get underway in a few weeks on westbound Stark just east of Mt Tabor in the gravel lot by the stoplight. Now that the Montavilla blocks are fun to stroll again, I'm hoping for a rejuvenated interest here, with lots of local fruits and herbs as well as the pepper-zucchini-tomato standards. Seeing as cucumbers are going for $1 each at the Fred Meyers around here, please someone deliver us from highway robbery and make their own local fortune selling us local unwaxed cucumbers, please! I know gazpacho has ebbed into passe, but those of us who still make it just wince at prices like that.

One sad note---Uncle Fred's produce market on Hawthorne below the Safeway is closing---what used to be the dependable neighborhood pumpkin into Christmas tree vacant lot and abandoned 1940s gas station, had morphed into the dependable year-round outdoors tarped produce and flower market, featuring local harvest. The market owners' said they had signed a lease knowing full well that the lot owners could shut it down eventually, and the site will become another of the rusted steel, glass and sloped roof condo blocks that are appearing along Hawthorne since 2005.
And screwing up traffic for years at at time, I might add. The one on Hawthorne & SE 33rd took forever to finish, and there are two in various stages of start-up and completion up at 44th & 45th-Hawthorne, another traffic snarl with the big big crane set-up. Damned housing market, because not everyone can pay $450,000 for a 3bdrm bungalow in SE anymore, we need $200K 1 bdrm condos like the Pearl has to make up for it. Belmont maybe next. I may be a renter forever at this rate. We could become like New Yorkers, marrying for real estate location, not love, like getting a residential Green Card. "We've never had sex, don't exchange gifts at holidays, I met her parents once at Passover, but look at our SE44th Ave Dream Bungalow! This is my suite..." "Happy Anniversary...uh, it's Jeff, right?" Air kisses all around.

Speaking of crabby-grass (meaning me), poor Steven's new sod is beginning to do the Summer Thing and browning, so we were kidding with him that it was nice while it lasted, but now we're going to put in the community garden, midnight roto-tilling dirt commandos. He didn't think it was funny too much, so we stopped teasing him, but it boggles my mind to think of the farmer's market we could have here...better stop. I never imagined in all my years in Florida that Portland would have such a Mediterranean climate, zone 7, and even 8 in south facing, protected areas.

My neighbors have 8ft dill plants already, their blossom heads blowsing in the wind like Nile River papyrus plants, and the bronze fennel nearby is going to bolt soon. It hasn't even been hot since the beginning of May, must be ideal conditions for these herbs, but made my early tomato plants kind of stall out and not take off until about 10 days ago. Now they are about 2ft tall and set with lots of blooms and little pea-sized tomatoes. Might have to ditch the short cages and go for the bamboo tri-pods this year...when my inner-Martha takes over full time. I had a lot of hopes for a big basil crop this summer, until I skipped a week of wheatgrass for the cat, and he ate all but two of my basil starts. Lesson to me, that cat knows how to really hurt me.

The latest version of the Market String Bag is now available in grape colored cotton, along with Provencal yellow---so many enterprises, so many digital pics to take. Today I'm putting the photo lighting box together, which I gleaned from the profile photo on a vendor's site on Etsy, so I don't have to wait for a sunny day to take cedar fence shots outside. I should put together a photo pictorial on how to make a photo light box and post that on Craftzine's blog page...instant fame. As the newest shirt in the Groovy Rhubarb line will say---"Where's my staff?" I'm going to make it Tang Orange, and dedicate it to Steven, for enduring my carded button pitch with such grace yesterday after a long drive from Medford. Bless you.

Sweater Love

I'm up to my eyeballs in them---all lined up in a row on my front porch railing drying in this sudden and windy heat wave. Lucky for me, because you can imagine the smell of damp wool/silk/mohair/angora lying helplessly flat on every horizontal surface indoors. Rather not.

It's so much better this way, and as yesterday was just as beautiful as today is going to be, I'm glad I did the first batch then. Lucky lucky me, I get to play with sweaters I didn't have to spend months knitting in the first place, cutting, applique, felting, ribbon & wool embellishing, funky patches & unmatched buttons, lace inserts...I'm dizzy with excitement.

But today is more business than pleasure, I have to get some business cards together, take some pictures and finish the pitch portfolio already. I worked on the business plan last night after Sunset Porch Time, and I want to walk down to the Hawthorne & 48th Ave antique mall before it gets to 90 degrees today. If only I had a better quality printer...

You just never know where the inspiration will come from, or what it will actually look like when it gets here. I had been thinking it would look a certain way, BE a certain thing, and that isn't what happened at all. And as electrifying as it has been to sing out with it to people I know, and to see them happy that I'm excited and jazzed, I have to also deal with the quizzical looks, uncertain smiles. pointed questions, and, frankly, their obvious doubts about the sense of what I'm talking about. This has been tough for me. Most of these folks have only known the workaholic for Borders me-person. This Earth Martha Hippie is catching them off guard.

Am I off my nut?

Especially when I realized that doing this vintage thrift thing is a lot like what Betty did when we were kids, dragging my brother and me to garage sale and estate sale and roadside liberation of old furniture, making us work in her booth at the flea markets, haul shit around and sit on it to keep it from falling over, fighting with each other while we waited for hours in the parked car while she wheeled & dealed some old lady out of precious heirlooms. This is a curious turn of events at this point in my life. It feels like I'm doing it my way, though. Maybe I'm just kidding myself.

Yesterday I popped into Powells' to pick up a freebie paper, and saw a sign posted for a bookseller for the Hawthorne location. No less than five employees were hanging out chatting, holding up the counter or sitting with their feet propped on the desk tiddling on the computer, and I had a brief flash of "not a bad way to make $11 an hour" as I flitted back out the door. There is always that. Books, retail, but without the corporate culture thing. I don't wanna go there. (keep moving, keep moving, sweater love, buttons, retro booth, business cards, paintings, jewelry, writing, go go go go go !)

Just about half done with Betty's Mom's-Day & B-Day combo sweater. Half of the front panel and the two short sleeves left to do. The yarn makes such a beautiful variegated colored pattern, with slubs of satiny strand colors strewn in like jeweled grains of rice. I love it, but will be so glad when it is done. I've got so much else to get in motion, this necessary but beautiful task of finishing this gift feels like goofing off. It certainly looks that way to everyone who passes by, seeing me on the porch late in the afternoon yet again, knitting (of all things) and maybe a beer next to me in the shade, "when is she going to get a job?" is all over their faces. Or so I think they're thinking. The Boss Lady has not completely left the building. Right now, she is reminding me that the sweaters are sitting there needing to be brought out of the water and taken to the porch to start drying. Gotta go. Lo-o-ove those sweaters, though.

What I did on my Spring Vacation

Because I know everyone wonders what I do all day...

This project has the delirious combination of drinking corked wine, intense focus, immersion in details, more bottle opening, getting contributions from corked wine drinking friends (no stinking boxed winos, please!) and lastly, a comfy floating chair to swill away in and be insulated from static shocks and ever being taken seriously as an artist or sober adult. I found this on the Martha website....ha! No, actually, this comes courtesy of the fiends of fabrication at MAKE magazine via the CRAFT blogsite. Instructions for the wrap-around sectional are sure to follow...

Speaking as a spanking new craigslist entrepreneur, those archival copies of ROCK magazine from the 70's should be flying out the door and netting me in the high two figures...although in Portland, you never know...could go higher. I told my landlady that the heirloom tomatoes should bring in serious bucks, since they sell at Trader Joe's for $4 & $5 dollars a lb. She gave me that blank stare, as in "What the F are you talking about? You're going to sell tomatoes?"
Well, we don't have the acreage for a tea plantation, so zapotec & brandywine heirlooms are it for this summer. Does that really sound strange? Stranger than getting a job? Really?

I just found out my neighbor is opening a yarn store. I'm completely boggled. This is going on right under my nose, and for all the hours I spent knitting in full view of every passersby all last summer in my front yard, no one even mentioned it to me. Last night another knitting neighbor and I were discussing Portland yarn stores, highs and lows, and a third piped up that knitting is really hot in Portland lately.

Right out of a sit-com, we two shot him an eye-roll withering look and tsk-sighed him into a quivering mass.

We both threatened to teach him knitting. It might work. Like a puppy, a guy knitter is a date magnet. And then I could blog about his escapades with sticks & string. Another genre fiction category sparked by my marketing genius mind, metropolysexual knitter hipster vampire centaurs in Stumptown brokering business and marriages, crime solving and tentacle-ripping, time shifting and swatch gauging, hyphen hyperventilating, hard loving baby-making mistresses of sultanic mayhem millionaires, and all centered around the Central Centaur Community in South East. Yep, they're here somewheres. Lest I be considered a snob, Portland is the place where it all can happen and I'm sure it does, so someone needs to write about it. See you on the shelf at B&N.

Back with a gentle vengance

I won't go into why, it had to do with Mom-ageddon, pre- & post-, and then the gardening...

Enough with the excuses...

May is my favorite month of the year, and I intend to spend as much of it outdoors as possible. In spite of the two waves of hail we got this afternoon, as well as thunder & lightning, I ran out to see how the tomato starters did, and all was well. Right now it's raining and a beautiful sunny sunset is starting over the West Hills and the last of the hail is melting in a slush pile on top of the scooter tarp out back. Is Spring great or what?

Before anyone thinks I'm going all too Martha these days, I just finished reading "The Intention Experiment" today, uniting quantum physics with laws of attraction, and bioelectromagnetic fields and an awful lot of studies and research in labs all over the US & Europe. It takes off where the author's previous book "The Field" leaves off, and ties in with more science than Abraham likes to get tied up with, but interests me somewhat. I enjoy some science with my spirit, to keep the whole universe as large and limitless as possible. Like my earning potential...

That's funny in itself. Everyone is now ready for me to get back to work. I've tried not to be annoying, or bloatedly gloating, or hanging around too much in any one place too often, but the question has now shifted from "Wow, just relax and take your time," to, "So-uh, what the hell do you do all day?" I have started making notes on Craigslist, Monster, PDX classifieds, and starting the third resume version. I chat up acquaintances for leads, I'm checking into school or at least a summer class, and asking every person I know who works at home how they arranged this situation for themselves. My cell phone arrives tomorrow from UPS. I'm now ready to call "Common Grounds" my home office, 'specially since they started serving Voodoo Donuts. Hoo-wah!

I pored over Danny Gregory's two books, "Everyday Matters" and "The Creative License" on how the dogged NYC adman became a self-taught professional artist and author. I bugged Linsey about her friends who have cool jobs, does she know of anymore cool gigs going on?
I did not buy a new laptop with my severance money.

There was that almost imperceptible burst of realization about a month ago that I had stepped off the career ladder climb. There's writing and painting and projects to do, people to stay close to, trips to make, my body to be kinder to, friends to keep, and the job title just isn't as important as it was. There may be romance to be had, ee-gads!! It feels good to be here, and the steps forward from this place are exciting, it's going to be good.