So I’ve been smooching my fridge a lot.
Last week I went to market in Vegas to display Pippin canvases to shops. It went great, the new designs were a hit and the old ones made an excellent showing too. Feeling blessed! Each vendor had a hotel room that they used to display and shopowners went from room to room. We went from this:
to this:
And that’s just one part.
Wasn’t feeling quite as blessed before I left. The day before I left I went out for errands and stopped at a store on my way home. When I came out my car didn’t start. Arg. Spot, my darling car, my best car-friend by far, was not feeling well. I gave it ten minutes and thought hard about what the back up plan to get home was going to be but bless her heart she started. I was getting myself to the airport in the morning so tried to figure out how that would look if her aches came back but she slowly started when I checked first thing after waking and she started again when I actually had to go. Good Spot. I had to stop at the bank on the way there and didn’t dare turn off the engine so I ran in and crossed my fingers up to my wrists that she would be there when I went out. Again, good Spot. I love that girl!
Ah but what about the fridge smooching? Well after I had woken up and gone out in bare feet and nightie to see if Spot would start I went to the kitchen and heard that the fridge freezer (I’m sad to say no name for that one. I feel bad. Let’s try Ms. Fridge.) was running very loudly. Oh dear. It’s pretty old and getting louder in general and I know we’re probably heading for heartbreak sometime soon but please not now! I noticed the little plastic strip along the bottom had fallen down and the vacuum was close so I sucked out the thick band of dust I found there. Honestly I could have wrapped it around my neck and had a new scarf. My hope was that this would make Ms. Fridge feel a bit better and help her decide to struggle on but when I turned off the vacuum… silence. So much silence. Really loud silence. I might have whimpered. Again, Ms. Fridge doesn’t owe me much but it would sure be great if she hung around a bit longer, and it would be really really great if she didn’t stop working just when I leave town for 5 days with no one else around to do anything about it. I had visions of the stinky mess I’d come home to. But what to do? I grabbed a few things out to put in the freezer downstairs then had to run around to get ready to go.
And on one of my loops through the kitchen I heard Ms. Fridge! She was muttering a little, humming quietly, and I was so happy to hear it I walked over and gave her a big smooch. Not a little peck but a full smooch, like the kind toddlers sometimes give you where they sort of put their wet mouth on your cheek and just hold. And I kept doing that every time I walked past. Ms. Fridge and Spot are good people.
And then I was off to the show, and it went very well. Always delightful hanging out with my Pippin South friends, and seeing all the shopowners, stitching artists and designers.
Once again the hotel gave us one bed instead of two but Mary and I have shared rooms so many times now that that doesn’t phase us. She’s my needlepoint wife. This show we were using the bedroom to display everything Christmas so we hung our stockings, big and small.
I did not have visions of sugar plums dance through my head, but I did have some happy memories of a wonderful pasta dinner, plus Linda introduced us to M&M caramels, which was pretty much life changing.
(Those sweet little socks are from a club that Pocket Full of Stitches ran, and those are their finished models that they let us borrow. The canvases are now coming into the Pippin line but Pocket Full may have a few canvases left, and they have a stitch guide available for purchase so you can make ones just like these!I think they did an amazing job with them.)
After two busy days of selling we packed everything up and made it all look like a hotel room again, and flew out the next morning. Before I left I was able to spend an hour talking with Jill about colours (Pippin was planting a few wished-for colour seeds in Ms. Silk Road Fibers’ ear) and pretty much how lucky we feel, having so much fun doing what we love.
So there was a final worry when I landed back in Vancouver: would Spot start for me once more after sitting in a parking lot for five days. Bless her heart she did.
And now a few days later I’m sitting in a coffee shop while they fix Spot’s pesky starter and (ugh) a few other things they found. That’s OK. She asks so little of me and does so much. Still feeling blessed. I’m going to go home in a newly-frisky Spot and give my fridge a smooch.