Mexican-ish Among Celts

Has it really been eight days since I posted?! Yowza.

I'm exhausted but I wanted to stay up at least long enough to watch the solar eclipse. It just finished and now we're finishing our dinner (caprese salad with crusty bread and Belgian chocolate s'mores ice cream).

And check out these awesome women:



I ran into them just this afternoon at the outdoor show at the local Celtic Festival. (The young woman on the right bought a mug from me and I took her picture. I really wanted to get a picture of one of the men she was with the day before, not because he was decked out in full armor but because he was seriously the best looking man I've seen in a very long time. He looked like the more handsome, more rugged version of that guy who played James Bond most recently.)

So, yes. Celtic Festival. Did that and did well despite the fact that I had a couple of strikes against me. For example, this was our booth number (seen here spray painted on the grass):



Turns out we kind of kyped booth number 13 from the late (as in late-arriving, not as in dead) blacksmith and it was set kind of far off from the other booths I guess because the festival organizers didn't want a fire hazard on their hands. So that was one thing. And another thing was that there I was, trying to sell Mexican style Dia de Los Muertos mugs at a Celtic Festival. Still, I did pretty well. Of the five other potters I shared the booth with, I made the most money.

So there.

It was kind of strange seeing so many people walking around in kilts and various SCA-type costumes. Those are definitely not every day sights in my life. And aside from that there were some of the usual strange people lurking about. One guy, a really stinky hippie-type, took a shine to Dave and snuck a couple of cans of beer in his pants pockets out of the beer garden to bring to Dave. Another guy took a shine to one of the other potters, Kahori, and kept coming back to our booth with his little Corgie to talk endlessly about whatever. One of the potters in our booth brought wine and beer and in the afternoon, after drinking a fair bit of wine from an orange juice bottle, took our her ukulele and we had a little Cole Porter sing along. Even some of the customers in the booth joined in on the chorus to "Don't Fence Me In."

Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don't fence me in.

Ah, the life of an artist!

Also this week: There was a going away potluck for one of the potters I was showing with this weekend, Kahori. She's originally from Japan, but lives here now with her husband who is doing post-doc work. They moved to Boston first then came to Albuquerque and now they're returning to Boston. She's been a lot of fun and I'm going to miss her at the studio. Ah, sad!

Also this week:

The eclipse!

Radishes and beets from the garden, we ate them!

The shiso is finally, finally sprouting!

And I suspect that the grasshoppers are coming.