Sarah's Day: Mentally Unprepared

Monday, April 2, 2012

Mentally Unprepared

That I was, mentally unprepared, for the thing called Pine Needles last day in Racine. I’m sure I should have had some idea when I pulled up to the parking lot at 9:30 AM, a half hour before opening, and the place was packed. Word was they had started coming in at 8:30. You know it’s going to be a rough day when quilters are at the door an hour and a half before opening. They are almost as unpredictable as the knitters can be. Almost.

And I would have taken a picture of the crowd only I started cutting fabric at 10:07 and didn’t stop until 3:30, with about 10 minutes in-between. So, at about 4:15 when the store finally closes and I’m standing there in a complete daze, unable to form a coherent thought, Marcia pipes up and says “Well, I never anticipated that”.

Really, Marcia? Seriously?

This was the end of the day

This is where I stood, that red table in the center,with customers holding bolts and bolts of fabric all around me. They snaked around to the shelves and all along the green back wall. Bless their patient little hearts for putting up with each other-and me. But I have to say, they were all so helpful and none of them said one word about my glazed expression after about 2:30 PM. They were trading up bolts and helping fold fabrics and all sorts of things. I think mostly it was to pass the time in the lines.

Did I mention everything in the store was 70% off?

Last week I forgot to show the full dumpster at the end of the first weekend of the sell down-

But after two more full to overflowing dumpsters they gave up and did this-

Those are the entire back walls. Full. That’s a lot of cardboard. There must be a use for it….somewhere.

Of course, there was more than me cutting. Suzie and Marcia manned the decks, and Connie and Cindy were up at the cash registers. Jeesh. I would have needed an ambulance escort if I’d been doing cash all day. Then they counted money. How’s that for bravery?

So, Pine Needles at Racine is closed, and a new Pine Needles is moving into Rochester. Squeee. I can not WAIT!

Sunday found me at another race, this week five miles at the Fools Five Road Race in Lewiston. This year there was a record number of people-3098.

It started out as a cool day, and I dressed the part. But when I got there-sun! So I was a little overdressed.

And there’s the start.

I left Dave with the camera which is always a mistake. Here’s just a smattering of what he did to occupy his 43 minutes of time.

He watched us take off down the street (see us waayyyy down there?)

He took several pictures of the helicopter, but only one of bird vs helicopter.

He tool a picture of these two and tried to convince me they beat me. (He does this every time but usually he picks someone older with crutches or a walker. These two look pretty good)