I may have mentioned before that I prefer non-holiday days and would like very much to have every other year or every 5th year to be holiday-less. Of course everyone who normally gets those days off would be able to take the same number of days but just whenever they wanted to… you can see my plan falling apart already, I know. But I don’t get the days off, I just keep on working plus I’m 51 and still get Labor Day and Memorial Day mixed up. So this weekend, while bug watching, I got my efficient Monday plan together. First drop a package at the post office (yeah! an Etsy sale), then take Mom’s car to the fruit market where I left my car over the weekend and try to get it started again. Being optimistic, I figured I’d drive my car home, leave the van at the fruit market, meet my two great friends for our weekly Monday lunch at the Thai restaurant (which happens to be very close to the fruit market), have my friend drive me there afterwards and pick up the van, drive it to my friends office where I could borrow his partner’s heavy duty pickup truck, drive to the University of Louisville Clay Shop to pick up my 1000 lbs. of clay that Jeff Campana and I ordered together, go home, unload, bring the truck back, drive the van home, trim pots, throw some more… oh yeah! So, not knowing about this Labor Day thing, I called my friends early to confirm our lunch plans and see if I could get the number of my buddy’s partner to set up the borrowing of said pickup. Voicemail on both friends… hmmm, I wonder what’s going on? So off to the post office. On the way there, something on the radio made me realize it was Labor Day… so no lunch, no ride to get my car, no borrowing a pickup and no post office which I’m about a 1/4 mile from. So straight to the market and I get my car started, drive it home much to Sofia’s delight as she was distraught at leaving it there on Saturday… because “she loves that car more than anything”. Here’s some pictures of the car in question and you can see that it would be very difficult not to get attached to a fine American luxury ride like this (that broken headlight makes me think of the car like a three legged dog or a cat with one ear)…


I had to put that last picture because I always wanted to pixelate the license plate on a car, plus now the fuzz can’t find me. Also the front license plate has Sofia’s grandma’s initials in nautical flags on it in case we happen to have sailboats coming toward us in the opposite lane. I left the car running and got Mom and Sofia and we all drove back to the fruit market and got the van and drove them both back. Got my neighbor to help me get the wayback seat out of the minivan to make room for clay. Then I drove to UofL Potshop and loaded 700lbs. of clay (not sure the suspension on the minivan could handle the whole 1200lbs. Came home and cleared room in the basement for the new clay, parked in the alley and unloaded the clay 100lbs. at a time onto a dolly (or as they say in the south, handtruck) and made trips across the poop minefield of a backyard to the basement. I know you’re thinking, what’s the big deal… 7 trips across the yard, and it wouldn’t be a big deal if I could go in a straight line (shortest distance between 2 points) but I had to take the Poopy Express Trail so as not to have totally encrusted dolly wheels going in and out of the basement. Here’s an idea of the added distance…

Covered with sweat, me, Mom and Sofia decided to grab lunch at our favorite other Thai restaurant because Mom officially went on vacation today and we drove all the way down there and… it was closed, it’s Labor Day, duh! We found a place to eat instead and got to eat alfresco, here’s Sofia coloring at the table under a pergola of grapes (much red light bouncing off the red wall behind me)…

After lunch, back to UofL with Sofia this time and Jeff Campana was there. We chatted a bit and Sofia looked at some students working and got to see the college clay shop. Jeff showed us a new just constructed teapot which was really sweet but I didn’t get a picture. Here’s Jeff and Sofia on the second load…

Home again, home again… unload the rest over the Poopy Express Trail, clean my shoes and put my new UN-clumpy wollastonite in the studio. 3:30 and finally in the studio and this is without blogging because I was going to carpe diem and get all my stuff out of the way first.