Well, I am downright worn out from this weekend, albeit not quite as much as I normally am. I don't know why, because I went through the wringer and I didn't sleep more than 4 fitful hours a night for half of that time.

I have been AWOL from writing much because I have been stressing about working Whole Earth again. This year, I had decided to do completely new stuff, rather than the same old, same old glass pendants and beaded necklaces. As has been chronicled extensively on the crafts blog, I made a lot of very pretty colored hemp jewelry, and glass pendants that were wire-wrapped. I even made an entire set of glass rune pendants. You'd think hippies would like this stuff, right?

I was ONLY going to put that stuff out this weekend, but decided at the last minute to put some of my regular work in there. This turned out to be a good thing.

Oddly enough, I didn't go as insane with the shopping on Friday as I normally do at Whole Earth. I mostly restrained myself to buying stuff I was in love with (or thinking about a lot) or was useful. Go figure.Got some beads and a lot of rocks, but only a bit of jewelry and clothing. Strange.

As for working the booth, I mostly yakked with Ian a lot, which was fun. But it was a weird year. I don't think anybody in general made a whole lot of sales except for one girl who made little glass pendants in frames, and she only sold a lot on the first day. We went from 18 people selling on Saturday to 10 people who returned on Sunday, so I think that might not have attracted as many people over there.

The annoying thing was that all of my new stuff? Not big sellers. One of the wire-wrapped pendants (not any of the runes) sold when I wasn't there, but everything else was my old necklaces and pendants that hadn't sold for the last 1-2 years. Especially since I put the pendants in an "Everything $5" bin. Selling stuff is BAFFLING. Other than "sell everything for $5, no matter what", I'm not sure what else to do. (Other than, "don't bother making too much wire wrap or hemp for next year," anyway.) In the end, I made $120, which is pretty much around my usual, I suppose.

Then there was the godawful hell that was Mother's Day. I fucking hate Mother's Day.

As I type this I am listening to this podcast, where the host is bitching that it's a dumb idea to get married around a holiday or someone's birthday. "I made the mistake of getting married the week before Mother's Day...and you don't want to do that if you're going to have children, because you have double gift duty and you're going to screw yourself." Not only did my parents do that, my mom's birthday is around Mother's Day. So what it amounts to is that every day of the first two weeks of May are all Mommy's Special Daaaaaaay and I am so up shit creek every year. But this year was the worst of all.

The Plan was that mine would show up at Whole Earth at some point on Sunday and we'd go around the festival. I didn't know if we were doing dinner together or at my aunt's or what the hell was going on (Mom was dog-sitting over there that weekend), so no dinner plans had been made beyond that.

I called her around 10 a.m. to let her know when the place closes, what time I have to be back at the booth to clean up, etc. And I forgot to say, "Happy Mother's Day."

Well, I should have just committed seppuku right then and there.

After that, she kept calling me and calling me to cry and say that I don't love or want her or care about her and and she didn't want to come today and she just wanted to sit at home and pout about how nobody loves her. (I am not making that last bit up.) At one point she demanded that I tell her why she should come today, so I had to kiss ass, which I am not good at. Eventually she agreed to come, but I wasn't exactly looking forward to it any more.

Once she got here, she was unpleasantly pouting, and saying stuff like, "Aunt Susie is getting taken out to breakfast. AND lunch. AND dinner today," and "Aunt Susie told me that Travis" (my cousin's boyfriend) "HAS to call his parents 2-3 times a DAY." As in, "Isn't that WONDERFUL?" I'm sure my aunt probably told her that story in a "OMG that is so crazy" sort of way, but naturally Mom doesn't see it like that.

I spent a ton of money on buying her jewelry. She was still pouting. I took her to dinner. She was still pouting. She finally kind of chilled out over dinner because she got to rant at great length about who she's mad at, but she kept saying things like, "Didn't I try to make Father's Day special? Your father wouldn't let me go out for dinner on Mother's Day because he said there were too many people" and "When I was a kid, we made my mother breakfast in bed." (The way she acts about anything household, even if we were waking up in the same house on that Sunday morning, there is no way I'd make her any damn homemade food.) And she pouted because I sent her a Mother's Day cookie bouquet on her birthday (Thursday) instead of on The Big Day. (Me: "THEY DON'T DELIVER ON WEEKENDS AND YOU WOULDN'T BE HOME ANYWAY! You might as well get it on your dang birthday!")

She pouted that I treat Mother's Day and her birthday the way anyone in December gets their birthday treated as a combination birthday/Christmas, and I said, "Uh, what it means to me is that you get double the presents spread out over the first half of May. I just don't bother to differentiate between "these are birthday gifts" and "these are Mother's Day gifts." (Especially since it's not like there's a whole lot of Special Mother's Day wrapping paper, and she'll end up getting them all around the same time anyway.)

Eventually (on the phone after she left, mind you) she apologized for being a drama queen, and I said it hurt my feelings every time she goes on the "You don't love me, you don't care about me" kick.

But Jeebus fucking Christ, I am not good at making my mother feel like a Pretty Pretty Princess. She's always miserable on Mother's Day because nobody can give her enough special attention. And so sue me, I don't want to give up the opportunity to sell at this thing (which happens once a year) to hail and salaam her all day long and kiss her butt and yet still fail at Pretty Pretty Princess Day, because I always fail at Pretty Pretty Princess's Special Daaaay.

I am so relieved that Selling Weekend is now over (now I can go back to yarn crafts!), and am extremely relieved that Mom's Special Entire First Half Of May period is now over. Alas, I'm still seeing Mom fairly often (the olde hometowne is having a Scottish Games over by the family house, so I'll be popping in for that next weekend) and then there's a production of Urinetown going on the next two weekends after that, but at least gifting won't be involved.

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