My Second Rose Bowl Swan Song

I know I keep saying “this is my last time at the Rose Bowl” but, like Cher on a farewell tour, I just can’t help coming  back.

As I mentioned last week, Sunday was my triumphant return thanks to my friend Nicki.

Nicki is a Rose Bowl Selling Champ and I’ve talked about her (and our complicated relationship) before.  So, although I didn’t think I could like Nicki more I discovered I could when she offered to share her prime Rose Bowl real estate with me!

As a vendor you can’t get into the Rose Bowl without a ticket so Nicki mailed me mine.

But she mailed it to the wrong address.  

Surprisingly, this made me like her more because it seemed like the sort of thing I would do.

However, she then informed me that I would need to meet her at 5AM (!) on the day of the Bowl to do the hand off……  which made me like her less.

But the hand-off went smoothly and set up was a breeze (pardon the camera phone pics)

I got my little corner of the world all arranged

I’d even managed to put together a few of my magnetic chalkboards

while Nicki got out her hand stenciled boxes

her converted teapot lamps

cool little bottles

and a ton of beautiful furniture, silver, signs and other things

Unfortunately, set up was the only breezy thing because it was incredibly hot.

Gross hot.

Surface of the sun hot.

And then, just to shake things up a bit it got muggy!*

But I was pleasantly surprised.  Despite the heat people were shopping.  My sales were, if not overwhelming, certainly steady, and MUCH better than at my previous Rose Bowl outing.  Nicki kept telling people she was here “with her friend David” – which made me like her more.

So I was feeling good!  That is until I realized that while I had sold a good number of things Nicki had managed to sell, like, everything she brought with her (including some poor woman who made the mistake of standing still too long and ended up going, for a very reasonable price, to a nice family from Pacoima who said she was “exactly what they were looking for!”)

This realization, of course, made me like Nicki less.

But, as we were packing up, we bonded over admiration of old movies (A Face in the Crowd, To Have and Have Not) and quality furniture.  And when we both, almost simultaneously, quoted our favorite episode of WKRP in Cincinnati (“as God is my witness I thought turkeys could fly!”) I discovered that it would be almost impossible to like anyone more.

 

*I have officially become a wimpy Californian.  Despite growing up in Ohio and living in NYC for 14 years I find now that even a little bit of humidity SAPS MY WILL TO LIVE!  

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