almost back in the saddle

Ahhhhh…..I think the weekend did me good.  Amazingly enough we had a good show!  Leo sold the folky wooden train he’d convinced us to buy and Owen sold the wooden plane he bought last weekend.  They are beside themselves thinking we took in a fortune and have plans for more Lego.  God help us.  It’s infectious though….I start thinking, ‘well, gee….it would really be nice to have the Lego harbor…..and a train station for the train….’  We’ll see. Ernie will no doubt calm us down.

Let’s see….haven’t posted for awhile (I would NEVER EVER make it as a single parent).  Thursday I picked up the guys from school and two of Owen’s friends came over.  It was so fun to watch them together.  They were all good as gold and given that I’m not usually around for afternoon playdates it was really a nice treat.  We have been SO lucky with the guys’ friends….I’m sure one of these days they’ll show up with someone I’m not wild about but thus far they have great taste.  Leo grumbled at first about having kids over (my curmudgeon) but he was quite taken with one of the guys and  they seriously played Lego while the other two bounced around.

Got off work on Friday and ran and did my parents’ grocery shopping that I usually do on Sunday.  Picked up the boys and had a quietly lazy afternoon and evening. Leo is so fascinated by tornadoes that I thought they might like the movie Twister which was on that evening.  It proved too scary for Owen first…so he and I went out to the living room and Leo followed shortly explaining that he shouldn’t be watching it because he might get nightmares….so we all trouped upstairs, crawled into our bed together, read books for awhile and drifted off to sleep.

Saturday I took off in the morning with very wound up guys.  I gotta say that three hours in a car with no radio and very little heat can seem like a long time but overall it was fine.  When we got to the show the boys were VERY excited and put their nametags on with great seriousness. Owen demanded the custom phrase that he had come up with on his nametag. They took turns writing out the receipts and taking the checks.  They also loved the concept of a dealer room with free food—especially Owen of course….

They played with Lego when they weren’t selling and overall were pretty damn good if I do say so myself.  They made beautiful little antique dealers.  If we did local shows they would have been at them all the time as they grew up but since we only do shows that are several hours away…..it’s been awhile.  In fact this is the last time Leo was at a show (that we were exhibiting at)….here he is with my beloved Jim Eyre:

In fact I myself haven’t been at this show since Jim and his wife Diana did it for the last time before moving to California and I’m guessing that was spring of 2004. I had to see them to say goodbye before they moved so I got a babysitter to sit for 10 hours and drove up and back the same day.  I’ve known Jim and Diana since I was 12 years old. My whole family knows them as we grew up going to antique shows.  I think it was 1974 when I bought a Cabbage Rose salt dish (c. 1870) from Jim  and immediately developed a crush on him (On a side note when I first met Kieran Kane it drove me crazy trying to think of who he reminded me of….finally realized it was Jim—-they share a certain dryness and charm). We miss Jim and Diana so much.  They’ve known me for so many phases of my life—I remember introducing Ernie to them when we first saw them at the Ann Arbor market when I was in grad school….and then when we started doing shows ourselves they were incredibly good to us. 

Anyway…back to the show….so suffice to say it’s been a while.  Everybody looked OLDER!!!  How did that happen?  Lots of new faces too but the show looked great and it felt good to be there.  The boys started to get antsy late afternoon so I took them back to the hotel.  I suggested going out to dinner and they completely turned up their noses….all they wanted to do was order in food and play with Lego….oh, and of course jump from bed to bed….  They really know how to enjoy a cheap hotel room.

Here’s Ernie trying to find a quiet corner to order pizza for Owen and some Chinese for us:

We went back to the show early on Sunday so I could look around before it opened.  It really is a lovely show.  After awhile I bundled the guys back into the car and drove home, ignoring the ‘check engine’ light that went on around Forrest, Illinois.

all in all a good weekend…..just what we needed…..