How to run a successful business at the open market:
If your customer wants to know if the black boots are waterproof, say, “Are you kidding me? They’re made for water!”
If your customer is waffling over an €8 scarf, say, “I’ll give that to you for €7. Wait, did I say €7? I meant €6. You know what, we’ll just go ahead and make it 5 for €29.”
If your customer can’t find a belt in the right size, offer to punch some extra holes in one, “as a gift.”
If your customers seem to be enjoying the free cheese samples, start cutting a wedge for them to buy. If they try to protest, say, “Oh, I’m sorry; you wanted more than this?”
Put a cage of baby animals at the front of your stall—kittens, chipmunks, turtles, they’re all guaranteed to draw a crowd.
How not to run a successful business at the open market:
Talk loudly and importantly on your cell phone. If a customer asks you a question, roll your eyes and huff dramatically before you answer, then return to your conversation.
Walk around with your merchandise in a plastic bag and try to sell it to customers of a rival shop. If they decline, start asking invasive personal questions. If they mention the police, run away.
Sell felted, fringed Peruvian panchos. No one wants to buy felted, fringed Peruvian panchos.
Stare morosely at your merchandise, your customers, and the world at large that just doesn’t understand what it’s like to be you. Earphones are a nice touch as well, particularly if they’re blasting emo.
Hang a garment that is any combination of tube top, leotard, thong, and adult onesie at the front of your stall and watch the business melt away.
I got up this morning as the tips of the sky were turning to tangerine. It’s not easy for me, this early to rise business, but creativity is a heady incentive, and I always value the extra hours of writing time. Except, that is, when they can’t be used for writing.
Dan had an early work meeting this morning, so it was up to me to get the girls to school, preferably on time and intact. That is usually his job, and I had no idea the magnitude of parental responsibility involved. While showering, I fielded questions and issued instructions (mostly “Close the door!”). While drying my hair, I mediated arguments and tried to follow preschool jokes. While whisking on some mascara, I wiped noses and bums alike. Cher probably takes less time getting herself ready for the day. And once I was finally presentable, it was the girls’ turn.
There were two complete outfits to be chosen. Eight separate limbs to be wrangled into the appropriate holes. Socks to be removed, turned right side out, and replaced. Shoes to be found. Matching shoes to be found. Uniforms to be rebuttoned. Bags to be packed. Medicine to be administered, hair to be fixed, and faces to be washed. Two energetic little bodies to be bundled into coats and scarves and backpacks and corralled along the walk to school. We made it with five minutes to spare.
While I should theoretically have felt great that I accomplished the morning’s goals (on time? check! intact? check!), I mostly felt like life was over. I had gotten up so ridiculously, agonizingly early only to spend those hard-earned hours on the mundane. I felt like I had missed my shot at productivity for the day. I was frustrated at the girls for needing so much from me, and I was frustrated at myself for not being more efficient. Back home, not even my morning cappuccino warmed in a pool of sunshine helped. I budgeted, wrote lesson plans, and made some important phone calls, but I didn’t have the heart to write.
By the time I picked up the girls from school, I had given up on writing for the day and NaNoWriMo in general. My situation was clearly hopeless, so I brushed it out of my mind and took the girls to the playground. I pushed them on the swings, soaked up their school day stories, and kissed their windblown cheeks. We walked home kicking up fallen leaves and shared gingerbread bears before story time. It was so refreshing to see them as my sweet, vibrant little girls again rather than as competitors for my time.
I have a chronic disability when it comes to cutting myself slack, and I’m glad I was finally able to look it in the face. I had accomplished a lot of good things with my day despite the residual brain fog from Monday’s late night. No, I hadn’t penned another book chapter, but I that didn’t mark me as a failure—just as another one of the millions of mothers who don’t try to write novels in one month. NaNoWriMo could wait a day. I began to breathe more easily and smile more freely, and when Sophie lay down for her nap, I discovered I had a few words in me after all.
On one hand, it might not be the most logical decision to invite a houseful of guests over to play games and watch movies late into the night on the first of thirty days in which one is trying to write a book. On the other hand, logic is often overrated. Dan and I agreed going into this that we could sacrifice the housekeeping for a month but not our close friendships, and I’m glad I’m still irresponsible enough to settle Catan some nights when I should be sleeping.
Of course, two coffees, an energy drink, and a French press full of green tea infused with freshly picked mint only got me 500 new words today that may or may not be intelligible. I’ll have to re-read them tomorrow… after I sleep at least fourteen consecutive hours, padlock the game cabinet, and mail the key to Santa Claus.
In some ways, we were more than ready to hit the road. We were beginning to miss the familiarity of our home routines, my kitchen gadgetry, your Lego collection, PIZZA. However, the novelty of Scotland still glittered through its cloud cover, and we left the best way one can leave a place—full of hope to return. Of course, we might not have been so cheery had we realized that nine (9) hours of the UK’s thickest traffic stood between us and our campsite near Dover. You girls did amazingly well—a few pillows, some dry-erase markers, and plenty of loud music, and you’re model travelers—but my goodness… By our third full decade spent inching around the London Orbital, I had to choose between weeping and using the English language in exciting and colorful ways. Thank goodness for the aforementioned loud music.
Happily oblivious to the pressures of driving on blanky-blankish roads among blankety percent of the blanking world’s blanker-blanked vehicle population, most of which was blankly blanketing at a blank of 0.blank miles per blankety blank.
By the time we arrived in Folkestone, we barely had enough energy to set up our tent, eat fish ‘n’ chips, and get in several pointless arguments before crashing for the night. (The last argument or two took some real effort, but I’m proud of us for being able to fit in those extra misunderstandings and irritations, especially after such a long day.) The next morning dawned beautifully though. We made it onto our ferry with three minutes to spare, you girls immediately took up residence in the play room, and all was well with our souls once again. Well, mostly. We still had to drive across the flat expanse of flatness that is Belgium, but through a herculean effort, your dad managed not to fall asleep at the wheel, and we were soon rolling through Luxembourg’s blessedly varied terrain.
Are you taking notes, Belgium?
Our destination for the night was the fairy tale town of Vianden nestled in a forest along the sleepy River Our. We quickly discovered that unlike the larger, more touristy Luxembourg City, Vianden’s locals were merely trilingual, and as your dad and I speak a combined total of six words in French and German and a combined total of zero in Luxembourgish, communication proved amusing. (For the most part, that is. Trying to explain to the campground manager that we wanted an electric hook-up? Definitely. Enduring frigid, cobwebby showers before realizing there was an entirely separate shower complex? A little less so.) Also, it was a shock to our senses emerging from the UK’s overarching coolness into the muggy, sweltering underbelly of summer in mainland Europe. The first thing you girls did at the campground was ride the playground chicken back to Scotland where it was not 1,000,000°C.
“Hey girls, what is your chicken named?”
“It’s not a chicken! It’s a rooster!”
“Okay, so what is your rooster named?”
“Chicken.”
However, we managed not only to survive our stay but to be utterly charmed. Vianden’s main attraction is a beautiful little castle perched halfway up the mountainside, accessible by foot or chair lift. In deference to short legs, we chose the latter. (You’re welcome!) Your dad used his superpowers to convince the lift attendant that they understood each other, and we soon found ourselves being whisked up and away over the town rooftops, the gentle turns of the river, and the breathtaking Château de Vianden over which you girls immediately claimed jurisdiction. None of us had gotten enough of hiking yet (right? right?), so we naturally opted to walk down the mountain rather than take the return lift… which led to us opting to spend the castle entrance fee on ice cream. Naturally.
You girls were mightily in favor of the ice cream part of our decision.
Unfortunately for your future prospects, we didn’t move into the castle. I can’t say I would have minded the view; Vianden’s patch of buildings was an extension of the lush countryside, and daydreams practically spun themselves out of the tranquil hum of its summer air. However, driving around for an hour trying to find the town’s one ATM and taking that cold shower (did I mention the cold shower? and its exceeding coldness? Had it not been the hottest day of the year, I would still be frozen to the tile floor) made me pine rather sharply for home. Plus, and I hate to admit this, but the enchantment of tent life was starting to wear thin. The ground was seeming harder, the rooms smaller, and the bathrooms farther away. Conveniently for our collective sanity’s sake, we had only one stop left on our adventure.
Getting up before dawn this morning was not nearly as agonizing as I anticipated. No husbands were hit nor bad words said when my alarm rang, and the sun was so shocked at my initiative that it decided to hide out for the day and do some serious navel-gazing. (My apologies to everyone in Italy hoping to enjoy the holiday outdoors, especially you, Liz!)
I love beginning stories, and it was almost—dare I say it?—fun getting this crazy project underway. Do I think the fun factor will last? Absolutely not. Novels are generally supposed to have endings, so the last week of November is going to be a kind of personalized creative torture for me. However, I intend to enjoy the buzz of satisfaction as long as it lingers.
And right now? That means not worrying about giving this post a proper endi—
I’m staring down November, but it shows no intention of letting up. It occurs to me that I am procrastinating before the month even begins and that this cannot possibly bode well. I add “Preemptive procrastination” to my list of Reasons Why NaNoWriMo Is Doomed To Failure. Other items on the list include “Motherhood,” “Inability to operate on less than eight hours of sleep (preferably twelve),” and “Being 99.9% certain that I cannot write a book in one month.” I add “Lack of confidence” several times to emphasize the scope of said lack, and I finish the list with a flourish: “Two days left, and I still haven’t decided.”
Each November, I think longingly of all the artsy, motivated writers adjusting their wire-rims and churning out page after page of latte-inspired prose. Every November, I would willingly jump into that world if not for the tethers anchoring me to reality—a child at home, social obligations, medically-induced depression—or so I’ve claimed, at any rate. Now that I actually have mornings to myself, a de-cluttered schedule, and the returned use of my mind, I see the real choke chain around my neck: a paralyzing sense of pessimism.
I simply don’t think I have it in me. I don’t think I’ll be able to play alchemist with the hours I have and turn them into something marketable, something worth letting the dust bunnies procreate for a whole month. I don’t think I’ll be able to sit at my desk on Day 13, look the remaining 30,000 words in the face, and find the courage to keep start writing them. For that matter, I don’t think I’ll be able to whip up 20,000 words during Days 1 through 12. Maybe if I’d already written a book, I’d see this as possible, but from here, it looks like Mt. Everest… and I’m a paraplegic. Without any gear. Mortally allergic to snow.
I add “Paraplegia” to the list, but it doesn’t really matter. No matter how long the list gets, it will never trump my one and only Reason To Go For NaNoWriMo: “Because if I don’t try, I will never live past the what ifs.” It seems I’ve reached a decision after all.
Forget Halloween. The day after is when the real terror starts.
Despite the theatrics of certain family members, we made fantastic time on the hike and still had a few minutes to preview the Royal Mile. Ducking through a hesitant patch of rain, we got a close-up look at Edinburgh Castle which was not the most welcoming of structures, squatting as it was on a heap of dingy volcanic rock half shrouded in fog. (10 points to it for being mysterious, -20 for sucking away cheerfulness à la Dementor of Azkaban.) However, we were all amused by bellboys standing awkwardly outside of touristy hotels in their kilts—“Mommy, why is that guy wearing a dress? And why does he look mad?”—and we passed just enough brightly-colored doors and intricate steeples to whet our appetites for some real sightseeing the following day.
This church was considerate enough to install peepholes at the exact heights of two- and five-year-olds.
We returned around 8:00 the next morning, and by 8:03, we had realized that we would need a month to properly appreciate all the history strewn up and down and above and underneath the Royal Mile. However, we only had a couple of hours, so we made the best of them. For you girls, that primarily meant running laps around Mercat Cross, climbing statues of famous Scotsmen, and trying to gain admittance to nearly every building we passed. (The only one open was The Loch Ness Experience: only £15.85 “to be dazzled by 3D effects!!!” As we had already seen Loch Ness in 3D—plus a few additional senses—that week, we passed.) We had only walked about half the mile before you begged to turn around; something about “too tired” and “feet hurting” and “hiking up a mountain yesterday”… excuses, excuses. We took our time heading back, but I’d dare say you had a pretty good time regardless.
And here Adam Smith was thinking that your tiredness would get him out of being climbed. Sucker!
In between rescuing you from phone booths and rescuing 18th-century philosophers from you, your dad and I enjoyed the architecture and the city’s vibes. (Your dad told me more than once that if we ever had to move to Edinburgh, he wouldn’t mind, honest.) I particularly admired St. Giles’ Cathedral, not so much because of its impressive design or its status as the High Kirk of Edinburgh but because it was presided over by the “Very Reverend Dr. Gilleasbuig Macmillan.” (The writer in me wished so badly that she had come up with that name herself.) Sticking out like a tourist usually bothers me, but we had both the language and your plentiful charm in our favor, and the locals generally seemed happy to see us. Well, we did get some funny looks when we posed for a family picture on the Heart of Midlothian. Come to find out, that lovely symbol of affection is a marker for the infamous 15th-century Tolbooth prison execution site. Oh yes, and walking across the Heart means we will never find true love.
Fortunately, we’ve already got that covered.
We almost made it back to the car without an impromptu detour, but we just so happened to have parked in front of the National Museum of Scotland. Maybe it was the way the doors swung open as we walked by or the giant “Free!” sign, but we felt compelled to take a look. I’m glad we did, considering the two familiar looking monarchs we ran into on the first floor. The dresses alone would have made your day I think, but you also had a blast at the various hands-on exhibits. We checked out a rocket, played music, taunted prehistoric wildlife, and at one point very nearly attained somewhere in the neighboring vicinity of something similar to capable of operating a catapult. It seemed a fitting farewell to Scotland.
“In the 14th century, queens spent their days putting together needlessly complicated pottery puzzles. Also, bloomers had yet to be invented, so their undergarment options were limited to Old Navy Jeans.”
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