Bad weather and good friends

When I left Oklahoma I was certain that the weather would improve, because even if the weather is bad in other places, there’s no tornados right? So I thought.  I hopped on over to Chicago for a late night set up in a downtown show.  Big cities freak me out anyways, especially when I realized that there was no where for me to park!! I seriously spent like 2 hours on the phone with people who work at parking lot management companies or whatever and finally someone knew of a lot 5 miles from the show that I could park an RV in and spend the night.  It’s so crazy to me that it was so hard to find parking for a show.  The forecast was bad for the weekend and did not disappoint!  Friday was drizzly the whole day, I couldn’t see the tops of the buildings above us, but on an unexpected note I saw another artist who I had been neighbors with at another show in New Mexico in 2014.  He and his (now also my) friend and I somehow managed to completely forget about this dismal weather and poor sales by laughing more than I probably ever have in my life and really had a great weekend despite everything I’m about to tell you.   

So Friday was relatively okay, not great weather, but not horrible, we went and had a nice dinner and drinks.  Then it was time for Saturday…..  Saturday started out bad and just got worse. It rained pretty much from the moment I woke up and didn’t stop, and to add to the craziness of the weather the temperature dropped like 25 degrees from 8am til noon or so.  It is so hard to plan for 50 degrees later in the day when it starts out at 75!  And with the temperature change came the wind.  Brutal, Cold, unrelenting wind.  It was sustained at 25+mph for atleast 8 hours and gusts far higher.  My new friends Jim, Hanan, and I had escaped the show, shut down our booths and left around noon when the promoters told us we could go and to secure our stuff because it was going to get bad to watch the hockey game and dine on my famous eggplant parmesan.  Later that night, after having being insulated indoors and not really knowing how bad the wind had gotten, as hanan was taking me back to my RV around midnight my GPS accidentally took us to the show where we found about 30 fewer booths than earlier that day.  The wind had just devastated a huge section of the show.  We were so fortunate and none of us sustained any damage, but dozens of booths had completely blown over.  One booth had 50 gallon barrels full of water on each pole leg (so about 350 lbs each) and the wind since it couldn’t blow it completely away, just collapsed it sideways.  I would have just been destroyed if this had been my stuff because what’s in my booth over the weekend is nearly everything I own on this entire planet, so seeing all of this destruction really took the sting off of what happened the following day.

Sunday brought slightly better weather, and not much in the way of sales, for me or the asshole who stole my wallet from inside my backpack tucked behind my booth and tried to go on a shopping spree. I was much more flustered when I wasn’t sure if I had lost it, but then I got a call from wells fargo confirming that someone had tried to spend $520 at macys with both of my debit cards, my credit card and my bank of Hawaii card that I had forgotten all about. I don’t go shopping so my cards get flagged bitch!!! Hahahaha. I hope you felt like an idiot when you had to put all the shit you couldn’t pay for back on the racks at Macys.  Maybe it had been the influx of laughing over the last few days, but all I could feel was gratitude that it had been my wallet and not my tent and artwork.  Not to mention the rest of my backpack with my keys! Man I would have been screwed. 
Not having a drivers license has since caused me some inconvenience, but it could have been way worse.  I’m feeling thankful 

….So now I’m stranded in Rolla Missouri

Today has really been the biggest inconvenience about not having a drivers license for the last 10 days.  I had to (well still have to as I haven’t made it yet) deliver my big triptych to Tulsa from Indianapolis – approximately 639 miles. And planned on renting a mini van to fit the huge pieces into the back with the seats down and staying in a hotel… with a shower…. - oooh can you say luxury? I tried to schmooze enterprise on the phone with my wallet thievery sob story and a photo of my license instead of the actual thing but no-go on their end.  :/ .  So I am forced to drive in the RV without AC in 97 degree Midwest heat and the radiator sprints a leak, and I’m currently stranded in Rolla Missouri, about 300 miles from where I’m going. :/ fantastic.  So its 9:40pm Wednesday night, I’m supposed to be 300 miles away in Tulsa at 2 pm tomorrow and then back in Indianapolis at 2 pm Friday which is more than 600 miles from Tulsa and 900 miles of driving from where I currently am

 We shall see how this pans out