Wednesday at NCECA

Whew, what a day. The time flew by! This morning started at 6am. I took a scary-ish shower. I am so glad I brought my flip flops! There are way too many strangers taking showers before me. Bkfst was peanut butter on toast with coffee and powdered creamer. It was fine, tomorrow I will cook some eggies so I have something good in my belly before my Thursday adventure.
I walked the 5 blocks uphill to the convention center. Got my registration packet and dropped off my cups for the Scholarship sale. They decided that my yunomi cups had to be separated, which I am not so sure was good for them(they were partners to me). I went to the Clayart room later in the morning to drop off my cup for the exchange on Friday. There are soooo many beautiful cups, part of me wishes I had brought a thrown cup instead of my two-fisted-handleless slab 'o clay.
Early on I started running into cool Tucson people. Elaine Dow, Catherine Orrantia, Gayle Bair, Betty(?), Hiro Tashima. I also had sightings of many people I admire from afar. I do wish I was better with names.
I spent most of the day trying to get through the trade show. WOWIE, there are some cool tools out there. I got some new batgrabbers/levelers, metal texturizing tools with big metal handles, some two sided leaf makers, 2 new kinds of snot suckers that have different tips, an telescoping sponge on a stick and ??? I had a great time there, but I had ALOT of stuff. Luckily Sherrie from Sierra Nevada College (Tahoe) let me stow some stuff behind her booth. My neck is killing me, I think lugging and the weather are just taking their tole. Mid-afternoon I decided it was time to go mail my stuff.. I went to the post office, bought a very expensive roll of tape and packed it all in one of those one price boxes. I thought I would need three boxes with all that stuff, but I stuffed it all into one!!! It was probably 10+ lbs.
After the post office I ended up being very close to the hostel. I decided to rest and plan my Thursday. My room is right above a coffee shop, the smell of hot chocolate wafted into my room every 5 minutes.
After my little break I headed back up the 5 blocks to the convention center to meet up with Leila and Catherine to go to a party at Sherrie's Room.. Let's just say that that many people should not ALL be in a hotel room. It was nice to chat for a bit, but toooooo many people for me. I thought I might head home after that, but I was a bit hungry. So I walked UP about 5 more blocks just exploring, so many places were just jam packed. I finally found a place called Sun Distillery and had a "Hemmingway" cocktail. rum, grapefruit juice, marishino cherry liquor all served straight up (no rocks) in a champagne glass. I thought that was all I would have.. but it was raining so I decided to have dinner there.. The only things on the menu were a burger, veggie burger or blt. I went with the burger. THere is something about dining by yourself that makes you want to order anything you want and I ordered a real burger and it was delish!!! The alaskan beer with it didn't hurt either.
I headed back down the hill and caught up with Catherine and a bunch of gals and one guy.. Conrad Snider?? who owns the company that sells the Soldner Clay Mixers. What a nice guy. After and interesting 6 people $6 taxi van drive to a too full bar. Catherine, Conrad and I headed back down the hill to Sullivan's where they had dinner with really bad service and I had a drink. Their dinner was free in the end. It was cool to talk to Conrad about Paul Soldner and his influences on me, he told us a few stories that brought tears to my eyes. I felt a bit sad for Catherine in that she didn't realize how much of an influence Paul was to studio potters and that she doesn't realize the magnitude of his influence is to her and her career.
It was funny as we shared where we were staying, Catherine at the Marriott, Conrad at the Sheraton and me.. well, me at the hostel. I was embarrassed to say it to Conrad and Catherine rolled her eyes as I looked at her before I said it.. it was cute... but Conrad handled it well.. and I wasn't so embarrassed after all.
I look forward to seeing them tomorrow.
LOVE, Love, Love,
Jada