Top o' the morning

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Just tidying up after the Best of the Northwest show all weekend. Lots of catching up to do on the morning after a show - from the basics of unpacking and putting away, to laundry, groceries, phone, emails, banking duties - the list goes on and on.

It was a very slow show this time. So many reasons bandied about - change of location, higher cost of parking and admittance, earlier than usual, lack of advertising, conflicts with the St Patrick's festivities in the neighborhood, and more. The St Paddy's Dash or fun run literally had it's finish line at our entrance door. Sunday morning there were thousands and thousands of runners outside, and nobody able to cross all the police lines and closed streets to get to us. We finally threw open the doors and let everybody who wanted to come in. The folks in shorts didn't really bring their wallets to buy art, but at least we had guests to chat with after a lonely couple of hours.

We got some good news about Hangar 27, the location we usually use. The city was negotiating a deal with a private company to take it over, and we had been tossed out, which is why we ended up at Qwest Field anyway. But the deal has fallen through and there is much wheeling and dealing to try to get funding for it to be renovated and remain a public venue. Probably not possible in time for our fall show. But if you are interested in the hearing more, or want to participate in any way - from petition signing, to letter writing or even donating time or money - the new website for the group that's been created to make this happen is hangar27.org.

It's a tough time for everybody financially. And today's banking and Wall Street news is so much more bleak. It's hard to know which steps to take next, just to keep afloat. Today I'm hoping for a little luck o' the irish to rub off and bring more green my way. Blarney?