Notes from the road - Santa Fe, New Mexico

(I was going to call this post "Psychiatric Notes from the Road" but didn't want to scare any of my vast readership away. Let me say that traveling whilst undergoing a major medication change - this point being the washout period where I am between treatments for my ongoing chronic depression - is challenging, interesting, and not the nightmare that one might presume it to be. This post is not going to dwell on those experience solely, but also cannot help but be colored by them. Onwards....)

Finding the same niche that Time Travelers occupies as dealers in Florida here in New Mexico has taken us a day or two. Flea markets are not the same - the indoor market we looked at was much like a collection of what we'd think of as yard sales, hauled under cover and with high retail price tags. We moved quickly on from there, disappointed. The outdoor flea market, advertised as having hours of 8AM on, didn't actually start that early. We arrived at 8:30, thinking we'd have missed the best deals of the day (as you would have back home), only to find 3 cars in the parking lot and no vendors set up yet. Puzzling to us out-of-towners, but we decided to return later in the day. I thought that maybe 8AM was when vendors were to wake up, and that New Mexico Time is a different thing than Florida time when it comes to Flea Markets. I was right!

Antique stores carry top quality, top dollar merchandise. Where, oh where, were we to find the marvelous items to carry back with us on our adventures? The answer came from a different place than I thought it would - consignment shops and thrift stores. Very good quality items at fair prices abound.

Meanwhile, my nerves were jangling with the stark vistas and beautiful colors of northern New Mexico. I didn't know that I wouldn't be able to competently drive in the strange environment with the non-identifiable accents of the GPS' vocal directions, but I quickly became upset, saying, "What?? What did she say??" at every indication to turn, stay on the same road; you name it. Without Bob behind the wheel, I would not have gone beyond the hotel parking lot on this trip. My patience with myself and the rest of my world has evaporated along with the level of antidepressants in my system.

Our return later in the day to the outdoor flea market rewarded us with many vendors, but not selling what we were expecting. We kind of thought it would be a mix of packaged tube socks from China, yard sale finds, and fresh produce. Instead, it was largely artisan-generated jewelry, bulk beads imported primarily from the Far East, clothing, rugs, and the ever-present beautifully crafted silver jewelry of the area and from Mexico. We were delighted to find a vendor selling fair trade items of all descriptions from many African countries.

I'm finding that I am more sensitive than usual to my laundry list of triggers. It helps to build in some "down time" in the middle of the day to rest, block out the sensory input (some time soaking in the bath tub has been wonderful), and drink more water whenever I can. A visit to the Georgia O'Keefe Museum left me oddly dull, until I saw photographs from which some of her work was derived; I was just about overcome with emotion. (wtf?) A visit to a photography gallery with some truly stunning works (Steiglitz, Ansel Adams, Yosef Karsh; you name the iconic photographer and this gallery had their work represented) had the same effect. Good thing if I close my eyes I can stop seeing the pictures and the tears stop! What an unexpected effect of being without medication. I prefer to be not so very sensitive as this, and look forward to the end of my countdown when I start up on another antidepressant. Oh, and this isn't something that I asked for or wanted; the timing frankly has been awful, but I have been, as Bob says, a "trooper." Gawd, how I hate that word.

I don't currently have the mental facility to post my photos but will catch up when we get back and I'm all drugged up!

Off the Floor and On to Breathing Space

The future has arrived, and her name is Sara Trautman. This dynamo has seen the chaos that is our storage "system" and an extended stay in our home propelled her to take charge of it. Thank you, Sara!

Replacing the towers of bins stacked all over Bob's work area are steel shelving. All of a sudden we have floor space; tables and bookcases that we use for shows are in the spacious closet that had formerly been filled with other materials unrelated to the business that needed to be tossed or recycled. The day of action came when Sara helped unpack from the Dunedin show and advised us that there was a better way to build our mousetrap. *I* wasn't about to argue with her 15 years' experience in retail, particularly in managing stockrooms. Bob took a microsecond longer to come around, though it sounded worse than it was...

And that's the photo for today.

Dunedin this weekend

Well, I don't really want to talk about the Dade City show. Let's just say that someone decided to hold a show and no one came. We were missing vendors (about half of them) and some of the meager traffic consisted of people who happened to be blowing through town and stumbled upon us. I will say it here: this could a hiccup, or it could be the demise of this show, which would be a shame.

Onwards, then, to the Sunshine City show at the Coliseum in St. Petersburg last weekend. Sorry for not writing about it in advance, but I haven't exactly up to snuff - another factor that is making this beginning of the season kind of hard for me. Stock is all priced, sorted, wrapped, packed away and identified, but I am deep in my funk and trying very hard to get up to a semblance of normality.

The Coliseum show was a different one for us because we decided - at the last minute, and it was a good hunch, for us - to share our small booth rental with another dealer. It halved the cost and so we had a jump start on the profits for the weekend - woo hoo! It also meant that, given the space constrictions, Bob and I took turns manning our portion of the booth. Let's hear it for shift work at antique shows! There were several good sales that were bonafide "be backs", where Bob had negotiated the prices with the customers, and they came back to make the purchase while I was working the shift.

Generally speaking, though, there were more people looking than buying. We did bring our premium inventory and as a result our average sale was higher. The lesson for us is: whatever we bring is what people will buy.


This weekend we'll be participating in the Dunedin Antique Show on Saturday, October 16th, after a hiatus of a couple of years. The stars are aligned as Bob has some time to be able to do a couple of shows in a row, and we're trying to take advantage of that while we can. We can always gobble some ibuprofen afterwards to apologize to our backs.


The photos at the top of this post are of 2 of the theatrical robes we picked up at a recent auction. They are sumptuous and old - the silk lining of one of them is very fragile. I believe they date to between 1895 and 1933. We were quite excited to pick them up and they are a great draw for the booth.