Pottery for breakfast and oatmeal for dinner

I was lucky yesterday because my birthday-twin Laura very kindly sent me a head’s-up about an event she knew I’d like. It was pottery artist Chandler Swain’s annual Christmas sale, which was being held in a private residence on Sunnyside Street.

I loved it. GC and I were the very first customers to arrive, so we got first pick of everything. Between us we picked up eight items, all with imperfections that drove the prices down but which seemed mostly pretty minor to us.

Here’s what I got.

A large pitcher with a woman wrapped around it.

A smaller pitcher with a crow on it. I LOVE crows.

My very first soup tureen!

And, because I love Chandler’s more whimsical stuff, and because I love bunnies, I bought a bunny teapot. It makes me wish I loved tea, which I don’t. (Except for my recently discovered Indian Spice Tea.)

GC got four trippy pieces of pottery too, including a teapot, a vase, a plate and a cup.

Chandler makes a plate with a picture of a car overgrown with wildflowers, and it says “zoom zoom” around the edge. We’re hoping someday she might make something with a bunny and zoom zoom. Or a big orange cat and zoom zoom. Or a crow and zoom zoom. Or all three and zoom zoom.

Even though I’m always a bit shy when I first meet people who read my blog, it was a treat to meet Laura and her mother-in-law, who arrived shortly after GC and I had cleaned the place out. I hope she didn’t regret having told me about the sale when she saw us absconding with boxes of pottery. And I hope she managed to find some lovely piece that GC and I had overlooked.

Afterwards we drove very carefully – since we had a trunkload of pottery and the suspension on GC’s car is suspect – to Elgin Street for the Not Your Grandmother’s Craft Sale. I bought some fridge magnets made from antique buttons, a gift for the Christmas exchange at work, and something that will make David Scrimshaw envious.

It was squeezing-room-only at the craft fair, so I was kind of relieved to get out of there and over to Irene’s Pub where we could spread out a bit, eat breakfast, read the paper and do the crossword puzzle.

Later we went to GC’s place to deliver Duncan’s blanket to The Dog, who was very interested and enthusiastic about it. Here I am reading Elizabeth Hay’s A Student of Weather and hanging out with The Dog.

GC made us oatmeal for dinner. This was no ordinary oatmeal, mind you. He’s on a mission to make me love oatmeal more than I love Neil Diamond, so he put raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, kiwis, apples, cinnamon, ginger, cashews, raisins and bananas in the oatmeal. This left very little room in the bowls for the actual oatmeal, so we ate out of casserole dishes. It was yummy, but I think I still love Neil Diamond marginally more than oatmeal.

Speaking of Neil Diamond, we went to the Bytown Tavern on Thursday night to watch Jo Stockton spin records, and she played a Neil Diamond tune just for me! And somehow – I don’t know what kind of DJ wizardry she employed to do this – she made it fit right in with all the other hip music she was playing.

There’s a new poll coming later today, and this one is Serious Stuff. Stay tuned.