Word.

Yikes, it's really happening. Alea iacta est. I dropped off a booth request form at my local antiques/crafts mall a little over a month ago. I didn't expect a response anytime soon; for reasons I can't quite explain, I was kind of assuming they'd never respond. But they did. And they forced me to make a snap decision on the phone, when I was one glass of dry rose into my Saturday night, which led to my signing a lease on Monday and snapping photos of a 3-by-4-foot stall walled in on three sides by white pegboard. And wondering what the hell I'm going to put in it? And where can I get some supercute pricetags? And how do you hang shelves on pegboard? And—inventory?

Last night I started dragging stuff out of closets. Things I've bought at estate sales cuz I couldn't resist how cheap they were even though I didn't especially want/need them. But mostly stuff from my house in Brooklyn that I couldn't bring myself to get rid of when I moved but also didn't feel right in the Atomic Money Pit. I'm thinking my little booth is going to look a lot like my Brooklyn house, writ very small.

One of the oddities that emerged from the closet was a taxidermy deer foot thermometer. I remember really cherishing this item; it had a place of honor on a bookcase. Now I find it gross. But it caught the eye of my younger packrat child who started clamoring for it immediately. The older one was repelled: "That's just sad! The poor deer. Sell it!" The younger one was outraged: "No, no! Let me have it! I don't have one of those!"

Oh, child. I can't sell the deer-foot thermometer because you don't have a deer-foot thermometer? I sense trouble on the horizon. I don't think some people are ever going to be able to visit mommy's little store, which I expect will be full of things we don't have.

I am so selling that deer foot thermometer. If there's a market for it, of course.