What a week!


It is Wednesday and I have yet to do my weekly That Was The Week That Was Blog. Frankly it has taken me to now to begin to process the week. It definitely reminded me of roller coasters I have known and loved.

Friday, my birthday, was a high even though to get to Albuquerque I had to drive through the most awful layer of smoke from the Wallow Fire on the New Mexico/Arizona border. But I made it with my eyes burning and my throat raw. I set up my exhibition at High Desert Art and Frame and then went to my friend's house in the near by mountains to prepare for the reception that night. Fortunately the air there was a lot nicer. I was satisfied with my arrangement of paintings and photographs, liked the venue and the owner. My sister called to say she would not make it but other than that things went swimmingly in spite of the health alerts because of the smoke layer.

Albuquerque is known for its thermal inversions because of the shape of the valley it lies in so the smoke did not help. I spent the weekend living on allergy meds while doing a once over pass on the used car markets, attended a baby shower, and enjoyed time with my best friend. Coming home on Sunday the air was even worse. But my side of the mountain was clearer.

Monday morning, still in a fibro fog from exhaustion and battling the smoke, I got broadsided by my artists representative that had set up the show. She e-mailed at me demanding I pay her as agreed the $65 I owed her and upset I had not profusely thanked her on my fanpage. Number one I am never profuse and I had complimented the reception and she had commented glowingly. But number two was she had switched the amount, and the messaged agreement (shades of the contractor from hell). It was suppose to be $60 upon the first sale. Not $65 at the reception (btw she never mentioned it that night). I raised these points as what I remembered. And she said that she never said that.

I went back and found the thread in our Facebook messages and continued the thread pointing out the date she had said 60 upon first sale, but said if she needed the money I would just send her the $60 on Wednesday after I got my SS deposit. I just wanted to point out I had not renigged on our agreement as she accused. I rather thought that settled the matter. But she messaged me back in a very abusive manner and told me my paintings were too high priced for the market and would never sell, and that I was not sophisticated enough for the Albuquerque Market and should not try to sell my work in that city again. Then she got personal.

I had mentioned on my personal page in Facebook going to the spa with my friend, and buying a grapefruit knife and spoons. She went viral on her fan page about how unprofessional I was naming me specifically, (she was suppose to promote my work for the entire month of the exhibit but this was not what I thought that would look like) and on my personal page about how I had money for the spa and dinnerware but not to pay her. The spa was off a previously paid for punch card (before the tooth and the car repairs) and the "dinnerware" was less than $15 out of the twenty given to me by a friend as a birthday gift. She then e-mailed me and threatened to take me to court for the $65. Duh?

Thus far I thought my behavior was highly professional. I had not done anything on FB that anyone could see. I handled our dispute on messages and e-mails, and never refused to pay her just said I couldn't until Wednesday. But people began to mention what she had said about me on her fan page which I had not seen as yet. When I went there I was livid and reported the abuse to FB in my process of blocking her. FB asked for a specific example by clicking on it on her page but as I had blocked her I couldn't do that. What is FB thinking? They should ask for that information before they act on the block request!

Then Yahoo!Messenger decided to totally screw up my new computer. Even McAfee thinks their site for a new download of the program I have used for over two decades is dangerous. So I spent part of yesterday cleaning my hard drive up and deleting Yahoo Messenger. Maybe there is something in the air causing things and people to go viral.

The good news is that my squash seem to be doing quite well in their little jerry-rigged hot bed. And I am home where the air is relatively clean - certainly better than Houston on a good day. My fur kids still love me.

Comments

  1. The Blog of BeeJune 12, 2011 at 9:27 AM

    First of all all kudos to you for having actually gotten down to it. Apart from Magpie and this morning I haven't posted anything.

    I do wish I'd had the time to come here earlier but you know that i was thinking of you.

    Where on earth sis you find that oh so rude artists representative?? I can't believe I missed all this on FB - well I can as I've been under a deluge of work. I read about the grapefruit knife and spoons but did not see the rest. Could you still get to her page? Methinks after all those very nasty remarks about your paintings, the green eye of envy is showing.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Polyethylene Packaging - a Dark Times Journal entry

Image
I was in the fourth grade when our family moved from El Paso, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved because I could not breathe the air there. I want to say they cracked petroleum there. But what did I know beyond the sky was sometimes yellow and I could not breathe. Mom was pregnant with Debbie, and Gary and I rode in the backseat separated by a round tank full of Dad's tropical fish. Dad had a job with Sealright, Inc which made paper milk cartons. Sealright was a polyethylene packing subsidiary of Phillips 66. The petroleum company. I was rather proud of myself for learning to say that, and to not laugh when adults would stare at me not knowing what to ask about that. Albuquerque smelled better. Then. Before all the freeways were built and the shape of the valley trapped the exhaust down near the ground in the winter months. We lived in the foothills. I could breathe. I learned that if I could see the air I could not. Still it was better than El Paso though I missed our trip...
Read more

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r...
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f...
Read more