Weekend at the Portland Saturday Market

This last weekend was fun times at the Portland Saturday Market. Here are a few pictures... sorta a day in the life of a vendor :)In the morning on Saturday the streets at 3rd and Ankeny were closed off and I went to check out the mayhem (a DJ on a big painted hummer truck thing? lots of kids in soccer outfits?) and turns out there was a mini soccer tournament going on. 3-3 soccer games in little plywood squares set up in the street, it looked like fun! (I want to say this might have something to do with the fact that Portland has bought itself a soccer team? Maybe they are trying to drum up more enthusiasm for soccer? Or maybe it was just the traveling tournament? who knows)Friends came to visit the market, it was a busy sunny day... here is Joy visiting with Naomi and Erin...and Maggie finished this beautiful embroidered towelnow that we have a stage again at the market I have been enjoying the music very much! This guy was great, a one-man-band of sorts (he had one of those repeater foot-petal gadgets, I love this kinda of music) Heres a link for his work, American Nobody
And then in the evening on Saturday there was the annual Portland Saturday Market Vendor Party. Oh yeah baby. Potluck, Rogue beer, games for the kids (of all ages) and a Mexican theme to tie it all together.
I must say - this years vendor party had an incredible turn out! It was so wonderful to see so many vendors bring their families and stay after working hours to enjoy our new site and socialize a bit with each other. We are a huge group of lively people!!
There was a food contest of sorts for the pot-luck affair - lucky winners received PSM tee shirts and stuff like that.

Erwin brought his ceviches - ooooh they are soooo yummy! There was so much food, but I just had to give a shout out to the Chilean ceviche and the tamales!!!
There was a pinata for the kidsThis picture is just a few of the kids right before the pinata thing started. There was a big pack this year and man they swarmed that beaten pinata when the candy started to fly, it was like Lord of the Flies or something up in there!!! And my booth was right next to the mayhem! I had shredded pieces of pinata decorating the floor of my booth the next day! I'm just glad they didn't do the beating right in my booth, instead the line of impatiently waiting kids was housed by my booth, the pinata was hung next door in Tom's booth. Lucky Tom :)

I noticed the kids were kicking around the Elmo pinata head for the rest of the night.

Another brilliant game was the "Tortilla Toss". That was fun! We wrote our names on a tortilla and then stood in line to chuck the flattened corn as far as possible. We used the new waterfront esplanade, only one or two tortillas ended up in the river to feed the birds (and we dutifully cleaned up any scrap of mess afterward on the esplanade). I do believe that Rob (Spoiled Cat) won the Tortilla Toss. He claimed it was his frisbee golf skillz at work, also he said that everyone else was holding their tortillas too much and getting them warm, he kept his on top of his head so it would stay cool and stiff, therefore catching more flight time :) Ahhh the technique. I liked how Tony crumpled his up into a little ball and tried to chuck that, but it was so brittle that it all fell to pieces and flew around like shrapnel.

Here is a good picture of Rob and his winning fling (and you can see the tortillas on the ground)
There also was a game of "Musical Squares" - I won me some hot sauce! Thanks Jeff for modeling my winnings :)

Plus I must add - Charlie took a LOT of great pictures of the vendor party, and hes uploaded them onto Facebook: HERE its funny to see all the pictures of Jimmy with vendors (that's Jimmy Hendrix of course!)