Friday Finally

Coffee in the New York skyline mug, "Gone Again" by the Indigo Girls on iTunes. I did a playlist of all the songs in my library associated with "gone". Whah. My spouse is off to New York till Sunday. I miss him already--and his little car too. I should've driven him to the airport and kept the Mini for the weekend. Heck, I (we) should've gone with him! In 10 minutes I'm dropping J off at a playdate for the day. Sadly it looks like it won't be a sleepover, but then I don't know what I'd do if I were alone a day and a night. I can't remember the last time I was home with neither J nor D... Must have been before J was born so almost seven years. Weird. I spent over half of my adult life living alone, and now I can't even remember what it feels like.

But glass, you say. What about glass? Wednesday I took some of the clear irid scrap that I suspected to be contaminated with yellow and fired it to fuse temps in the little kiln. I suspected it because it looked like it might be a bit more yellow or off in some way from the rest of the scrap. I fired about 10 pieces--all identical pre-fire--and only one of them changed, but it struck to a bright yellow. The good news is that it was only one. The bad news is that it was only one. If all of them had struck I would feel more confident about my ability to spot the problem glass. But since I was only about 10% right, I have no way to tell which scrap (morceaux) might be a problem. Becky and I identified about 20-30 lbs of morceaux on Wednesday (up to six 5-lb jars) that could contain contaminated glass... What a massive headache. Bullseye wants me to fill out a standard form of what I did, how I combined the glass, the manufacturing dates and sheet numbers of the affected glass, ya de ya de ya. While I can see the value from their viewpoint, all it means from mine is wasting a lot more time on an expensive and time-consuming problem caused by someone else's mistake. I am not paid to do quality control. I understand their desire for some evidence that the glass was contaminated, but the data I have provided already--written up by my rep, not me--should be enough. The information requested on the form just irritates me.

Shaking it off. One of my galleries called yesterday about an order for 150-250 pieces for a client by Mid-November. On the one hand, I would love to have an order this size as the year slows down, on the other, it's a short amount of time in which to do that many fused and slumped pieces, and the client (understandably for an order that size) wants pricing closer to wholesale, and the gallery wants to make their normal cut, and I can't really go lower in my pricing... I feel a bit squeezed. Got to work it out today to see if it makes sense or if I should just walk away. This is a gallery with whom I have a really good relationship and I want to do it if I can, but I don't want to lose money. Bullseye has raised their glass prices 10%, my prices will not go up to compensate till after the first of the year, shipping has also skyrocketed this year, and I'm being asked to go even lower than my regular wholesale pricing.

Okay, I need to find a happy place! This week has been filled with gloomy posts. I am going to end with a ray of sunshine... I'll let you know when I find one.