Well, the good news is that we're going on a little vacation at the end of the week...4 days up at Deep Creek Lake. I'm trying to get everything ready for the Dizzy Lynn's venture before I go. But I think that's pretty ambitious.

My inventory has gotten a boost from the good graces of Donna, who gave me some vintage cookbooks and costume jewelry which belonged to her grandmother. Thanks so much!!

With the shop shaping up The Winkle - that strange and sparkling feeling I get when I run....

across an item which has value that other people have overlooked - has been getting a work out lately. Dare I say I've been honing it? Though I'm not exactly sure it can be honed. To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure it can be used in the traditional sense in which a person might use a job skill. In fact, the only way The Winkle can work is to NOT use it - at least not in the "front of your mind" I think that everybody gets The Winkle...called a hunch, a gut feeling, an inspiration. It's just that if you're willing to listen to it and accept it then it can benefit you.

And that's harder than you'd think, for more than one reason. Because The Winkle is like The Force: it has a dark side. Pay my phone bill as it might, I'm not without reservations about opening my whole heart? Mind? Gut? - whatever - to it completly. It came over me two times today, with very different results.

The second time was the bright side. We'd been to the Westminster Antique Mall, where my booth will be located, and had gone over to the Goodwill to try to find a cheap bookcase for me to use as a display piece. I wasn't looking for inventory. I was looking for a bookcase. But I cruised the china and glass asle anyway, aimlessly, seeing not much until I noticed a canister/cookie jar, a little dirty like things often are at GW's. Wouldn't it be funny if I turned that over and it was Lefton? I thought. So I picked it up and turned it over. And it was.

For those of you who don't know, Lefton is a pretty heavily collected maker of vintage china, plates, figurines...very whimsical, fun stuff. But I am by no means an expert on Lefton. In fact, what I just wrote is the extent of my whole knowledge on the subject. But when I held that piece in my hands I knew it was worth way more than the $2.00 I gladly paid for it. It's probably worth about $20.00, easily, maybe more, for being truly hard to find, if my research on eBay and Replacements Ltd. is any indication.

But it was the first episode of the Shadow Side of The Winkle which makes it, often, far from worth $18 for the trouble.

When we were at WAM, we went down an aisle I'd never, for some reason, gone down before. I don't know why I'd never gone down it. I've been in the antiqe mall a hundred times. I guess I was following The Hub. Oh, that must be that booth The Hub was telling me about where the guy specializes in military antiques I thought as a hand made Vietnamese hat from the era of the Viet Nam war caught my eye. I thought I'd like to have a closer look at it, to see how it was made....and no sooner did I take that decision than I was flooded with a feeling of horror and dread so deep - to say nothing about so unrelated to anything actually happening to me on a cold, clear, County Sunday morning - it was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears. My heart rate shot up, I broke into a sweat, and the edges of my vision were gray. I staggered and reached out for something to steady myself in case I fell, a stomach churning misery raising bile in my throat.

I have a name for this feeling. I call it "Gettysburg Effect" since I most often feel this way at sites of heavy violence. I made it to the bench at the end of the row, unwound my scarf and wiped my sweating brow. I hoped I wasn't having a heart attack. I guess this is what people call an anxiety attack. But it receeded in direct proportion to my distance from the booth. The Hub went off to get me a soda, and a gentleman stopped to ask if I was all right - I must have looked dreadful.

"That guy ought to be more responsible" said The Hub when he got back. He's familiar with this problem. After all, we've been married for 10 years. "Some of that stuff really crosses the line, in my opinion. It's inappropriate."

"What?" I asked, a little dazed.

"Was it the shoes that upset you?"

"Shoes?"

"Was it the WWII Japanese Officer's Uniform?"

"I don't think so. I just saw a hat. Shoes?"

"That guy has shoes he claims were worn by people in concentration camps. That's enough to make anybody queasy" he said.

But I hadn't seen shoes or uniforms or anything else. At least not with the front part of my mind. I was embarrassed. What the hell was wrong with me? But I'm not going over there again - not for love nor money.

I hope that guy doesn't decide to relocate to a booth near mine! The Winkle put me in business...but it could take me out of business with just as easily.