Your fav-o-rite introvert reports…

jigsaw1…after running a North Country Trail table at the Quiet Water Symposium for a whole day. To prepare myself, I left our plushy hotel this morning and walked along the Red Cedar River through campus both ways as far as I could. I tried to walk through the arboretum but it wasn’t entirely shoveled and I only had my Keens on in teen temps. But the sidewalks along the river were dry unlike last year, when I hiked in boots and YakTrax and saluted a plow driver or two.

Turned south down Farm Road to the Pavilion and after changing from my long wool skirt into my cute blue petal skirt (in the parking lot in front of god and everyone), I headed inside to be a booth babe or whatever it is that I was. The GG loves to approach (!) everyone that stops by our booth. My modus operandi is the introvert method. If a person doesn’t walk directly up to the booth and engage me, I smile and make eye contact. We get into a conversation or we don’t. It doesn’t matter to me either way. When I take a break to walk around the symposium, I don’t often want to talk to people either. I would rather just look at things without somebody trying to “sell” me something.

jigsaw2But I had fun talking to people about the NCT and our section of it and other sections and other hiking trails altogether. Probably my fave moment of the day was when I routinely pointed out to someone that the section of the trail that we were representing was the Eastern UP section from the Mackinac Bridge to the mouth of the Two-Hearted River. That person asked if I was “rejecting” the lower peninsula. I was taken aback for about a split second but then I recovered and said, “I live in Ann Arbor”. That person changed his tune pretty damn quick! I will never figger why we have to fuss with each other about Yooperland and Troll-land. I love both and there are wonderful places to hike / ski / bike / kayak all over The Great Lake State. “Can’t we all just along?”

The photo and associated jigsaw puzzle drew a lot of people in to our booth. I wondered if it would be finished by the end of the day (5:30) or not. Most people kind of picked at it, which I expected. One kid seemed to remove more pieces than he added although he was greatly interested. Finally the couple in the pic persisted in finishing it off. (They posed for the photo but I didn’t ask if I could post it but they were wonderful, so I hope they don’t mind. I’ll certainly take it down if they see and *do* mind.) And then it was after 5:00 and we were packing up and I took the puzzle apart and packaged it up for another day.

It was pretty cold when I walked this morning but thanks to the weather gods, it was 40 by the time we left the pavilion this afternoon, which was wonderful since last year we drove home through a frickin’ snowstorm. This year, I drove home, we (aka the GG) unloaded the Frog Hopper and headed over to Knight’s to become porterized. And eat.

Good night! KW!

One Response to “Your fav-o-rite introvert reports…”

  1. Margaret Says:

    I would be terrible at manning a booth because I talk too much. I wouldn’t sell anything! It sounds like it was a great day for you, full of interesting conversations. (and well handled by you!)