Tuesday, December 23, 2014:
Ashland, Oregon
Monday and Tuesday the adventurers began their sorting out of travel gear and gifts to bring to Ireland. The Expedition to Cork to see the grandparents and Prince Cian to play with his cousins. A journey to retrieve some magical healing waters. A journey to commune with the Fae. A time for family and friends. The adventurers play merchanteers took the sage advice of fellow business owners in Ashland believing that this week – especially the days up to Christmas Eve, would be the most prosperous sales moments of the year. Wrong that prophecy beheld – as the delvers felt afterwards that they should have closed up for the week – The sales and foot traffic for monday and tuesday were low. The explorers sacrificed their sanity and free time to stay open every day in December until Xmas eve in hopes the fortold tales would hold true and pessimistic with how little support the shoppers had with Main street and small local shops … apparently the big chains with their super pre-Xmas sales nabbed the business from the mom and pops. Gearing up for the exodus, final touches were made with the Amazon cart and web sites in preparation for the new year. Sir Thomas Leaf spent most of Tuesday updating inventory online and dealing with inventory that Amazon suppressed because of photos, listing details, and other issues. Amazon banned his Pirate replica toy guns (and squirt guns) because of some silliness that they look like real weapons (they don’t as they have the florescent caps in them) and Sir Thomas Leaf had a email war with Maison Terre herbal company who felt threatened by his “Sell Yours Now” listing he took advantage on with their Organic Black Cohosh root. Somehow the novices at Maison Terre felt they could “trademark and brand” Organic Black Cohosh root they repackage and sell on their own, and felt they had the right to “own” the listing of “Organic Black Cohosh Root, 1 oz bag” on Amazon. They made threats, even went stupidly low to state “Tree Leaves Oracle listing is fradulent” in their listing in attempts to cohert them to remove the listing off of Amazon. This of course just infuriated Sir Thomas Leaf who told them how it is, reported them to Amazon, and still have kept the listing alive. Of course with their two week vacation coming up, the Tree Leaves’ listing will disappear while the adventurers are in Ireland, so “Maison Terre” will think they won, and then two weeks later the listing will re-appear and the battle will probably restart again. Competition is silliness and the fact struggling artisans and healers feel threatened by others providing similar goods and services really shows the bad side to many, and Maison Terre has done nothing other than shown their true colors in this matter Sir Thomas Leaf felt. Lots to prepare and lots to do, the trio were very busy these days through. Late nights, photo work, last minute shipments priority to those trying to get Xmas presents arriving on time. Our Trio were exhausted each and every evening.
Leaf’s photo of sculpture atop the Hill of Uisneach, photo card with blurb
