My publicist wants to know: where's my nomination?!

I'm having a very stardust moment here. Please don't scare it away. Dustpan Alley is officially official. This is a big moment for a would-have-been fashion designer: I have my own LABELS! For the first time in my designing life I have a label to prove I have a spot on the retail shelves of the world. C'mon-buy a Dustpan Alley apron, then you can say you were wearing Dustpan Alley before it went global on your ass. Aren't they pretty? We kept it simple. Not because we're elegant that way; to be honest, it's because these need to go in both the men's aprons as well as the women's aprons. It couldn't be too fancy. Men tend not to enjoy "fancy".

I have Philip to thank for designing as well as negotiating this wonderful moment in my life. You want to know what it makes me want to do? It makes me want to design house dresses. (Which is what my mom keeps nudging me to do, which is curious since she's not a house-dress wearing kind of lady, being more in the gypsyish free-floating non-housewifey stylin' line of fashion). I can be anything now. I can sew something and slap a label on it and PRESTO, it becomes a part of the Dustpan Alley line.

But don't call it a franchise or I will have to slap you. Since I am dedicated to a life of non-violence, this will hurt me more than it will hurt you.

Speaking of non-violence, we have now sold five Peace aprons. Hopefully we will sell more this month and then at the end of the month I will write out my first donation check to MoveOn.org. So I want to thank the people who have already shopped for Peace:

A huge thank you to: Kelly, Karmyn, Tracey, and Rachel! I salute you for supporting both Dustpan Alley and Peace. You ladies KICK BA-HOOKIE!!!

So, speaking of supporting Dustpan Alley...we are doing really well right now. I mean, Philip still needs to get a job, but the tide is turning. We've done more sales in the first week of May than we did for the whole month of February. If we did this well every single week of the month, we will have almost made our sales goal. What's even better is that just as Philip has begun the painful and degrading process of looking for work, some free-lance work has suddenly materialized. I think it's infinitely interesting that the work comes to us via two people that we have been paying to help us with our business. Our sign guy, Frank Ponz, gave Philip's card to a new scrapbook business here in town to help them illustrate their new logo. Thank you Frank!!

And, by the way, Frank's wonderfully opinionated wife Carol has not only been shopping quite a lot at our store, she's also been bringing her friends to shop here too. Carol: curmudgeons unite! You totally rock!*

We met with our marketing person this week. Every time I say "marketing person" my mind does a little burp and "my publicist" leaks into my brain. My marketing person is a super spaz named Angeleen Umfleet whose Advertising business is called Riveting Design. She gave us an outline of objectives for our store to help us increase sales. It turns out that Angeleen is doing so well right now that she may have some work for Philip to help her. Can you beat that? She raises beef for her family on the side, so this is a woman you must take seriously.

I believe that if you're going to hire a person to help you market your business, it's important that you follow their instructions, otherwise you're just pouring your money down the sewer line. So here are some things we've been instructed to do:

• Join the chamber of commerce in both McMinnville and Newberg. (We've been meaning to for months, but it takes a directive from my publicist marketing person to get me to march down to the building (which is only four blocks from where I work) and sign up and hand them over a lot of money.

• Dress the flippin part for God's sake! Yup, that's pretty much what she said. She said "Woman, I don't care if you weigh 600 lbs, you will put on an apron, headscarf, and lipstick every damn day and act like you mean to put every sad Jane into one of your awesome aprons!!" Damn straight! You said it sistah! (As a matter of little importance, I wore my Chelsea Carlton hostess apron all day long yesterday even though it made me feel not-so-good about my stomach. I also put on my Sophia eye-liner.)

• Think big and live large. No, wait, that was Donald Trump who said that. It's hard to take him seriously because I will never get past the comb-over which I know you already know since I am incapable of saying his name without also mentioning his phenomenally awful hair. I guess that's proof that you can have some blaring ill-conceived body or fashion flaw and still make millions and have a doll made in your likeness.

• Bake cookies in the store in an Easy Bake oven or a toaster oven. Because we're trying to sell stylish domesticity, we need to make people feel like they're entering the Improved June Cleaver zone. We need to give people the urge to rush home with new sassy pot holders and start baking a lemon meringue pie in their pink oven.

She had a lot more to share but if you want more tips like these you will either have to hire Angeleen or pay me an advance on my book about how to barely stumble into business success. (I've got my pen poised for action by the way. Are you an editor looking for the hottest new business book? Look no further! I'll do it. I'll show everyone WHAT NOT TO DO, similar to the British show "What Not To Wear".)

One more thing, I just want to extend a very warm thank you to Susan Hanson for being our very best customer and for being so flippin nice too. It was fascinating getting cross examined by your husband while I wrapped gifts the other evening-he's quite a character!




*so what's up with my frequent use of this 1980's expression? Am I experiencing a little regression or something?