i can't believe it's new years. it feels really strange. tomorrow, 2005. weird. holly made it safely and even found the house. which is really cool. she and kitty have found true love. which is more or less what happens with anyone who meets kitty. per sarah, kitty is a love machine.

poor mr. car. this morning i drove to work holding my door closed. it's only 20 degrees. why are the door mechanisms freezing at 20 now, when they worked all last year through the -20's. this is is not a good sign. as mary put it, i'll be putting my new car planning into effect much sooner. if i don't ever have to drive farther than ellsworth it should be ok. i programmed mary's home number into my cell. if anything goes awry in the vicinity of ellsworth, i'm pretty sure she likes me enough to rescue me. (crosses fingers)
mmm...golf

TONI

You are caring and generous, a pillar of your
circle of friends. And even the cartoonist
doesn't understand you.


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it is snowy and warm today. even if it's a little gray. cute mr. two-dollar bills told us that the weird thing on top of the geddy's b&b is indeed an eagle. a christmas eagle. whatever. so since i'm expecting houseguests, i've actually cleaned up the living room. and hung my glittery target van gogh's. what could be better than glitter covered iris' from target? not much my friends, not much. unfortunately i had to patch a bit of the walls. and i swear the can said gloss. but alas, i have flat patches. because i am a dumbass. so now i can paint the rest of the room flat. or i can get gloss paint and hope it matches. which is probably what i'll do because i have neither the time nor inclination or enough paint to do the whole room.
so, houseguests. holly is coming for new years and hopefully sarah wants to come visit too sometime soon. that will be very cool indeed. and it's not even that cold. not like last time. with the survival panic. and my neighbors have dogs, and they're so cute. one's a husky and one's just big and cute. i'm sure it's some fancy breed but i have no idea which. you can hear him running back and forth uptairs when jeff gets home. such is the joy.

the short of it is that my mom is really sick. the effect of the drugs is sort of like alzheimers. she spent one day telling my sister what a bad person she was. she told me i'm a drain on the family's finances while simultaneously pressing her debit card on me to buy holly dinner. it was strange, very strange. and since i can't think of anything else to say that is remotely positive, i think i'll end this christmas story there.
on the upside, mary and i still have about 5 lbs. of chocolate to work our way through. calorie rich therapy. mmm. we've also started preparing for the "employee recognition event". which is sure to include games and puzzles and the like, because what kind of self-respecting fool wouldn't want to sing "i'm a little tea-pot" to their colleagues to win a company t-shirt? err. nonetheless, mary and i are very competitive. perhaps even fierce. and her husband is a good sport. so i'm sure we'll have a good time and win a boatload of t-shirts.

mary: so, what did you get for christmas?
me: treated badly, you?
mary: haha
me: no, really.


i guess that's not as funny as i thought it would be.

so just because i have to work till 1, drive five hours, and i haven't wrapped any of my presents yet, there's no reason to worry. right. i'm sure it'll be fine. merry merry and all that, right. err.

i bought the worlds tiniest remote control mini cooper for my nephew. i had got him a very cute pig puppet, at cracker barrel. so you know it was class. but he is now five, and in school, and too cool for fuzzy pink toys. such i learned when we went shopping together and he formed emotional bonds with the slime-cano and some monster thing that shot stuff out of it's arms. and so, remote control car it is. it's really quite hard to find a cool toy for a five year old. because they're really too little for a lot of things that they really want to be big enough for. and if i got something that the baby would choke on, my sister would hunt me down like a dog. so naturally, to make sure the toy is safe. mary and i have been driving it around the bank. dodging the customers, of course. i think i'll have to pick up one for myself.
i guess the piggy will go to grace. who is way too little. but we all know i don't need more stuffed animals in my life. or my house. not that i don't love them. i am a manatee, and i do like to eat and rest. but they take up a lot of space.
we have this one customer who comes in every friday. and since it's friday, and we're hella bored, we're always having some assanine conversation in which we involve him. ie: the true definition of slurpee, just how insightful is princess diaries 2, and on and on. he came in monday, which is rare, and i couldn't think of anything dumb to talk about with him. we were all dissapointed. and since he's coming in this afternoon instead of tomorrow i have to try and think of something to chat about. i'm thinking of draught beer in a can, genius marketing lie or no? unless anyone has anything more ridiculous. or i could always just run over him in my mini cooper and keep up my reputation for excitement that way.
it seems that people really enjoy the incompetence and unprofessionalism of my tellering style. who knew?

i didn't really get to finish that post because i had to work and stuff. but i wanted to add that i hate that i can't fit in to lane bryant clothes. not that i really like them. it's just that that store is supposed to make you feel like you belong when you're not skinny right. and they don't love me. but then no one else does either. why can't they just get together and get these sizes mainstreamed. a normal sized t-shirt at old navy is a xxl. bastards. so anyway, lane bryant excludes me. except for their bras. that's the only store i can find them. and it sucks that they want me to buy their magazine when i just want to buy an overpriced bra. just sell me my exorbitant undergarment and leave me be.
and also, vaguely related, i was reading this article that placed kate winslett as a plus size actress. that's f'ed up.

lane bryant are manipulative bastards. they tried to force me to buy their fat girl magazine. apparently if you buy the magazine, you get a discount. but i already had a coupon. and i don't need more useless crap in my house. i was very enraged. and the lady kept saying "i just can't believe you want to spend more money". that made me even more rage-tastic. was i being a spaz, or is it really wrong to make people buy your magazine? i think i've been sold that magazine before. because i've read it before, and they don't ask if you want it. they just ring it up. and the magazine was crap. it was all about how men really do like big women. and that is just not my deal. validation is good, i guess. but forced validation in the name of comercialism pisses me off. now i have to go count money.

so it's cold and i'm home and i really am glad to be back. i had a very excellent time and it's made me think about alot of things. holly and sarah are both planning to come visit. mary keeps calling me a wild woman. and paul really loved his crab hat. dennis and i are discussing nature vs. nurture in the political arena. he thinks i'd like bush if he agreed with me, but i say no because if he agreed with me he would do less stupid things that make me hate him.
apparently there was a stabbing on cottage street last week. the one week i wasn't here, and someone gets stabbed downtown. wild and crazy bar harbor. i missed my customers actually. the nice boy who gets 2 dollar bills and fifty cent pieces with his birth year on them because that's how much a budweiser costs (someone at the whale is cursing me right now!) and the nice, if a little strange, couple who invited me over for christmas if i'm alone this year. it seems that i was very much missed and mary is taking great delight in telling folks about the bar fight thing. and the burning the hole in the carpet thing. did i mention that last part before...lamps are hot, apparently, when they're on the floor, for a while. who knew?

i should say, if matt stops by the site that today is our open house full of holiday cheer, just so you know.
that other thing, my vacation, was very cool indeed. my first night there we saw a very good band and got into a bar fight with some santas. kirsten was nicknamed pinky by a very feisty drunk girl. the drunk girl was very cute, despite screaming pinky! down the length of the bar and doing that reeling in the fish thing. i met the boy kirsten is seeing, and the boy laura is seeing, and the girl that amy really wants to see and also her girlfriend. err. i got a new tattoo, and i did alot of shopping. and a little bit of drinking. and there were alot of drugs, none of which were taken by me. very exciting.

so i was loading this huge box of beer, given to me by a very nice customer, when another customer drives by and honks. and this morning he called and asked how the party was. there's just something special about a small town.
mary brought me the best gift ever from hawaii. a notepad with a tan hello kitty surfing. it's just so cute. i love her. birthdays are fun. annie brought me some funny books last night and helped me move the futon. maybe the best thing about having no police is that you can totally drive with a sofa hanging out of your trunk without worry of legal repurcussion.
i'm trying to fix all the things i need to fix and finish before i go away. it seems i have alot of projects in the air when it feels like i do so little.

i just licked 148 envelopes. and boy, are my double entendres tired.

last night i drove my often jailed neighbor to rite-aid. she called me at the bank, and it was very odd. apparently her ex has a protection order against her. and she offered him a ham. and she got put in jail. while she was in jail they lost power, and it was very unpleasant. funny thing that, jail being unpleasant.
holly dearest from highschool and i have been having a lot of chats recently. we're discussing seeing some of the other friends from highschool. the half people. and how we always behave like half people when we're with them. and how we don't want to be half people. there are two choices: we can just not see them, or we can be ourselves and stand the chance of scaring them away. hard call.

is the sedition act of 1798 still an active law? it seems that would put alot of bloggers in jail.

i'm supposed to be decorating the bank for christmas. but i'm a scrooge. i just don't feel like christmas. part of it is that my parents never did christmas stuff till after my birthday. we always got the tree after my birthday and started freaking out about the christmas party then. annie and i got my fake tree last year christmas eve or something. it was on sale, so it must have been pretty close to the deadline. i haven't decided if i'll put it up this year. because i'm a scrooge. or well actually, i'm just busy. finishing the move, and then unpacking, and then vacation next week. as it is the bank christmas party is on the monday i get back and i have to figure out what to bake for the party on sunday in the wee hours. perhaps i'll buy a package of those green and red oreos and call it a day. part of it is that i'll be home for christmas this year and they'll be all christmassy even if they only do it for the kids. it'll be fun to have christmas with kids around. i can spoil reid and squish grace's fat little legs.

amy the mas called me yesterday. to get directions to the montgomery mall. i love her. she's well and she's very excited i'm coming to visit. i've made arrangements to buy summer beer for her. my liquor store buddy is going to help me out.
i'm very nearly done moving. unfortunately i didn't move things like my coat, or gloves and the like, so i'll have to do that right quick this evening. it's getting cold out.

the new apartment has a shower massage. 'nuff said.

i started moving. the most important things first. my andrew wyeth print(it's a maine farmhouse dudes) and the stereo and cds. if all my music is somewhere else, i think it'll light a fire under my ass to finish the process. i unloaded some things into the kitchen. and i realized that i have a spice rack. and i put the spices on it. which is very cool, only i realized i have five containers of basil. actually, six. man oh man, is that alot of basil. i'm going to have that basil until i die. it's going to be like the brasso from 1972 that my dad refuses to throw away. "i can't throw it away, i paid good money for that." can you donate spices to the food kitchen?

mr. financial services and i have been having a lengthy conversation about national sales tax. ie, a blanket sales tax that would replace income tax and other irs taxes. i suggested that we make prostitution and drugs legal and tax them to the hilt, but he hasn't responded to that yet. it goes hand in hand with the idea of recouping drug money from pimp spending sprees. it's an interesting thought. all of those auditors would have to get new jobs. something to think about anyway. not to say that we haven't been insanely busy today. i don't get it. all of these weird bank problems have been popping up today and i can't seem to get any answers. it's a major bummer.

you know, it's hard to be me and mary. mary does alot of stuff. she's busy. which means i'm busy. i can't wait till she gets back.

dude, hi! i tried to leave a comment, but it was hard, and this is easier. and in the words of sarah "we're fucking lazy".
and also, i'm fucking blind with the old glasses. but mr. nice construction guy said they were cute. and they suit me. these are the geek glasses. so yes, they certainly do suit me. i don't think i used to give boys very much credit for being nice, but it seems there are lots of nice boys around. i just never noticed.

kitty is fine, a diagnosed over groomer. to mare, she doesn't really have a name, she goes by kitty, or fuzzy, or astra if we're at the vet. i still haven't found my glasses. i hope i didn't pack them.
it's not snowing as we were told it would, and it doesn't look like it will be. it's pretty warm out and it's raining a bit. snow would be a downer with the moving. i'm going to try to start tonight. after i make my third attempt at getting my headlight replaced. third time is the charm right? we lost power last night, while we were at the vet. i think the concensus was that someone hit a pole or something at the head of the island. town was very dark indeed. the animals took it very well though. no meowing or barking or anything. and the nice vet guy helped us get down the stairs in the dark.
while i'm thinking about electricity i should really call and get the new apartment electrified. like soon. like now maybe. hmm.

fuzzy and i have a date tonight, at the vet. i put a lot of catnip in her carrier. we don't have alot of time to get in the carrier and back to town, so we need the drugs, really. and we'll see what's causing the baldness. poor kitty.
in other news, i can't find my glasses. anywhere. i'm wearing the dorky brown plastic ones from sophomore year. and i expect to be blind by the time we close.
i'm supposed to start moving tonight, and i'm supposed to go back to the car place too. the car people were really very nice about the headlight thing. and i went in last tuesday to get the bulb replaced...but they didn't have any. and so i went in last night, and four guys spent half an hour removing the light only to tell me they still didn't have any. and then another half hour trying to put it back together. i hope when i go back mr. nice guy is there because it only took him about 4 seconds to do all that same work last time. mr. nice guy had me comvinced, by the ease of his workmanship, that i could totally change the thing myself next time and save alot of money. but the fellas last night have me spooked. there were wratchets, and wrenches and tiny flashlights involved. they had a guy under the car handing tools to the other three guys while they discussed things like the difference of geo and toyota, replacing the lamp verses the assembly, and how the bulb looks just fine but actually it doesn't work. i think i smiled too much, because really it was pretty funny that i was causing all that trouble for a headlight, and i hope i didn't piss them off. because honestly if i could figure out how to do it myself i wouldn't have been bothering them, and although i know it's a dumb girl thing to do...i usually defer to car guy's knowledge. out of guilt. because i don't know how to take care of mr. car short of getting the oil changed. ie: the bucking incident thanksgiving of 2002. tune up, who knew? when the guys, or girls, come out with that palette of what all your fluids look like and what they're supposed to look like, i always do what they tell me. when the filter thing looks dirty, they replace it. i have no idea what's going on and i know it, and they know it. i'm a perfect target. it's sad really.

i just made a vet appointment for fuzzy. she's losing her fuzz. her tail and her back-end are all bald. it's the saddest. it's heartbraking, my kitty is going bald.
i saw the new apartment again and got my keys yesterday. i remember it being bigger. selective memory or something. i get to start moving tomorrow. after kitty's appointment. i started packing and took down all the pictures from the walls. it's really depressing without the pictures.
as i spent the weekend coughing, napping, and actually putting some things in boxes, there isn't much to report. i did get whitechocolatespaceegg but i'm not sure i love it. i'll have to listen a few more times. i'll bring it with me sarah and you can tell me what you think.
i've been listening to a lot of country lately. as the tape player is broken. and every other station is playing christmas music. the super country station this morning had two songs back to back about kids growing up and leaving home, one left the washing out in the backyard. tsk tsk. isn't there a law of odds that some country songs should be happy? like one in ten or something?

this morning when i went jogging the sky was all pink and sunrisey, and it's t-shirt warm out. while i was out i saw a family of deer, and an eagle hunting, and altogether it was a very field and stream morning.
i've had a sore throat all week and now it is turning into a cold, and i'm very bummed. i'll probably spend thanksgiving in a nyquil coma, not that that sounds like a bad option right now. my voice is all squeaky squeaky. is it wrong that i sort of like being squeaky?
in town gossip...mr. nice construction guy brought us some news. one of the big inns on cottage street that went under was sold at auction to the people who own geddy's. i'll have to wheedle him for more information later, we can't figure out what they're going to do with that huge building. i know he has to come in because his atm card is lost. never underestimate the manipulative power of your banker.

i haven't blogged about any bank stuff in ages. mostly because there is very little of it going on just now, but a little bit because there aren't any evil customers to report on. i don't know if it's the season or what, but folks have been really nice to us. compliments abound, and the higher-ups are quite pleased. it's strange to rant about how much people like you. is that an oxymoron, can you rant about positive things? it's unfortunately sort of boring when people are all nice. the mean ones add texture. but then it's probably good to have good press before "employee recognition night". mary is dead set on us winning an award this year.
i talked to the landlord last night and he mustn't have recieved my check back yet because he is planning to give me my security deposit. funny though, it slipped my mind to tell him about it. strange. but he'll figure it out soon enough.

and also, why must my sister keep calling me and singing the slim shady song into my voice mail? well, actually i know why. because she said mom was being "shady". and i said "is mom the real slim shady?" and she said yes, actually it's been mom the whole time. so you see, i brought it upon myself. she's laughing so hard that she can hardly sing and her boyfriend is begging for mercy in the background. apparently she sings it all day, and i only got a few calls so far. it's a little better than the time meme mistakenly said we were related to celine dion and emily sang that damn titanic song for months. marginally better.

it's the funniest thing, i distinctly remember paying to have my headlight changed. i even have the bill. but you know the one side of the car is pretty dark. as though the headlight isn't actually working. it's the darndest thing.
so it's time again for worrying about reaching goals, and thus supplementing our low ass incomes. so, err, for some of you who may get calls...Dennis is a very nice guy. even if he is a wee bit conservative. very friendly, and cute, and he knows stuff about financial planning and what not. and i'll be grateful.
i've spent my morning dutifully writing referrals. i have a tendency to save them up and then get all swamped. all of you from hood are really surprised about that. unfortunately i have the same feelings toward packing. sarah, do you remember how you said instead of unpacking you'd just sit in your room and cry. that is what is happening now. it will get done, and i will be out hopefully by the first weekend in dec. but there's going to be alot of "dude, look at all this stuff" and maybe some crying along the way.

the weather is warm. and sunny. and it's november. mary and i were taking bets on whether or not it was going to snow yesterday, and now it's all sunny. i really got used to the more fluid seasons in maryland, and the dramatic changes here sort of freaks me out. but it's really beautiful and i think i'll get the car washed tomorrow. and take in the 6000 returnables that i've been ignoring since the spring. the packing will have to wait, until dark anyway. i can't spend a lovely day doing something icky like filling boxes with books and cds. that would be an abomination, and there would be smiting. i'm sure of it.
mary's husband al seems to think we're going to kill my little rose bush. he doesn't seem to have much faith in our plant rearing. it looks ok i think, but then it had all those buds and it didn't bloom. i'm supremely bummed about that still. i really like the tiny plants. the tiny bamboo, the tiny roses. ooh and tiny pumpkins. tiny stuff is cool. and did i mention the jack shit there is to do at work lately. the season ended flat out and we've been twiddling our thumbs for weeks. it's painfully dull. and we're sort of hurting to make our goals. anyone who needs a checking account, i'm all over it. we've got free gifts, and friendly service. and i promise i won't blog about you.

see how last night i was all paranoid about the check coming back. and then i said to myself, it won't be like that, no need to be paranoid. and then he tried to deposit the check. err. if he's not diligent about his banking, he won't know about it until today or tomorrow when it comes back through the mail. if he stops by his bank today, or has already, then he will know that i stopped the check. ofcourse he has my security deposit. but i have a lease he's broken. i have to find that damn lease, tonight. and i have to call the bastard, today. and i have to start purging and packing tonight, asap. anyone who knows about maine renting laws, send me your expertise.

i thought the landlord had changed the locks on me tonight. i couldn't turn my key. and since i put a stop payment on the rent check today, the obvious conclusion was that he was so mad he came and changed the locks. and then i turned it the other way. and it opened. errr...

i had my evaluation this am and it was very good indeed. if she'd gone on i might have undertaken walking on water. it'll be nice if it translates into a raise sometime, i could dig that.
al offered me his sons to help me move. they're so nice. i can handle everything myself, except for the futon. unless i take it apart, but that's not an attractive option as annie and i almost died putting it together. other than that it should be fine. it's no coincidence that all of my furniture folds, trundles, or comes apart.
i'm supposed to start another bank class today. busy bee that i am, undertaking two classes at once. lets see if i can swing it...

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via pinky

i did get the apartment. i mean, it had a hallway. and closets. but dudes, it's so big it needs a hallway. to like connect the rooms and stuff. isn't that cool? and i have an ocean view. out of my bay window. if you look really far to the left and squint a little.
i'm sorry matt, but it was about the same price as something in ellsworth, except minus the gas for the commute. maybe next time i get evicted. and there's totally room for a party. probably some time in december, after the hoopla of moving.
ok and the pilgrims, do you drive through bar harbor and take rte 3 to ellsworth, because those pilgrims are pretty exposed in their evilness. leaving town it's past hulls cove on the left, you'll see gerrish's sign and then there's a small white building on the road with the demonic glow all glowy.

it is 3:30 and the sun is setting. but i could have an apartment later. well, two i guess to be all precise and stuff, and that would be exciting. and then i can start packing. which will be hella fun, i can feel it.

dude, pinky, i had no idea so many parents would take issue with that dumb thing i said. sorry 'bout that.

i'm going to see an apartment tonight. back in hulls cove. it is exciting. i hope it's nice. but then it couldn't be less charming than the current apartment. everyone local really has to see the current apartment before i leave. it's quite a sight.
speaking of sights...a bunch of drunks from the whale were standing in the middle of cottage street last night watching the sunset. one man said they should all hold hands. sometimes this town is very funny.
it's excessively weird to be driving home in the dark. especially as i have to pass the evil glowing pilgrims. matt, have you seen the evil glowing pilgrims? i hate them. and later, after thanksgiving. it will be a woman in a fur coat looking cold. to signify winter, or something. why must those people dress up mannequins in their window, why why why? it scares the shit out of me every time i drive by it. same for the people in trenton with the little glass box outside their house with the dolls dressed up for every holiday. the worst part is none of this decor is meant to be ironic. it would be funny, in an ironic type way, but no. it's legitimately freaky decorating. it's just wrong.

i accidentally brought bacon for lunch. it's dissapointing.

since i was having such a good time chatting about the whole homelessness thing, i forgot to mention the setting my house on fire thing. isn't it funny how the one should lead to the other, but the other way around. i think it's funny. anyway, yeah, fire. so, it was snowing saturday. and it was all story book with the snow covered trees and the glistening and the whiteness. and i turned the stove on to make some wintery day tea, and then i went to play on the computer. and i'm sitting, playing, and i hear this crackling. and for half a second i think "how romantic, it's just like a crackling fire that sound" and then the fire alarm goes off. it seems that those cheap ass plastic utensils, when placed in an empty pot on a hot burner, ignite. it would have been sort of spectacular if it wasn't my house and my stuff that was like flaming. but clearly tragedy was averted and since i'm so calm in a crisis (cough) only the spoon suffered real damage.
thanks matt for the very nice offer of help moving. i may need it. and i'm warming to the idea of ellsworth. i just thought of the best possible asset of living in ellsworth...delivery pizza. and maybe if i had more than two rooms, or two rooms that were bigger than the two rooms i have right now, i could have like people over. to visit. or stay. and it would be like a real house, where real people live. that would be cool. and we could order pizza. and someone would deliver it. to my house, with the people. ooooooh.

michael moore should be killed

this is actually a search that brought someone to my site. and he's from texas. and his name is dwight. dwight, dude, that is a fucked up thing to put in a search engine.

kitty likes the couch. actually, she loves the couch. she is the couch's bitch. she hasn't gotten off it except to eat and potty since i pushed it over from next door on friday. she is a couch whore. she needs a couch methadone clinic. it's really strange. the attachment to the couch. i, however, am not attached to the couch. which is good because i got a 30 days notice from the landlord this morning so the couch will probably not be with us for long. i sincerely wish i didn't spend hours trying to maneuver it accross the porch, as it seems it was all for naught. unless matt, who needs a couch, takes a fancy to it. here is a description: it is sort of a foresty green, it has been scratched by kitties before it met mine, but could be covered, and it is very squishy. you are welcome to visit it and arm wrestle the kitty for it, if indeed you like it as much as she does. and the best feature is ofcourse that it's free providing you can get it home. and maybe i'll put out cookies or something, for the couch viewing. is that too like a funeral? the couch isn't that bad. but maybe cookies would soften your heart to it and it wouldn't have to be an orphan, and then i could get cookies!!! we could all have cookies. it would be wicked awesome.
so, yeah, i have to move. again. and this is no good. i'll probably have to move to ellsworth to both be able to afford something and have a fuzzy. and ellsworth isn't that bad, is it? matt? is it that bad? there are stores that don't close. there's a denny's(i'm not sure that ups my cause much). ellsworth isn't so bad right? or trenton, trenton isn't that bad. except for the confederate flag over the IGA. that really bothers me. it bothers me so much i don't even know if it's still there because i can't bear to look up when i go by. mmm, trenton. i refuse to move to the dark side of the island. i will not go to southwest harbor, if i have to drive a half hour to work i want to be heading toward civilization. toward denny's anyway. mmm, denny's.
so, it's been a long weekend. and i'm frazzled. and the worst part of being frazzled is i get to thinking the frazzle is really really funny. and then i blog about it. i'm so sorry. there's just something about the increasing panic that i just find hysterical. no pun intended.

yesterday i went to target and bought nothing, i set fire to a taco shell in my oven, and found space for three jars of oregano in my cabinet. why do i have so much oregano. and basil. my spice shelf is like a halfway house for italian seasonings.
we just had a customer come in and yell at us because he can't keep money in his account. this happens alot. it's really not my fault you can't keep track of your money. it's just not.

my neighbor is leaving to do her cancer treatment in idaho. she wants to know if i want her furniture. do i need a couch? it's a tiny one, but i have no idea where i'd put it. i'll have to think about it. it would make me feel homey, to have a couch. but it's not long enough to sleep on. only sitting. unless you were really short. or desperate. how hard was my floor sarah? harder than the futon?
an even more important decision is what to do with my day off? a whole day off, just for me. what are the odds i'll go shopping?

poor mr. car is sick. there's definitely something wrong with the system that displays the lights on the dashboard. every morning it's been saying that my e-brake is on, when it isn't. and then the light goes off. and then it comes back on. but only in the morning when it's really cold. we'll see what it does when it's cold all the time. either that or the emergency brake is stuck on, and the light is faulty. poor car. i can live, if only just, without the tape player but car will not pass inspection with persnickety dashboard lights. maybe if car can last the winter we'll put him out to pasture next year. poor car.
contrary to predictions it has not snowed yet. poor richard and his almanac can eat it. the skies are clear and beautiful compared to last november, but there's always frost in the morning. brrrr.

they're tearing down the cat building on the corner of cottage and main street. isnt' that interesting. mary and i can't remember what the gossips said was going on down there and we're kicking ourselves for not being more efficient about the rumors. we thought it was a historical building, but bar harbor has very odd rules about their old stuff. in any case it's very exciting and we can't wait to hear what it's all about. there are supposed to be lots of changes this winter. the popular brand name outdoors store on the corner of rodick and cottage is gone for good. and the tenants above are being kicked to the curb as well. it's a pretty big building, especially for downtown, so we'll see what scandalous thing will happen there in the months to come. the pharmacy is thinking about possibly relocating to the deserted gas station in front of the supermarket and building a new building there. a three story deal. there was a truly vicious rumor that epi is going to become an acadia cor. t-shirt shop, because the 4 just aren't enough. we really hope that isn't true. the pricey in-town condo's which were supposed to be affordable rent apartments, are all still for sale and the price drops weekly. the puller farm has been sold to the heritage people and the housing commission to both preserve the landscape and create affordable housing. this last bit is a huge deal and a huge step forward for the island.
in a more thorough response to SC there is very little open. some folks waited for the last cruise ship which was yesterday, but a lot of places closed earlier than ever because the season was such crap. there are quite a few foreclosures and permanent closings, and we're anticipating more. even two cats was closed for a week, but that was some kind of computer problem. and they deserved a break.
this is about the only thing i can bring myself to talk about. among the obvius worries i could hear my cancer ridden neighbor crying through the wall and it was truly heartbreaking. i decided against letting her know that her private pain wasn't private. but i don't know if it was the right thing to do. i can't imagine how hard it is for her to be alone right now.

i think drunkness is called for. tonight.

i can't think because i'm freaking out about the election. sarah had a good idea about getting drunk and ignoring the tenseness before totals really start to come out. but i'm not a drinker, and i probably couldn't stay sober long enough to finish one drink, so that's not in the cards for me. i got some netflix today so i think i'll just watch those and not think about the results until later tonight. this is the goal anyway. i don't have anyone to bitch to, because kitty won't care, and i think i might combust if i watch it all night.
mary and i are harrassing everyone who comes in to go and vote. she's a vote counter. she's planning to be up all night so tomorrow will be lots of fun.

the person who makes up the bank calendars put election day for next tuesday. oh my.

so, everyone knows how like the pilgrims weren't actually americans. as noted in the last entry. i pointed it out to mary and she was all up in arms because betsy ross wasn't a pilgrim. and then she said "didn't we have this conversation last year" and i said probably and she said something about tia and the memories came flooding back about having crumpets at thanksgiving and how really the earth was flat. it's possible that we were a little hard on her, but really. everyone should know that betsy ross wasn't a pilgrim, and the pilgrims were not american.

one of our thanksgiving stickers shows a pilgrim girl standing in front of an american flag. what are we teaching our children?

is there a proven genetic reason for why boys can't change a roll of toilet paper?

i slept in a sweater and i had to scrape ice and frost off my car this morning. brrr. a story to continue in the comments. i 'll have to think about something. sarah's gonna kick our butts.

we just watched the halloween parade. only in bar harbor do 10 kids in costume escorted by a cruiser and an ambulance qualify as a parade. there were a lot of princesses and knights, and one pink diva cowgirl. and they all had coats and hats on, so cute.
speaker of cruisers, there was an anonymous letter in the paper complaining about there being too many police. you know what they mean by too many police on duty at once, two. this person was pissed off that there were two police people on duty at one time. when the shifts over lap. who complains about too many police. i just can't wrap my mind around that one.
so i'll try to have a story started for all you avid readers. and thanks for the book suggestions. nd, i will read anything, especially when january comes.

i forgot how truly boring work in the winter can be. a need a stock of new books to read. feel free to make suggestions. i'm also going to bring in my coloring book next week. i can't think of anything worth blogging about. it's depressing.

we have had three of the weirdest, and rudest, customers today. completely out of the blue. mary says it's the eclipse. it's definitely something. some lady wanted to cash a check with no id. another one wouldn't let mary count her money back. and i had a whopper who wanted to change her name on the account, but continue to sign the other name, and didn't know what name is on her liscense which she didn't have with her. our maintenance guy has it down to the red sox. everyone is staying up late to watch the world series, so they're all tired and stressed. if i have to deal with one more insanely rude person i might crack.

the sun is out. i can't believe it. and there is sky. and it's blue. and there's sunshine. it's been a week atleast. and soon it will be dark when i leave work. and cold. and i'll have to wear long johns. all the time. and sarah will have panic attacks when she comes to visit. because it's too cold to live. but there will be sledding. by golly.

i only got a 93% on my open book bank class homework. sad, sad, sad.

i did some serious purging of my house this weekend. it was a beautiful thing. i actually filled a dumster. which i feel sort of bad about. but they were things that a) were so used they wouldn't be use to anyone else b) was not an article that could be recycled. i also have a very large bag of clothes for goodwill. which ofcourse i forgot at home. as a result i can see and use the big bathtub in the second bathroom. and it's always very grattifying to get rid of stuff.
i also tallied up how much i spend when i go home for the weekend. between 40-60 dollars in gas, about $5 in tolls both ways, food at about $10 per round trip and chocolate (which i'm hesitant to put a dollar amount to as it's a constant variable). i'm not going to add shopping because if i had any willpower at all, i wouldn't have to hit the mall every weekend. but truly i think it's genetic because my mom and my sister are always shopping. and my meme. just ask annie.
but i can't tell my mom i'm too poor to come home. because it's pathetic. and she'd offer to give me money. and then i'd feel guilty that my sick mommy was bribing me to come visit. even though really, i'm just poor. but as i discovered last week with all the cob webs and dust in my fridge, i haven't been grocery shopping in a month. so that has to be a savings of about 20 bucks a week atleast.
i almost wish we were really busy so i wouldn't have to think about this crap.

saturday morning i bought the fuzzy a new pair of clippers. not an hour after i got home and opened said clippers, i found the old ones. karma? kizmut? irony?

there's an ambulance for sale in ellsworth. can anyone buy an ambulance? i would have thought you'd need credentials or something. otherwise anyone could siren themselves accross town. and we can't have that.
i should say that mary and i are a bit on the edge today. we're expecting an onslaught of people to close their accounts today. and uhh we might not have enough money. i don't mean that we'll actually run out. but we'll be giving people a lot of 10's and 20's. it's gonna be a blast!

i just bought the fuzzy an herbal flea collar. so when she sleeps on my head i won't be toxified. and also hopefully it will reduce her distress. and the itching.
the canadians have put out a new $20 bill. it's sooo much cooler than ours. although i can't identify the people on it. they look sort of maori but could be indigenous of their west. but sadly i can't find a link of what it looks like. probably because, unlike us, they know it's really stupid to identify all the anti-forgery features on your new money in pamphlets, and posters and on the internet.
pinky~you're so much more prompt than me. i'll be posting the package today and i'll email you the tracking info, so you can watch it's progress. good fun.
all the local news is morbid. although it turns out that the folks at rupinuni's have been spreading a false rumor that the whale is going to close. the owner was in the other day and she seemed to think it was very funny. maybe you have to be a local, but the whale and rupinuni's have a very different clientele. and it's possible i've blogged about this before, but i'm just not in the mood to check so if you're bored, i apologize.

and then i remembered to go to the whale and get a t-shirt. it's record time really, only about a week.

"what bothered me most is that they didn't even speak english well" -said about a poller who called our part-timer. well shit, i didn't know you could be an american and speak two languages. someone call the guards. quick.

we saw melissa ferrick and erin mckeown this weekend at harvard, in the most beautiful theatre. and it was awesome. must make note to buy her newest album, very cool. there were many a rabid red sox fan in attendance, funny that, and there were score updates throughout the show.
while i was home i got polled. a lovely man asked me for my vote for kerry, which was a sure sell for a house with a kerry placard. he wanted to talk to christine too, but since she's in japan, i assured him that we were both absentee voters with sure votes for kerry. the kerry people are hardcore serious in NH since gore lost by just 1.7% and nader got 4%. but it looks like nader will be taking from republicans, and not democrats in NH. which is just fine by me. the NH republicans are still reeling from the great phone bank debacle of 2000. where a higher power in the gop is soon to be named. mwahahaha. and mare, since i know you're eating this up, i can't believe you haven't heard me speak liberalese before. i'm shocked. and that dude is just so mean.

big apple has a jerry's kids buy a balloon from senator kerry. how nice of him to stop by.

i don't care if your wife is a lazy bitch, if she hasn't signed a check made out to both of you, you can't have the money. 'nuff said.

i'm told that on the water its supposed to be perfect storm type weather, but since i don't have a boat i can't test the theory. the bay is whitecapping which is extremely rare so there must be some fun waves out of schoodic.
when i was home i got another polling call. my mom told them i voted already. which is true, since i'm an absentee voter, but can you imagine how confused the poller was? it's sort of anticlimactic voting by mail. all the waiting. i'm ready for the nonsense to be over. but then there's still some time for bush to be hit with some freak lightning or a bus or something.
my mom was so much better this weekend, she even sent me out for cake. yay for drugs. we did alot of shopping. and annie enjoyed the wonders of a land with no sales tax. and in a fit of tourism we went to salem and walked around the willows. i wanted to take annie to some of the other sites but it was crazy busy. and there was no where to park. there were alot of kids dressed up as harry potter, but then maybe that isn't weird for downtown salem. go witches!

i'm told that on the water its supposed to be perfect storm type weather, but since i don't have a boat i can't test the theory. the bay is whitecapping which is extremely rare so there must be some fun waves out of schoodic.
when i was home i got another polling call. my mom told them i voted already. which is true, since i'm an absentee voter, but can you imagine how confused the poller was? it's sort of anticlimactic voting by mail. all the waiting. i'm ready for the nonsense to be over. but then there's still some time for bush to be hit with some freak lightning or a bus or something.
my mom was so much better this weekend, she even sent me out for cake. yay for drugs. we did alot of shopping. and annie enjoyed the wonders of a land with no sales tax. and in a fit of tourism we went to salem and walked around the willows. i wanted to take annie to some of the other sites but it was crazy busy. and there was no where to park. there were alot of kids dressed up as harry potter, but then maybe that isn't weird for downtown salem. go witches!

i received two kickass pieces of mail yesterday! one was my ballot, and the other from pinky. i've always wanted to be a tar heel! i also learned that the thirsty whale does indeed have t-shirts, and caps, and mugs and ashtrays.
i watched secret window last night. mostly on fastforward. it's the suspense that gets you. and it was getting dark. i can't deal with mr. creepy secret window and the dark and the coyotes.
oh sarah, i can't remember if i told you already, but do you remember that barn on the road to annie's house that wouldn't end and there was a birdie on the roof and we were worried that the birdie would cause it to fall. it finally fell. it was very sad.
i finished the first half of my banking class. i'm waiting for my midterm to arrive. mary is practicing looking mean and tsking because she's going to be my proctor. if it weren't for mary i could not stand being a bank teller. she's the best.

i have reached the point where i really like my hair. it's very twenties. or something. this is the point where i should find a real hair cutter person who doesn't charge an extra 2 dollars for a shampoo. and i should say "see this, this is what i want, help me?"
our part-timer has ovarian cancer, which sucks alot. i pulled another flea of kitty, which sucks but not as much. and i can't seem to get into blogging since i left my house sunday with my mom in tears. i'm prefering to just read harry potter obsessively and pet the kitty. and finding little jobs to do at work. one of them was alphabetizing the signature cards which were very bad indeed, because they were done by tia who does not know the alphabet.
in happy news i opened a box from hood with all the stuff from my walls and pictures and that poem of sorts emily miller wrote about the dead deer. and i found a bunch of disks that probably have all my important work on them, packed right next to all my magnets. err.

These are some of the funny/weird keywords i've gotten lately. the second one, i really don't understand at all but i'm very happy that otter scrubber came through twice. funny.

i hate passing out
string pants fell down work -his pants -wife
otter scrubber (twice)
elvis job
blue hill hippies

i am now capable of watching the debates, in the luxury of my own home. i have accessed the antennae. it's fuzzy, but hell, i'll be able to see dick cheney foaming. i just don't see how he could win, he's so evil and edwards looks so nice. cheney looks like he eats kittens for breakfast. the man is a kitten eater. bastard. i just had to do some work so i don't remember where i was going with that. so i'll move on.
i permanantly damaged annie's hearing last night. i accidentally screamed into the phone when kitty took a running jump at the glass door trying to kill the neighbors cat. she's very athletic when she's full of furry rage, she jumped about four feet. i also woke up to her licking the inside of my ear. do you think that's cause for concern? maybe he new name will have to be wet willy.

Bar Harbor is having it's own Run Against Bush tomorrow at 10 am next to the ymca. there might be one near you too. rock on leftist agitators.

watch mr. blog turn in to vast unmanagable rumor mill as i add to town gossip...miguels is closing for the winter, no surprise there, but also the thirsty whale! and rupinuni's is going to stay open all year. and havana till january. shocking.

according to the rumor mill, the super walmart deal for ellsworth has been sneakily put through and we will soon have a mega-evil super walmart and another lovely abandoned building on the road to acadia. i heart capitalism.

(and yes i know i need to stop going there. i do, i know it. i'm working on it.)

we have been uber busy. but we got to get lunch from testa's, which was very high class. i recomend them highly. and very attentive staff. and good mints. they were chocolatey.
but anyway, i can't think straight (haha) so i really oughtn't to blog. but i wanted to know if anyone saw the debates. reports are that kerry beat bush bad. real bad. and that bush is a very pouty sore ass loser. i didn't get to see them, although i think i need to try out getting a cable and seeing if there's an antenna on the roof i can patch in to. that would be cool.
i also want to note that there are these very odd, but uplifting in a weird sort of way, home-made signs on the light posts on rte. 3.

they say:

NO

Cheney
Ashcroft
Rumsfeld
Bush.

the new low carb diet. hehe...

You are Frankfurter Spectacular!! Wrapping hot
dogs around a pineapple doesn't make it
Spectacular any more than sticking feathers up
your butt will make you a chicken. Quit trying
to be something you're not and just RELAX
already!


What Weight Watchers recipe card from 1974 are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


oh dear...oh dear...oh dear. is it worse, or better than Mackerelly?

for the interest of all bar harbor residents, or just matt really, Gringo's is delivering again. praise the god of burritos and smoothies!

mary and i have been researching the horrors of gallbladder disease. it sounds really awful.
one of our customers was just trying to sell me on blockbuster e rentals, because he knows i do netflix. it's freaky how well people get to know you at a bank. or maybe it's just a small town. the post office guys always say they'll bring popcorn if i invite them over. it's not even really winter yet and the townies are desperate for entertainment.
speaking of desperate, i'm getting desperate for light in my bathroom. something happened a few weeks ago causing all the lights and plugs to stop working. i haven't gotten around to calling my landlord because a. my apartment is too messy to have him over and b. because i really don't like him, or c. because deep down i'm just lazy. in a fit of light getting motivative action i asked one of the downstairs ladies if she has the fuse box in her apartment. she said that she has "her" fuse box, but not mine. she said it's in my closet. but i don't have a closet, or a fuse box. i'm sure i would have noticed. it's a very small apartment, if there was a closet i just hadn't noticed i'm be f'd up indeed. i'm going to ask mrs. prison term later. she's nice, she might have my fuse box. and then i'll call the landlord. i should add that in addition to the darkness, parts of the electric wall plug sort of fell off. but if i can have light without having mr. slow landlord taking apart my bathroom i swear i won't use that plug. ever. and i'll keep the extinguisher handy. i promise.

our part time person is in the hospital. she was getting her galbladder out...but they stopped and did some biopsies and said "it doesn't look good". what kind of vague hospital speak is that. and now they're sending her home for a week to wait for the results. that just sucks.

i spent my evening singing "it's not unusual to be fuzzed by anyone" to kitty and drinking orange juice. i think she really likes tom jones. but she seemed very bummed out that i came home early. what kind of dual life could she be leading? she's so weird. ooh but i discovered that she won't set paw on the chairs i covered and she isn't scratching the rug from my dorm room like she does the industrial carpet. maybe she has an eye for quality or something.
the very exciting visit of the queen mary is now over and it seems that it was not the economic boom that was expected. the reports are either no better, or definitely worse than usual. which means it will be a very long winter.

yesterday when i left work early with my stuffy nose and acorn squash from mary's garden i saw about 40 cars parked on rt 3. taking pictures of the cruise ship anchored off the porcupines. only it wasn't the queen mary 2. it was the silver whisper. i hope they aren't too dissapointed.

one of my jamaican boyfriends invited me to a party. maybe if i didn't feel like so blah.

home. but first, boston. i drove a long way in the rain. the house and people annie is staying with are all very nice. and then we went to boston to see the folk festival which had been moved inside umb. or umass boston which, to date, is the bigges, emptiest college campus i have ever seen. and would you believe that almost the first person we saw upon entering the festival was the guy who sells happy island cow ice cream off the stonington pier? it's a small damn world.
and sunday we spent with my family eating and shopping. my meme bought rainbow fleece gloves, a pink vest, and pink polyester pajamas, and wore out annie who was in charge of her. she's very peppy. for 85. my mommy was worn out too, from her treatment which causes alot of pain apparently, but doesn't make her throw up. she looked so tired. and she didn't eat anything. and it makes my heart heavy to think about my mommy being in so much pain.

someone at the holiday inn is desperately interested in mr. blog. wonder who that could be?

yesterday someone left me a present on my car. a button that says "regime change 2004". i was so excited. it's the little things that make me like bar harbor. like the yellow people walking warning signs and all the people have hula hoops. who wouldn't heart that.
mary swears she killed a black widow in the kitchen yesterday, but i didn't want to take a closer look to verify it. do we think black widows live in maine? it left a remarkably large stain on the carpet, it was something big whether it was widowed or not.
one of my neighbors is a spy for the landlord. which is making me sort of nervous. she called to inform the landlord that our other neightbor had been arrested. which isn't really any of his business, and also would be in all of the local papers anyway. and now she who got arrested won't have her lease renewed. considering the housing situation, it was a very mean thing to do. it's one of the things that makes me wish i hadn't made connections to my neighbors. i'd rather not be part of all this petty crap.

i finished this book that i really didn't enjoy. so why did i finish it, i don't know. but then i got to the end and i read the jacket and learned that the author is dead. and now i feel bad about telling everyone how much i hated it. it was choppy, and repetitive. but maybe the guy died before editing was complete and they published it anyway. and since the poor guy died and it wasn't his fault the editing was bad i think i owe it to him to read another of his books just to check. is that weird, do we think? regardless i think i'll pick up another of his books later. if only to torture myself.
on saturday one of my neighbors got arrested. and last night she got let out. and her computer was stolen. my money is on the ex. when she asked if i'd seen anyone around, she didn't ask if i'd specifically seen the ex. but it would have to be someone who knew she wasn't home. i guess it could have been one of the other neighbors, but i don't think any of them would find value in a computer. we're waiting for the paper to come out so we can check police beat and see what she was arrested for. because we're nosy. and also police beat is good reading. very entertaining.

we are having a supremely bizarre day. some old guy on vacation tried to bully us into letting him make a collect call. if you behave oddly in a bank, the tellers will think that you are going to rob them. when people demand to use the phone or the bathroom or an illegal wire transfer or whatever, it makes us nervous. or even non-customers asking for change. you wouldn't believe how pissed off people get when you have to tell them no. getting all grumpy with a bank teller gets you put on a list of suspicious persons. it's not a good idea. just so you all know.

i'm glad you like your mug pinky, it was the last one. we asked the shopkeeper to get it out of the window. we were playing the aggressive tourists, just for you.

re: matt and munchkin cards, actually my meeting is tonight. so maybe cards, are in the cards. ha ha err.

strip clubs and bird hunting. it is indeed fowl hunting season, and bow hunting. which i assume means you can kill anything you want as long as you use an arrow. and it isn't an endangered species. not that i imagine the latter keeps many hunters awake at night. people used to hint at having killed blue herons that ate their koi. that's the problem with spending thousands of dollars on something that you then leave outside. in a pond. where the birdies just think it's a colorful easy to catch dinner. but i digress from my intended topic, which is actually annie in boston. thus far she has survived one day's commute and is very much liking her host family. she also says that everyone is stressed out there and maine is indeed the way life should be. even if we are sometimes bored out of our minds. i suppose we could spend more time shoveling.
annie's only been gone a few days and i'm learning that it's trying to be your own activities director. she's got herself a part time job restoring a historic house on the weekends for one of her bosses. there are about 200 bank classes i could take. err.

our jamaican customers are scared to death. the phone lines haven't been working since yesterday and no one can reach their families. i'd be scared to death too.

town is dead. i don't know if it's the weather or the season in general which has been really slow. most places are hoping to close early. according to the farmer's almanac it's supposed to start snowing in october. a super snowy winter would really complete the end of the world weather pattern. maybe i should have pre-bought some propane.
i'm thinking of getting a kitten. to keep kitty company. or maybe she'll hate it and try to eat it. it's a hard call to make.

and then all my hair was gone. i think the hair cutting lady mistook me for someone else, because she seriously went to town on my hair. it's wicked short. if i wasn't so schocked i'd really hate it. there is no curl. it is too short to curl. and winter is coming. i need my hair for warmth. i keep seeing it in the shiny glass and freaking out. i'm scaring myself. odds on this doesn't publish?

and also, why do i think the asshole who searched "knee jerk liberal pictur" is the same one who was searching "dirty gay truck driver" last week. those tricksy conservatives.

"Raise your hand if you think Amy and I will pass our exam tomorrow? You know, the one about the dinosaurs who wandered all over Pangea in order to find their Nazi-Buddhist brethren and take over India so that Christianity could come there? There will also be a section on the bodhisattvas: these are the people who see their nirvana a few yards in the distance and so they stop their spiritual evolution right there. "Whoa there, Nirvana! We must help the others." So they go back to the Old West in order to save all the cowboys from the world of maya."

kristen null and void is so funny. nothing like reading archives from hood.

it is a see your breath morning. too cold. fortunately i have bar harbor's ugliest mug in which to make tea and be merry and warm. it has a ceramic moose drinking a cup of coffee glued to it's side. annie was impressed with it's ugliness. she was also impressed with my studiousness last night. i did two weeks of bank class. in an hour. i'm gonna be a banking genius.

that girl that pissed me off the other day asked what my favorite aspects of the job were and i inquired whether perhaps she's interested in banking and would she like an application? hehe. and then she said "oh no, i just wanted to know if you're happy?" and then i punched her. maybe next time. it's possible that maybe she touched a nerve. but it was still rude. and i'm definitely still going to beat her up. or at the very least give her a mean look if she comes in again. grr..
my goal today, being the 1st of september, is to go out and take in the sales at the crappy stores all on main street and find a dumb maine mug for my desk. i want the worst one. i want one with moose antlers for a handle. or a lobster painted on the side with a word bubble that says i love baa haabaa. or maybe one of those lighthouse, blueberry, lobster combinations that really give you a multidimensional feel for maine.

one of our favorite customers, brother of vocab man, has a new girlfriend. she comes in with him every day (don't these people have jobs?) and yesterday she mocked my job. twice. it is a bad idea to get on the badside of your bank teller. very bad.

i'm cranky. but fortunately there are some things to look forward to. 2 new dvd's from netflix. one of which is margaret cho so we know that's a good time. and i got my ballot today. only the state primary, but still i get to vote for her. she's 94. she was hysterical on the radio. the other candidates i know nothing about. i'll have to google them. yay for voting.

the good thing about telling hippies how much they owe on their overdraft is that they don't get upset. they just say "dude". i think more people should say dude in banks.

i just met a very nice man who works as first mate on a schooner. the problem is he doesn't have an address. and really, how would you get mail as a sailor? it's a quandary.

i was reading this and you know, it's really very much what maine is like politically. which freaks me the hell out because some of the other swinger articles have been scary. but they hit maine right on. you see those "bush lies: who dies?" stickers every where. and it cracks me up that they went to the bangor state fair. what i really can't wait for is the one about NH. i wonder which way NH will go. they really hate taxes. alot. but they also really hate stupid spending. they like state's rights, but then mr. b isn't all about that mainstay of republicanism is he? and he wants to shut down the state's 2nd biggest employer. it's so tricky.

i think i saw my first flea this morning. the neighbor cat has fleas. and the neighbor apartment has fleas. and i believe mine is next. and i'm not pleased. kitty doesn't look itchy, but it might be a matter of time. i don't want fleas in my house, i really don't. tell me, how do you flea comb a hamster? how do you flea bath a hamster? it is not going to be cool.
i am not pleased with my neighbor.

the bar harbor post office is a nebulous dark hole. and that's all i have to say about that.

the guy who owns the hippie store, or rather one of the hippie stores, said i'm a bad bamboo mommy. i have a cute tiny little bamboo plant on my desk. and i want it to stay that way. he said it needs a bigger pot. but then it will grow. and it's not allowed to grow. if you start cultivating bamboo you end up with a jungle. then he called me a bamboo nazi. but he's a nice guy really. he greets us everyday with "hello you beautiful women" and he says it in a way that i don't want to smack him.

"and then i was a pirate whore"

you can't say tia isn't funny. she has her moments.

you know it's going to be a long winter when you can see your breath in august. granted it was was 7 this morning, but really. it's august. and climate change isn't happening. i wish i could've seen john kerry on the daily show. who doesn't love jon stewart? i just realised how unnerving the election is going to be listening to npr. maybe anthony's will show it instead of football and i can watch the results with 50 of my closest friends, and pizza.
you know how every other day i say i almost got run over by tourists. well yesterday i had to run out from under the wheels of an F150 with MAINE plates. i was in the crosswalk and the guy slowed down to a stop before the crosswalk and i thought "how nice, i can walk safely to the other side of the street". until vroom vroom and i couldn't think of anything to do but run for the yellow line. i didn't even have time to swear. he didn't even look upset. there really aren't that many accidents in town for all the driving atrocities, actually i can't think of any. the only accidents have been in the park, of all places. someone accidentally drove off a cliff, but they were fine. you see it all the time. "oh honey, look at the sunset! isn't it pretty..." and then they're halfway down a mountain or flipped in the gravel. it's sad.

her: "you're saying i look like an ass" plays with her skirt
him: "you look fine, you don't look like an ass" focuses on trunk of car
me: stifled laughter as i pass on the sidewalk.
and then they got back in their car and drove away.

tourists.

i was going to take a shower after my run, and i almost had an aneurysm. there is a bug that could be measured by inches on my shower's ceiling. huge man, huge. i'm not sure what it is, but i'm going to keep telling myself it's not a spider. there is also something large and scratchy in the roof, which has kitty on her guard. so it's very tense at our house just now. i have barricaded the bug in the bathroom, after putting a towel over my head and rushing in to save kitty's potty. i shut the door and stuffed a rug in the crack. paranoid, me? i need an annie or a sarah to remove it for me. although i don't think even sarah would go near this puppy. mammoth, i'm telling you. you know that song from the prehistoric beasts commercial, i can hear the bug humming it through the door and the rug. it's fucked up. seriously.
we were busy today, and so i couldn't keep a train of thought long enough to blog about anything. you know i must be scattered if my usual posts seem really well composed in comparison. at the moment i can't stop thinking about a bulging bug filled sac in the attic. ungulating, i think that's the word i'm really thinking about. you know it's a good blog when the word ungulating is in the text.
so we were busy today. we're getting a new employee, so soon tia will be gone. they're only part time though, so we won't be able to get sick or have any on the job injuries. mary's planning a cold for three thursdays from now and i expect a rash on the second wednesday in october. but maybe that's only funny if you spent your whole day in a bank.

"elvis was gay" is my favorite key word.

busy busy bo busy fa nana fanna fo fizzy me mi mo mizzy, busy.

because i'm a masochist i read some more of that bastard patrick mcevoy's blog. he called the native people of new mexico savages. and then he said "I highly doubt that guy believed in God, with the amount of gayness he was portraying and all" after rambling on about a tall mexican guy for no apparent reason. arghh...

so we got to hang out in tias new branch and have our meeting. that branch is girly. and country cute. ours is way cooler. way more chic, if a bank can be chic.

in other news the huge yacht (the 6th biggest in the world) that was tendering off the pier is owned by a russian billionaire. apparently no one told him the cool kids go to northeast harbor with their yachts. or maybe the yacht was too big for the harbor. crazy russians. sarah, remember those boats docked at the pier? those were the size of this guys tender. damn, that's a big boat.

we all just received a fun facts worksheet to fill out for the company newsletter. mary and i are trying to think of exciting hobbies we could pretend to have. she has windsurfing and street luging, while i have rock climbing and breatharianism. we're so exciting.

so i was playing with my stats, as i am wont to do, when the day's business sputters and dies and i'm left with only my internet addiction for company. and i found a referral from this site. and i read alot of it. too much of it in fact. trying to find a link to me. i had to read about gay this and gay that. and how michael moore should be killed. and i thought, how did this guy find me? he must be one of the many people who have searched gay dogs mating (which randomly enough is a very popular referral for me) because he reads like a serious closet case who would have the imagination to search for gay dogs, mating. but i didn't find a link, not a one.
and then i noticed a referral from this blog and this one. and i think i figured it out. it's that silly next blog button on the top of the new blogger navigation bar thing. atleast i think is. if anyone can confirm that, let me know.
and i was all excited for an anonymous blog rumble, with the socialist left bloggers taking on the homophobic rush limbaugh bloggers. rats.

or you don't even get invited to cocktail parties because people think you're a dirty hippie.

one of our college of the atlantic students was getting a check for his tuition today and he asked if he could put "for nothing" on the memo line. he said some people go to college and get jobs afterwards. and i said my education qualified me just enough to be entertaining at a cocktail party and then he said the above which cracked me up.

mr. matt just visited me and oooh is it ever weird. not bad weird, good weird. it's nice to connect e-people to real people.

i've been trying to read the paper more because i am feeling vacant and unworldly, but damn it's depressing. they found that missing girls body (her dad is being excorted from prison to attend the funeral), an 11 year old boy is accused of raping two younger boys, the car accident with the 17 year old girl who was not wearing her seatbelt and was seen flying from the car. sometimes it's a blessing to have no damn idea what's going on.

and because i'm a snotty bitch: we were just chiding tia about tonights meeting. because she's being a poo. we've known about the meeting for about two weeks. she with her three calendars didn't write it down and is crabbing because she's supposed to go work out. the irony is that one of our customers, who is an old employee, was telling mary that he wouldn't put up with her behavior as an employer. oooh validation. but she'll soon be gone and hopefully she'll learn something about how you treat people in a professional environment.

nein leiberschift!

very confused german man. the only words i know in german are no and pencil. and danke shane, but i'm sure that's misspelled.

i can't cash your check, even if it is from loew's. (which incidentally does not exist in maine)

yesterday at the supermarket i overheard a very amusing conversation. it was about bait. perhaps the conversation wasn't as amusing as the situation. two families, who had apparently ordered a large shipment of bait together, were discussing the division of the delivery while in line at the supermarket. ooh and it gets better. mr. and mrs. j. crew on vacation were in between the two families. (*if you live on the island you know that even if there are six million people with groceries there will only be two lines open and one of them will have an old lady paying by check in slow, shaky handwriting only to find when she's finished writing she accidentally wrote the name of the old grocery store and has to write a new check) ok so i'm in the slow lane, behind the old lady, and the chatty bait people are in the next lane. the bait people are talking about shoveling the bait, and how you can't ever get the smell off the shovel, or your hands, or your clothes, not to mention your lawn where the bait is waiting to be shovelled. they're laughing and carrying on and joking about all that dead rotting fish. mrs. j. crew on vacation begins to look visibly ill. mr. j. crew on vacation asks her what's wrong. mrs. looks over her shoulder in disgust. but ahh, the first bait family is in front of them and she gets caught. mrs. bait family, with her baity hand, reaches over and touches her arm and asks if she's ok. and the rest i didn't get to see because i had to pay for my groceries. nothing like fish guts to make a vacation worthwile.

so i set up the rss feed which is to your left, for live journal folks. i hope it works for you matt.

i've been publishing stuff, and it doesn't show up. so i rewrite it a thousand times and then they all show up later. and i thought that this one would show up later, but no dice. so i'm fixing it. i also intended to put up matt's link quite a while ago, so i'll do that now.

we just had these two poor guys that ran about three blocks in the rain to cash their checks. the checks are on the counter, drying. the boys are back out in the rain. this is supposed to be the end of bonnie. if this is the tail end of the storm i can't imagine how it was at it's height. damn.

if it is raining, snowing, sleeting, apocolypse...every customer will say "what a beautiful day". fact.

if i can figure out the syndication thing and it doesn't cost me any money i'll do it.

it is rainy and dark out. dark like it's january. dark like the storm of the century. but atleast the rain held off enough for my family to visit. i keep forgetting it's friday the 13th. actually it's my brothers birthday. and he's doing much better according to my mom. he got employee of the month at building 19, which i think only sarah can really appreciate.

they found the missing girls car, in a river. with her not in it. but it's weird because the lobstermen didn't see it there two days ago and they have radar on their boats. they didn't publish it this way but it sounds like it just ended up the water recently. creepy.

when i post it disappears. very dissapointing.

i baked a cake. a chocolate cake with a whole stick of butter in it. the frosting had only a 1/3 cup of butter. i only had one piece, and i think it was enough cakey goodness to last me forever. mary liked it.
i forgot to bring a book to work yesterday and i was bored out of my mind. so bored i couldn't think of anything to blog about. nothing at all of interest or import. and if i hadn't baked the cake of heart failure i wouldn't have anything to blog about today either. it has become that time of year that you don't want to leave your house. it's the time of year when a trip to bangor takes less time than a trip into bar harbor. i'm dreading doing my laundry. i think i need to develop a twitch like holly uses on the T so people will leave me alone.
a teenage girl has gone missing in the milbridge area. she's gone, her cars gone, and her cell phone hasn't been used since saturday. they have it set up that if she touches a button it will alert them to where she is. they have the county atv clubs out searching all the dirt roads for her. it's very sad.

everyone is here and my niece is so fat. she's got the chubbiest legs. she can't really sit up yet, but if you position her just right the fatness of her little legs hold her upright.

i got another hit for "make your own ice luge". i think it's fabulous. another fabulous one is "Elvis Lady Killer Glasses". who wouldn't want glasses like that?

the family is coming today. in my sisters new minivan. but actually my mom isn't sure it's a minivan. she said she didn't know what a minivan was. my mother. i'm starting my hunger strike now.
i cleaned the daylights out of the house, including brushing the kitty and hamster. hamster really doesn't like being brushed. we have a tiny toothbrush with soft bristles for her. you wouldn't think a hamster would have fur problems but sometimes she looks so messy. they must clean themselves like kitties and other fur people, i've just never witnessed it. she did do the cutest thing yesterday. i gave her a piece of paper towel and she shoved it into her tube and wrapped herself up lit it was a blanket. who says hamsters aren't fun?

on my way to bangor today i saw a kid with a broken leg holding a car wash sign on his wheelchair. i wonder if his leg was really broken or if it just helps attract customers. when i drove by again it was a different kid, who looked completely ambulatory. i guess the wheelchair kid was just on lunch break. they had him parked on a hill next to the highway and i really hope he didn't roll in to traffic.

also, my neighbor's car has been leaking gas for about two weeks. and today i noticed an uncapped gas can by her front door. and if that wasn't scary enough, she's the only one of us who smokes. ironic.

some fools talked their way into martha stewart's house and now they're in jail. i read all about it in police beat. apparently the help caught on, but not before they got a tour of the house. police beat is usually very entertaining. someone got stuck in their bedrail and required assistance, a little boy locked himself in the bathroom, it's good fun.

we watched this movie last night as the last of our first fling with netflix. and it was really good. it was teeming with goodness. sarah you must see this movie. now. go and get it right now. we watched aimee and jaguar the other night and i'm really glad we saved big eden for last. we knew that aimee and jaguar wasn't going to end well, but it was chock full of sadness and the subtitles weren't very good. if we spoke better german, we might have liked it better.
but now i want to think about big eden again and how it filled my heart with joy. sigh...

i broke and sort of repaired my bike yesterday, all in pursuit of making it work on the stationary trainer thing. suffice it to say that it is going to take alot more work and the buying of some probably very expensive parts. there is also a ball bearing that sort of fell out. but it seems ok with out it.

the kitty is no longer at all pink. which i'm sorry to say i'm a little disappointed about. who wouldn't want a pink kitty.
we watched the first of our netflix movies last night, which unfortunately was Camp. however cute the gay boys were. we were at a disadvantage. we just don't know enough about broadway to have really enjoyed it. we have bigger hopes for big eden and aimee and jaguar.
i've also got to mention that i'm getting tired of the rude people. there's this sign in hulls cove that is up every summer and it says "summer people, some are not" and you know i'm really beginning to agree. it's true we need their money, but i'll be damned if it's worth being treated like dirt all summer.

i didn't think lightening could strike twice in one day, but i met bathroom lady's not so nice older sister at the laundry mat. it all happened after work, when i was trying to do my laundry as quickly as possible and go home. as i'm watching my clothes spin and get all frothy, a middle-aged couple come in to the laundromat (one word, two words, i don't know). they look down the first row of washers to where i am sitting. the woman of the couple looks at a machine with a big white sign that says "broken" and she looks at me and says "is this broken?" and i nod my head. and she walks away and then the couple sort their laundry and then come back to my row of washers and proceed to place their laundry in two of the most expensive machines which are there for rugs and quilts and the like. and then the woman looks at me and says "how much does this cost?" by then a youngish blond guy is also stuffing about 50 lbs of clothes in to the expensive machines and we both point to the 3'X3' orange sign that says $3.00. and they whine about how much that is for a load of laundry and say the machine can't possible take 35 lbs of laundry, and then she looks at me again and shouts "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?" and the blond boy and i are stunned and he says "go over there" pointing to the cheaper washers and i say "i speak english, can you read?" and the blond boy laughed but i'm not sure if the rudest woman in the whole world heard me or not. i should have demanded an apology. i should have punched her. i should have said "just because i don't want to talk to you, does not mean i don't speak english." grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

we just enountered a whole new area of rudeness. a new genre of rude, if you will. i've talked about the parking, and talked and talked. i've talked about making change, fees, and such things. i don't think i mentioned the lady who was mad at us because she took out too much money at the atm and we couldn't put it back into her account at home, but i hope we can all see where that went. but this one is new, it's about the bathroom. so on with the rant.
this lady used the atm. she was about to walk out the door when she turned to walk in to the bank. i was watching her asthough i knew something icky was about to happen. this happens sometimes when people want change, or a good restaurant reccomendation, or ask us to fix their cellphones. but she came in to ask if we had a bathroom. first of all, who thinks bank= public restroom? a gas station definitely, restaurant, a park, but not a bank. so i say "no" because we don't have a public bathroom. if it was an older person, a child, someone who looked like they were going to lose their cookies, we would help. a young person with two working legs we send to the pier or the police station where there are really very nice public bathrooms. so i directed her to the nearest restrooms which are at the pier and she says "so you walk all the way there, huh?" and i said "mhmm yeah" with a big smile on my face while she turned her back and made that "tsh" noise that i can't grasp very well with letters.
after she was gone mary yelled "you're on vacation, chill out" but i don't think she heard us. who has the energy to be so grumpy on vacation? when the cute british have real problems, like the atm not giving them money, they are so much more calm. they're in a foreign country and they can't get money, and you have to walk 20 feet to pee, get your priorities in order damn it.

i'm trying to decide if i can stand to take a class with tia this fall. now the idea of taking a whole class on banking makes me nervous, but a class that i know from the get go is going to involve tia is a different story. it could be really amusing. like when she asks questions like "am i hispanic?" when in fact she has has "whitey" tattooed on her forehead. i have a feeling it will be like at hood when we took cultures of india and our classmates said things like "if they worshipped cows why did they make them pull the carts?" and "if they had the bible why weren't they christian?". i have a feeling tia would ask questions just like this. and it would shorten my life expectancy.

i replaced mr.phone this weekend. i asked for the biggest one they had and it's still about 3/4's of the size of the old one. why so small, why? i also asked for the one that could take the most abuse but i think she thought i was kidding.
today i accidentally painted the kitty, and now she's pink. she doesn't seem to mind, and really it wasn't my fault that she used to wet red canvas to rub her face on. we've always said that red was her color, and now more than ever.
and if that wasn't exciting enough, they've started to move out the trailers. it's going to take a really long time to get them all gone but it's a step. there were about 20 guys out there, and one driving a tractor. he seemed to be the only one doing any actual work, except for the guy that yelled "whoa" every time the trailer rammed into the trees or the porch or was about to fall over and crush the 20 guys hanging around. the lady who lives below me was shouting to the "whoa" guy about her ex and how he's a jerk and mr. whoa ignored her spectacularly. actually all of the women were shouting at the hanging around guys telling them to get to work and it was me, who was left defending their honor. ironic.

ahh, yes, blogging.  i remember it well.  i just had to spell original for tia.  it often happens that i have to spell words for her, but i've been noticing that each time i spell the word i say it before i spell it, spell it, and then say it again sounding out all the syllables.  like i'm a kindergarten teacher or something.  we got the news today that as soon as they find a replacement for her here, she will be leaving.  but actually, that could take weeks, months even.  for some reason no one wants to work in bar harbor.  i wonder if it's the evil tourists.  hmm.
evil like the lady from new jersey who parked in our space all day yesterday.  and who was there this morning.  and upon who's car i placed three kind but stern notices.  and who yelled "that's my car" whilst i was doing so.  (and as an aside, "that's my car" only says to me that you are the idiot who parked under the towing sign and now i shall focus my animosity at you in person.)  ok, so she said "that's my car" and i said "you'll have to move it, this is bank parking"  and she said "i was just getting out a rug" and i said "well actually these spaces are just for bank business" and she said "well that's why i'm moving".  it was really very unsatisfying.  unlike the people from pennsylvania who looked genuinely scared that we were going to tow them.  i would have really enjoyed watching her car get towed away.  and then mary just said "we are surrounded by morons"  and "do you think the bank pays for psychiatric treatment, can you get workers comp for going postal over parking?"  and this is why i love my boss. 
in really other news i've been looking at new cellphones, because my belief that mine is fixable is tenuous at best.  the top selling points about every new phone seem to be that it is no bigger than a deck of cards and it has the very best of jessica simpsons songs for ring tones.  god help me.  i need a phone with the ability to withstand extensive trauma and maybe one that will just go "bring bring" or similar instead of (and i'm really not kidding about this) tia's phone which is set to sing "achey brakey heart" when her ex calls. 

as much as i had hoped to make my stint in the banking world short, there's no reason not to try to make as much as i can while i'm here right?  so i'm looking into the very boring world of bank classes.  they're free, you get mileage and 5 bucks for dinner, so why not.  one i have to take is called telephone etiquette.  it's a three hour seminar.  on telephone etiquette.  talk about blog fodder. 

today we got trail mix from the cafe milagro.  one of our favorite non customers brought it for us.  she's also the one who brought us the almond chocolate chip cookies from the pearly gated morning glory bakery.  the moral of this story is, if you bring your bankers cookies and trail mix and treats in general...they will be your slaves. 

and just because i saw these words and it made my day: Elf Repair 
that there stirs a barrage of imagery.  i'm hoping to get lots of hits for Elf Repair in the future instead of porn. 

tia is preparing for her big wig meeting that may mean she'll be leaving our branch.  sometimes  she is a trial, but it will be even worse to be shorthanded for an eternity. 

according to mr. word of the day the word of yesterday was inebriated and so i suggest that the word of today be lugubrious.  which he liked very much. 

you know those scooter chair things that are advertised on tv for the locomotivally challenged...i just saw one drive, or well scoot really, down the middle of the road.  like with the cars.  it was something.

sometimes i can only see what's wrong  and sometimes i'm convinced my god has up and gone, i'll never write  a really big huge hit song, my love will leave me hanging on, but everything i need is right here in my hands
 
because man, that song has been seriously stuck in my head.  for a long long time.  this weekend was one of those "and the next season will be locusts" sort of weekends.  saturday it was rainy and cold and foggy and i almost had to turn on the heat.  and sunday it was hot, and it was sunny, and it was beautiful.  and now it's foggy again.  one day last week the little mountains on the edge of the water looked like they were covered in that white craft fuzz.  it was like giant heaps of marshmallows coming out of the ocean.  it was cool. 

and i think i finally killed my phone.  well, not completely, just the talking part.  i can still send texts, i think.  i've dropped it lots of times, and it's never broken before but i think i might actually have killed it this time. 

whoa lady, whoa.  some woman i didn't know almost stomped out because she didn't have id to cash her check.  "i have two accounts here, but i guess i'll go somewhere else where they'll cash my check."  this is the second spoiling for a fight customer i've had recently and i just don't get it.  for the record i am probably the most lenient of id askers at the bank, i only ask when i really have never in my life seen you before.  but i'm not going to hand over hundreds of dollars because you say i've helped you before.  and neither would anyone else.  but if you have accounts here and you don't have id, we can still cash your check.  it would take all of 8 seconsd for you to tell us your ss# and the problem is solved.
but then someone just brought us ice cream so clearly all of our customers don't think we're evil shrews.

ooh oooh and i almost forgot.  this morning a tourist from NJ beeped at a fire ambulance with siren blaring because it turned ahead of them.  what the hell is the world coming to?

hey sarah!  remember that time we went up cadillac and it was foggy and you stood outside for five minutes in the fog and got completely soaked?  that's what today is like.  and well actually yesterday was like that too, and probably tomorrow.  i'm reading another charles todd book.  he writes foggy british mysteries and so the weather is very appropriate.  aslong as it's british it's ok if it's foggy and people die. 

i just got some scoop on miguels.  they lowered their prices and changed their menu a few weeks ago...i wonder why?  the waiter that i talked to claims that it is now about the same as before it sold but one can't be sure.  we'll have to go read the menu and see.  if they expect to last the winter they're going to have to prove themselves as cheap and as good as they were before the sale.  i don't know anything about xyz but apparently the new anthony's is extra expensive too in order to separate the tourists from as much of their money as possible.  annie, maybe if the menu looks more reasonable we could try it out and invite xander and anne?
 
mr.blog has been getting lots more attention lately according to statcounter and i'm wishing i had been more saavy when i started the blog.  wouldn't it have been grand to harbor petty annoyances about who else in the dorm was reading our blogs?  think of the arguments and bitching we missed out on.  life sucks...goes on lunch break.

i almost forgot that mr. cell phone came back to visit us.  he wanted to know where he could send a fax in town.  and we sent him down the street with directions.  this time atleast he didn't assume that we didn't have the technology.  based on my notes of the exchange i didn't think we were very nice but i suppose we must have been.  wonder what he'll ask tomorrow. 

i like kids, but i can't eat a whole one

 

on friday one of my jamaican boyfriends asked me if i have any kids.  i said something along the lines of "no. what, are you crazy?"  they all have kids and they were all sending money home to support them.  i think i need to read up on jamaica, cool runnings alone probably isn't the best cultural guide. 

i am thinking about starting netflix.  i have the feeling that it will become an addiction and i'll start to see the video store as some kind of methadone clinic.  particularly when the long cold winter comes.  i like getting mail, and watching movies.  how could something so right be wrong?

 

man comes in after using the atm
"do you have cell phones up here?"
"yes...uhh why"
"my cell phone doesn't work."
"uh huh"
"i'm from chicago, my phone works fine there."
"ahh, well. sorry it doesn't work."
"ohh...so you don't know how to make my phone work?"
"uhm no, sorry"
"ok, bye"

and because there hasn't been a political chat on this page for a while look here. mr. bush is trying to postpone the election incase of an act of terrorism. maybe that sounds a bit too harsh, he's reseearching the legality of such a postponement should something happen. man, lincoln had a actual domestic war going at full speed and he didn't try to pull that shit. lincoln's words about it are at the bottom of the article and they're very beautiful. but lincoln wasn't afraid to lose. he actually cared about the will of his people. unlike bush on both counts. i don't know for sure but i think most people think lincoln was a pretty cool guy and a very decent president. unlike our current "war" president, lincoln really hated war.
and although that rant is hardly finished...tia was just saying that the infamous "they" are telling the service men away that they probably won't be able to vote because the absentee ballots won't get back in time. what the hell is that about?