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?

you know how in the dorms the shower only has three settings: hot, too hot, and liquid fire from hell. my home shower, since the horrible days of no water, has completely lost the ability to have a reasonable temperature. my skin is still tingling from the hot.
ooh ooh i finihed painting my chairs last night and cleaning the kitchen/dining/computer room. how do you name a room when it has so many purposes, which one do you choose. i'm tempted to call the kitchen/dining room the food parlour and the bed/living room the resting salon, or the entertainment and slumber chamber, or i could be a bit british and call it the bed-sitting room. maybe the kitchen could be the dining kitchenette. any thoughts?
today i have an appointment at the dentist. hopefully i'm just getting sealants as i gloated about my non cavity status. i brushed like a fiend this past month, but then maybe that was the problem. sarah?
it looks tragically like it's going to rain today. it's not a good sign that all the tourists have their coats on. i someone with a sweatshirt and a scarf yesterday. where are these people from that they're cold. where is it so hot that 75 is a bit chilly? i can't figure it out.

apparently if you're in a hurry, and you've lived here for thirty years, but you don't bank here even though it's closest to your business, i should go out of my way to make change for you ahead of customers. and when you're rude to me i should see how i've wronged you and fall to my knees and raise the dollar bills and quarter rolls on a velvet pillow slowly up to your hands while averting my unworthy eyes. bitch.

i had a dream about a floppy ferris wheel that proves to me that they are dangerous and scary. the dream people were riding it and they didn't seem to mind that it was floppy. but then dream people do all sorts of unreasonable things. i do remember that we were looking for the snack stands at the dream carnival. so the priorities were still there.
i've been putting off making a doctor's appointment for months and now i have one this afternoon and i don't want to go. i hate those gowns. i don't hate needles, or blood, it's the gowns. thinking about floppy ferris wheels and hospital gowns so close together is making me nervous. all i need really is a new thyroid prescription. i don't need a gown to have my blood drawn. they only need a arm. why all the fuss? it would save them laundry if they didn't make me change. it would save water. it would be better for mother earth if i didn't change in to the icky gown. i wonder if they'll see my point?

oh dear. i think i'm getting some sort of cold. this is no time for sniffles. on the upside i just ordered our very own copy of cool runnings which for some reason we really enjoy watching. alot. and also the vicar of dibley divine set which i'm really looking forward to. and later today i'm going to look into getting the thing that makes your bike stationary. so i can ride it when it's raining. in my house. watching british tv. it's like make your own spinning class. but without the spandex. what could be better.

it's official, two days in the bank with no option to leave is too many and makes one completely insane. as witnessed by annie yesterday. this morning i went to check my mail. it's so freeing to be able to go outside.
so, blog. it seems like we're all summertime forgetful about our blogging. or maybe we have such fabulous lives that we can't be bothered to describe the minutiae for the web universe. in addition to being trapped in the bank...i've had a very exciting week. monday two of my neighbors popped by. next door accidentally broke her phone line and was knocking before i got my shoes off. she thinks kitty is pretty but did not like bug for a name. below neighbor came up to tell my my toilet is leaking on her counter, but that tedd was coming to fix it and if i could use the other one instead for the time being. i feel terrible about the leak, and more terrible that her kitchen counter is so much bigger than mine. if they had both come at the same time it would have been like a block party, but without snacks.

i don't think i've gone this long without blogging for a long time. it's easy to get out of the habit when i'm not at work.
so as sarah said, she is home now. the week of sarah fun is now over. we ate alot, we drove around, we saw the deer isle parade and now i'm back at work after a nice long weekend spent cleaning the house.
kitty misses sarah. i can tell. she's venting her misplaced anger about sarah's absence at the neighbor cat who keeps trying to sit on her window. the bitch. it's been a very emotional week for kitty with the thunder and the fireworks and then sarah leaving.
we're quite busy here. apparently the Post Office is refusing to take travelers checks if you don't spend enough money. there were some very confused british folk here earlier. i said "that sounds like the post office" and they said "well then, it's just like ours." i heart cute british people.