random stuff that does not seem quite important enough to tell you on our very limited phone conversations but that i still want to say

1. my co-worker kate has a friend who often comes to the store at the end of the day to pick her up. he works for the government, something to do with passport creation/distribution (not sure of his official title). obviously this is a high security sort of job so he goes through a lot of training and such--point of the story is that one of the random things they teach you when you work for the passport agency is differences in handwriting (when writing in english) based on country of origin. after looking at my handwriting sample he said that my writing looks very european. oh yeah, i can write in european. within the next five years i want to live in france.

2. we have been playing chrismas music in the store for a couple weeks now. today i noticed that there is a version of dean martin singing "these are a few of my favorite things" . . . think about it for a moment . . . jazzy, rat packy, slick new york voice crooning about schnitzel with noodle and wild geese . . . it just struck me as funny

3. there was definitely a three . . . what was it . . . damn.
damn.
incomplete feeling . . . i will remember--oh oh i remember. ok, we have all these clear bohemian crystal ornaments (from the 1970's) that we are selling in the store. they are rather pretty. in the front of the store there is this giant cast iron pot rack hanging from the ceiling. we decided to hang all of the ornaments from the pot rack in order to display them and since everyone else is afraid of the ladder i got the job of climbing nine feet into the air while holding crystal ornaments. not an awful job but a little nerve wracking and time consuming. the display turned out very well. all these lovely, delicate bulbs and balls and ice cycles . . . anyway, today this woman came into the store and she loved the display. really she loved it--she kept telling me she did. she made her friend look at it from every possible angle. she sang the praises of the display and asked me if i had an art degree . . . i take that as a compliment . . . no i have a psyc degree so i will trick you into thinking you like my display. wha ha ha (evil laugh). who needs a real art degree when you can work in a little artsy store and have random customers compliment your aesthetic sensibilities. there, i just saved myself another 50 thousand dollars!

fin.

--j