More notes on living in a small town.

I may have mentioned before, but the place where I moved is small. Really small. The local paper published the vital statistics, and there are a grand total of 4600 people living here. And, most everybody knows everyone else. Like I've said before, there's a real sense of community here. The other day, I was leaving to go to work, and one of the residents at the apartment here was sweeping the snow off the sidewalk. We exchanged pleasantries about the weather and such, and while I was getting Olivia buckled into her car seat, the man brushed all the snow off my car.

I'm starting to get to know the regular customers who come into the bank, which is nice. One guy comes in and the running joke that we have is when it's free money day. As in, he asks, and I always tell him that he just missed it, it was the last customer...or Free Money Day is the second Friday of the month, and it's the third Friday...stuff like that. Or, there's another woman who comes in and chides me for not taking my vitamins, because it would clear up the eczema on my knuckles. Then she tells me about her boys who are in University, and asks about Olivia.

I have fun at my other job too. Especially when I'm working with Ilaria. She's about my age, and a lot of fun to work with. The other day, we had the day from hell. Neither of us are very competent at replacing watch batteries, and it seemed that every second customer wanted one replaced. We could either get the back pried off and then couldn't get it back on, or couldn't get it off to begin with. At one point, after trying for about 10 minutes to get one watch back together, we were both pretty frustrated. Ilaria got a devillish look on her face, and said, "Ok...hold that f&#*@%, I'm going to fix it". She grabbed the jeweler's hammer, and commenced to try to put the back on. And, since I was the one holding it, I had to throw in, "Jesus Christ, Ilaria, those are my fingers there!"

We both started laughing, and needless to say, that watch did not get its back on that day.

I'm in the middle of having four days off. It's a nice, much needed break. I've been able to unpack some more things, cook real meals, and even work on the same pink/orange/yellow/white sock that I've been working on forever.