The Pawn Shop

As most of you know, but some may not, I work at a pawn/antique shop in Damariscotta, Maine and occasionally I like to share some of the cool stuff we have. Recently, we had an addition put on, and here are some pics from the new room...

Looking in...

Am extremely nice secretary with all kinds of cubby holes and shelves

A pair of gumball machines

I decorated this old farm table with fancy dishes and carnival glass

I know, can you believe it? An old street light.

A fainting couch

Vintage Toys (I love them)

Fishing Floats and a fun sign

More Toys (in the jewelry room)

Bottles and bells and porcelain figurines

And a very cool clock

We also have tons of artwork, tools, old car parts, signs, not to mention the best selection of movies in town, all alphabetically organized thanks to yours truly :)

If you ever get up this way, you should visit; it's definitely the coolest shop in town and the funnest place I've ever worked.

The Pawn Shop Files

As many of you recall, I took a job last year at a Pawn Shop, which has turned out to be the funnest job I've ever had (and yes, I know funnest isn't a proper word). We see a lot of interesting people - characters in the truest sense of the word - and even more interesting stuff. Some of it is pawn, which goes down into the special 'pawn' room to stay until the people come back and pay for the item. The rest of it is stuff people bring in to sell outright. Like the Frankenstein Machine. That's what its owner called it but it's really a shock treatment machine and as soon as we get the plug and cord back from being rewired, we'll see if it works.

Pretty cool, eh?

Monday pics - Dragonfly

Isn't he amazingly beautiful? I'd never seen these guys before but this year they've been everywhere. my son was lucky enough to have one land on him and snapped a piccie.

Meanwhile, I've been at my new job (at a land survey company) over a month now and am still trying to adjust to my new schedule (read: manage my time better!). I'm also working hard on my edits for West of Paradise (I know it isn't published yet so I suppose technically I shouldn't italicize it, but... the hell with it, I'm going to anyway), my revisions for THE UNSOLVED CASE OF KASSANDRA DYER, and trying to find my next project. I have a few options and I'm currently exploring them. We'll see what happens. Sometimes these things turn into something, other times they fizzle out. Either way, I'll keep you posted. 

Oh, and I signed up for this:

 the armchair squid's "Cephalopod Coffeehouse, an online gathering of bloggers who love books." Interested? Click on the pic and sign up :)



What about you? Signed up for any fests? Working hard on something? Taking some well-earned time off?

Monday

Well, here we are again. The beginning of the work week for most of us, in which we have 5 whole days before the lovely wonderful much anticipated weekend. I don't know about you but work (that thing I do to pay the bills) is just not my bag baby. Know what I mean? Or are you one of those fortunate people who actually has a job they love?

I did like my job* once. When I first started. But now, almost fifteen years later, the only thing I still love is when kittens and puppies come in (because, hey, who doesn't like kittens and puppies?), and certain animals and their people. For example, there's this nice lady who comes to us who has the two best pets in the entire world. One is a King Charles Spaniel named Ruby, who is just the sweetest, most loving dog I have ever met.

I'm not a huge fan of little dogs, but if Ruby needed a new home I'd jump at the chance of being her new person.The other pet this nice lady has is a Maine Coon cat named Miley, who is equally loving and sweet, and gorgeous to boot. She actually looks a bit like this cat:

But as much as I love animals, I would still prefer to be sitting at my desk every day tapping the keys and creating stories rather than checking people out and trying to explain why they should spay/neuter/vaccinate their pets. To be honest, I'm bored with my job. The funny thing is I never tire of my stories or my characters because there's always a way to make them more exciting or interesting.

So, the question today (which, if you answer in the comments, will gain you entry into the great give away **) is, do you love your job? And if you don't, what would you rather be doing? 


* for those who don't know, I work at an animal hospital

** in which I give away great books like the entire Twilight series, Tad Williams' Otherland series, the first two books in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, a first chapter crit, and Roget's Thesaurus. All you have to do to win is be a follower and comment. 

wednesday - warning: foul language

So I was thinking, about work and how 'it's just not my bag, baby,' if you know what I mean. And it's even less my bag when I have one of those shitty days involving euthanizing (really, though let's just call it what it is: killing) cats that don't want to be killed and fuckwads who bring cats for us to kill as if it was OUR responsibility to solve THEIR problem. I'd go into greater detail but suffice it to say that people who can't manage to vaccinate their cats against rabies generally end up on my shitlist. I mean, c'mon, if you can't do that and spay and neuter, then you have no business owning a cat. And yes, the same holds true for dogs but people tend to take care of their dogs better than their cats.

Anyway *deep breath* I was thinking about my work (which is thankfully not always like that or I'd probably shoot myself in the head) and those awful days and how they spur me, smack me upside the head and remind me why I need to keep writing. Because I do not want to keep playing that game. It isn't fun and it isn't good for my soul.

Lucky for Gus, nice people were looking out for him and although he's still doing time (read: quarantine) in a few months he'll be free and up for adoption. Yeah, I didn't want to end on a completely negative note...

a little rant

Some of you may recall that I work at a veterinary clinic.

As you might imagine, we get a lot of characters, ranging from the snarly old guy who's mad because the ACO (animal control officer) is making him get his dog a rabies vaccination (hello? There ARE rabid animals out there and we DO NOT want to euthanize your dog because you were too cheap and too stupid to vaccinate it) to the woman who takes her little foo foo dog every effing place she goes and buys it little coats and outfits that make us all want to stick our fingers down our throats.

We get rich people, poor people, people who love their animals and those who still think it's 'cruel' to neuter their dog - but it's ok that millions of unwanted animals are euthanized every day as a direct result of...wait for it...intact dogs and cats (surprise surprise).

And then we get the women - young, over-endowed, muffin-topped as well as older, immense and sagging - who come in wearing a low cut top that displays every bit of cleavage they've got - which we really aren't interested in seeing, mind you - as well as any tattoos they have in places maybe only their boyfriends should see, who then proceed to bend over and give us all a glimpse of ...well you get the idea. Worse is when they take their cell phones out of said cleavage, or, worse yet, remove money!!! Sorry. NOT sexy or cute or anything else except GROSS!

if only it was all kittens 

and puppies