Young people

I am one of the oldest people working at my studio, and I'm only 23! Today I had a customer who was talking to his young (well she had to be about 13 or so) daughter about music, and he mentioned Jethro Tull. I happen to be a fan of Jethro Tull (my mom got me hooked), and I said as much to the customer. He looked at me with total amazement, and his daughter had a very blank look on her face.

"You mean he wasn't making it up?"

I looked over the counter at her and said that no, her dad wasn't making Jethro Tull up. He pointed at his shirt (it was a really cool Young Frankenstein t-shirt) and said that she (his daughter) didn't know about Mel Brooks either (appearently she didn't know much about Mel Gibson either because she said 'isn't Mel Brooks the guy who did that Passion movie?). The dad and I bantered back and forth with lines from our favorite Mel Brooks movies, and another co-worker came over and joined in. The dad was so happy that he found a place that takes portraits and quotes his favorite movies that he bought a bunch of pictures.

That reminds me, I have to find my copy of Men in Tights so Mom can finally watch it. It's that or Himself and I act out the entire movie for her. Methinks she would rather watch the movie.

M

Portrait Taking pt. 2

After a few more tries at portrait taking, I am getting the hang of it. One of my favorite co-workers told me that I will never get it perfect. At first it sounded like she was telling me that I was going to get fired because of my imperfect portrait techniques, but then she followed it up with the fact that even the pros aren't perfect. Our corperate people couldn't even take a portrait to save their lives, and they're the ones telling us how to do it!

I should be able to get the time off to go to the Lower Kingdom next month without too much trouble. One of the girls there was even asking me to look to see if any houses were for sale near the Lower Kingdom. I told her that I would have my hands full with distracting the Grand Dame of the Universe. Oh well, she can't move down there for a couple of years anyway.

Himself and I have been talking about moving into a house eventually, but talks are slow, and we kind of have to have money to buy a house. Most banks have pretty good homeloans for first time uyers, so that shouldn't be much of a problem.

Work has been slowing down a lot in the days after Father's Day. In fact, the day after Father's Day was so slow, especially compared to the craziness of the actual weekend. The Fourth of July is coming up, and people actually want to have their portraits taken on that day! I would much rather stay at home or help my mom make her really good fried chicken, or go to the party at Himself's friend's house. I would not want to sit in a mall and have pictures taken.

Must go to bed now.

M

Portrait Taking

I just don't get it. I have a 4.0 in every photo class I have taken, and I can't for the life of me take portraits at work! I've practiced a little for the past couple of days, and I am getting better, but still not perfect. One of my managers told me that I will probably have to be taking portraits by next week, and I just don't feel ready! Panic!

On to much calmer things. Today I spend my day off outside in the glorious sun, getting a little crisp around the edges but enjoying every moment of it. Himself jokes about me being solar powered, and I'm begining to believe him. Cold winters, rainy springs, and cloudy falls seriously bum me out, and once summer hits I'm a ray of freaking sunshine. Allergies are at a minimum this time of year, and the sun feels really good.

The first day of summer was yesterday, but I had to work. I celebrated the summer today by going to the park and reading a pretty good book. Charline Harris is a pretty good auther if you like supernatural romance/thriller/mystery (which I do), but Mary Janice Davidson is best for humor/romance/mild thriller books (great summer reads).

Must feed Himself. Himself gets like Spawn when hungry.

M

Neighbors and Mothers

I hate my neighbors, at least the people who live downstairs from Himself and I. They play loud music at the worst times, their carpools honk the horn for 20 minutes at 8-something in the morning, and they all stand outside smoking. While I give them props for not smoking near their kids, I am allergic to the smoke and it floats up to meet my nose and makes it hard to breathe. Most of the time I'm not home to deal with them, but when I am home, I don't want to hear the same polka song over and over again! I guess 'hate' is a little too strong of a word to use here. I deeply dislike my neighbors.

I have recently discovered that mothers are terrifying. Not my mother (at least I'm not all that afraid of her, but I do know people who say she is the scariest person in the world. They obviously haven't met the Grand Dame of the Universe), but other mothers. I work in a portrait studio, and we take pictures of people's kids or the whole family. The one line I have been hearing all day today and yesterday was/is 'what do you mean you can't get me in today?!' We were triple booked yesterday, and double booked today, so we couldn't take any walk-ins. Mothers will then play the distance card: 'Well I drove all the way from X city just to have these portraits taken, and I just HAVE to have them today!' We tried to take walk-ins, but we just didn't have the time. The other thing that mothers did this weekend that amazed me was showing up LATE for an appointment, and then getting pissed off that we had to take the ones who were on time first, and the get to the late ones in the order that they showed up. We had one mother yell at one of the managers for 'taking walk-ins before the appointments', then she yelled at the photographer who was taking her pictures, telling her that she shouldn't be a photographer if she couldn't get the kids to sit still for a couple of seconds, or if she couldn't get the picture fast enough. Finally she yelled at the poor girl who was showing the portraits, telling her that if no one could help her in the way she wanted help, then she was never coming back. This woman's kids were monsters too, but that was really no surprise given the example they were being shown.

Himself was really hoping that working with small, screaming children would lessen my want for children, but it has only intensified it. I am also learning how not to act around my children. Himself have very relaxed views on parenting. The boyfriends of the daughters will meet me first, and if I don't like them, I'll let them meet Himself without a warning. If I like them, then I'll warn them about him. I have also learned (although I knew this from past jobs) that if it is the day before any holiday, it is the worst time to try to do anything, and anything that goes wrong isn't always the employee's fault.

Well, that's about all for now, I should get to bed now. I get to learn how to take portraits tomorrow!

M

Updates

Well, I had my schedule fixed so that I would only be working about 32 hours this week (I still have to matte the prints I've been working on), but one of the girls at work quit yesterday, so now everyone is scrambling to cover all of her shifts. I'm back to 40 hours, but I volunteered myself for one of the days. I still can't believe she quit so close to Father's Day (I guess it's one of our busiest times of the year, other than the Holidays), especially since she was scheduled for 40 hours!

Big Green Friend (AKA Stupid for this post) broke up with his girlfriend of less than a week. Stupid and Photo Girl started dating after several weeks of dating/not dating (they were only seeing each other, but nothing was 'official' yet), and Himself and I really thought they would last a lot longer than they did. Stupid was probably more than a little freaked out by the fact that he actually had a girlfriend, but I never said he was smart.

Himself and I have been talking about camping one weekend in August (hopefully with other people, since camping is so much more fun when you have a group together), so hopefully that will all work out. I have also been planning a trip to see the Grand Dame of the Universe and the Prince Consort next month. Mom and I are thinking that we're going to plan on going down to the Lower Kingdom together so one of us can distract Grand Dame of the Universe while the other calls for help. Last summer I went alone to the Lower Kingdom, and almost came home early.

Well, that's about all, Finals are here (today is the last class day of the quarter), book buy-back is in a couple of days, and I feel like I'm forgetting something.

I think I forgot my brain at work. Hopefully someone finds it, dusts it off and sets it in a nice dark corner of the lab. I'll be back for it tomorrow.

M

Ummm...

I just got my schedule for next week (finals week. Joy) for work, and I'm working 40 hours! Normally that would be a good thing, but with finals only a weekend away, things are getting shuffled around that really can't be shuffled. Thank (insert your favorite deity here) my manager understands finals week, and she is willing to let me come in late, leave early, or trade with someone. She's really cool, and I don't feel scared to work with her! That's a very good thing.

Yesterday was my first real day (a full 8 hours of regular time instead of training time), and I started getting the hang of everything. Unfortunately the machine that makes the prints broke yesterday morning, so we had to make two runs to another store to print out the portraits. Most of the customers didn't mind, as long as they got their portraits by Father's Day, but some of them were really pissed off that they couldn't look at anything. Oh well. I guess this is at least the second time the machine broke down (the last time I remember it breaking was the day I went in to fill out the paperwork), and so people aren't happy.

Himself and I are planning on going camping this summer with a couple of friends, but that may not happen (the camping will happen, but we may not have company). It would only be for a weekend, one of the ren faires that we go to every summer has on-site camping, so we wouldn't even have to walk that far to get to the faire, and most of the vendors and participants stay and camp (a whole month of camping. Good thing there are showers on site, and a town not far away). I guess the nights get pretty rowdy, but it still should be a lot of fun. Hopefully we can both get the time off...

Well, that's all for now. More later when I'm not so stressed out about finals. Probably won't post again until the finals are over.

M

A watched pot never boils

I have all sorts of interesting people in my math class, the instructor is no exception (he's named after a Norse god, how could he possibly be normal?). He caught another student staring at the clock, waiting for class to end, and he told the student that a watched pot never boils. Now there is another student in the class (actually there are about fifteen other students in the class, but one in particular) who is quite the blonde. She bleaches her hair, fakes-n-bakes, and tries to look as 'cute' as possible (which is really hard when your skin looks kind of orangey). I try to be patient with her, because it's not her fault she's as dumb as a box of hammers, but sometimes it's really hard not to grab her by the shoulders and try to shake that brain cell awake.

Blondie piped up with 'does a watched pot really never boil?'. The guy sitting next to her grabbed his head and moaned 'you're giving me a headache!', which made the whole class crack up. Blondie walked with me when class got out (I'm hoping it's just the family curse kicking in again, and not that she really likes me) and asked me why the guy sitting next to her was so grumpy. I really wanted to come back with 'Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because you're so stupid?', but I resisted. Instead I shrugged and suggested that maybe he didn't get enough sleep the night before.

A watched pot never boils. Really! It's some sort of magic that keeps it from boiling! And a tiger is just a really big cat. Don't worry, you can pet it! Sheesh.

M

First Day

My first day at the new job was a little overwhelming. I have been in sales before, and that's just about all I have to do until after Father's Day (no one has any time to train new photographers until then). The only thing that stumps me is the computers. I like to think that I am pretty computer-savy, but there are so many buttons to push just to check someone in for their appointment, and if they're new customers, then we have to get a bunch of info from them. All very complicated, but I'm sure that after my two more days of training, I'll have the system down.

Finals are next week, and I still have to shoot three more cards. I was hoping to do one of them tonight so I could develop and print on Wednesday, and then do the other two this weekend, but I'm not sure if I can get one of my friends to come over with her daughter this weekend. Hopefully I can, that way I can spend my next day off developing and printing, and then spend all day on Wednesday or Thursday matting the prints. Busy week. I'll be glad when it's over, then my summer vacation starts.

Himself is now a meat-cutter, and I am seriously thinking about going vegitarian. He comes home with all sorts of stuff caked onto his clothes, and the smell is pretty bad. The only time I'll come near him is after he's showered and changed his clothes.

That's about all that's been going on lately. I have to sign up for classes soon, and I was thinking of taking Kickboxing for my P.E credit and Digital Photography to go towards my photo certificate (still not sure what that gets me, but it sounds cool when I tell people what I'm going to school for).

M