Monday, August 20, 2012

Humidified papers and ice crream cake


Today I processed 4 court terms for York County.  We are only on box 3 of 35 boxes and our supervisor is expecting that we will process all the rest before we leave.  Fat chance!  He also said that we had to digitize the entire 300 boxes of Washington county and that we should be doing 400 images per hour.  I really would like to see him come here and perform this superhuman feat.  Quite frankly I think he has lost track of reality and wants the numbers on the spreadsheet so that he looks good on paper.
The tasks are mundane and the only thing that brightens the day is the banter between us and Jason.  He is 25 years old and is a musician but has to work this job to put food on the table.  Yaaaa!  Work is the curse of the creative class – we would rather be doing creative things than being stuck at a desk putting files together etc.etc.  He is digitizing the BDM of Maine on a magnificent machine that does thousands of images per hour.
I have the job of unfolding moist paper and putting it in a place where it will be pressed flat.  The paper smells and I cannot get the smell out of my hands.  I did 5 bundles of humidified court cases at around 100 cases per bundle.  The people coming after us get the job of digitizing them.
Here in Augusta, just about everyone goes crazy for garage sales.  They are either holding one or going to them.  A few doors down there was a massive one on someone’s lawn.  I did not dare try to go to it because the temptation to buy something wonderful is more than I can withstand and we need to keep our possessions at a minimum so that we can fit them all in the car when it is time to leave for home.  This particular sale began on Friday and was still going late on Sunday afternoon.  This morning there was just a pile of leftovers on the lawn and I think that is what they must do to the unsalable stuff.  Imagine my surprise this afternoon at 4.30pm when we were coming home from the archives, when we saw our elderly neighbor picking though the leftovers.  He and his wife go regularly to garage sales.  As we drove past this house on the way to line dance class, I noticed that the pile was considerably smaller and that a bedpan was gracing the front-and-center position.  Now that would make a cool planter!
We went to Line Dance class and they had an ice cream cake for everyone to eat to celebrate the birthdays for the month of August.    They also recognized us as having been with the group for some time and that we were returning to Arizona soon.  That was a nice touch I thought.  We did a lot of dances tonight but I have not been in attendance now for 2 or 3 Mondays and I see that I have forgotten many of the dances……so I just jogged in place and pretended that I knew them.  One of the ladies there asked us if we could help her sister find a relative…..the name is Severance and I have processed a lot of court cases in York County for that family name of Severance, and she is chasing Severance Genealogy.
At lunch time today, Anne asked us if we would join her and Alex for lunch.  We did and we all went over to Friendly’s for clam strips and the senior special includes an ice cream for dessert.  I guess we need to take a break from the bleak lunch room now and again.

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