How Small is Bloomsburg?

A good time was had by all last night at my first dinner party in Pennsylvania! The food was good and the conversation was grand. Everyone had a lovely time.

I invited Eric and Sara who are a younger couple and live above their store on Main Street. I met them while on my walk on Christmas Eve. Come to find out, my neighbor John, who lives across the street, plays golf with Sara's Dad on Sundays.

I was told that the population of Bloomsburg is approximately 12,000 with 8,000 being University related.

Yesterday I walked into the post office and the lady in front of me had given the postal clerk a change of address card and then turned and walked out of the post office. The postal clerk looked at it and then looked at me and said, "She didn't sign it. Dottie wait right here." And she ran from behind the counter and out the door and down the street after the lady to get her signature. I was in shock. There were people in line who all acted as this this were normal. I was shocked on two accounts; 1) The postal clerk knew and called me by my name, and 2) She ran after a customer!

In Los Angeles it was literally years before the people at the post office acknowledged that they knew me and began calling me by name. Which shouldn't be outrageous since I am there every single day! I do realize it is harder to make personal contact with the people in Los Angeles, at the post office, when there is 3 inches of plexiglass between you and the postal worker. You would put your mail in a window and lower the door and only then would they be able to open the window on their side and get your mail out. It was all so impersonal. I would joke around and say that the reason the plexiglass was there was to prevent us, the public, from being hurt by one of the clerks should they decide to go "postal."

At the downtown Los Angeles post office there were six psychologist "shrinks" on staff for the postal workers to go and talk to if they felt like doing anything crazy. One would really have to wonder about a job where they employee six doctors for your mental state. That's wild!

The picture was taken of me in New Zealand. I am at a deer farm and I am holding up a pair of deer antlers. I had no idea they were fuzzy like a peach. The deer antlers have thousands and thousands of blood vessels in them. They are sliced very thin and sold to the Chinese who believe that putting the deer antlers in their tea and drinking it will help with a variety of health issues.

Ciao