4 August 2014

Happy Monday!

Today was a big day for five reasons.

Reason 1: Martha Stewart

I was out doing parking lot duty when I overheard two ladies walking to their car and talking about how cool it was to see Martha a few tables over. I thought, “Yeah. That does sound cool,” and then went back to protecting and serving in the lot. A few minutes later I had to truly direct traffic as the loading area and intersection became backed up with a gaggle of angry motorists.

Once I saved the day, a gentleman in a black Suburban waved me over. He said, “Hey, do you know Martha Stewart?” I told him yes, thinking that he must’ve heard she’s at the restaurant and wanted me to somehow get an autograph or something. It turns out he was her driver and he truly and firmly believed he needed to go in and tell her that he had arrived and was ready for her. I told him he could wait in the loading and unloading zone since, after all, that’s what he was doing. But I told him that he had to stay with his vehicle if he is going to wait there. That left me to have to go and in relay the important message. I did so, but not until I cleared the intersection so the busses could leave and got the traffic to flow through the lot smoother than butter on a hot skillet. I went back to the Suburban to let him know I was on my way in to relay the message. I found an empty driver’s seat. Luckily, I intercept him near the gift shop entrance and assured him I’d go find Martha so long as he returned to his vehicle. Judging by his sense of urgency, I figured he was running late or something in picking her up.

After I narrowed down the general location of the Stewart party, I realized that I didn’t actually know what Martha looks like. I knew she was older and had blonde hair. Unfortunately, a lot female patrons to the Jordan Pond House have a somewhat similar appearance. Fortunately for me, however, I found her at the first table I made contact with. To help me even more was my orange vest and general appearance of a poor parking lot attendant that obviously has never picked up Martha Stewart Living in my life. So I’m sure she wasn’t expecting a lot out of me while I not-so-smoothly passed on the important information to her. She nonchalantly told me to pass on the message, “Okay, tell him I’ll be out in a while.”

Back in the parking lot I managed to not only tell her driver, Carlos, the message, but I also had a chance to chat with him in between addressing parking lot emergencies. He complimented me on my skills and told me I need to move to a big city to make big money as a parking attendant. I went along with it, but I’m not looking to move to Boston to direct or park cars anytime soon. He was a very nice man and had been Martha’s driver for the past 16 years. He works for her on Fridays through Sundays. He enjoys when Martha vacations in Maine just as much as she does. It is a vacation for him from all of the lousy East Coast traffic.

Eventually, Martha and her guests came out and loaded into the Suburban. Carlos whisked them away, but not until Martha leaned forward in the front seat and gave me a nice wave to thank me—the cute little parking attendant boy. So that was pretty neat.

Reason 2: The Rockefeller’s

Little did I know when I awkwardly walked up to the table to attempt to contact Martha that she was hosting the Rockefellers. Included in the party of seven was David Rockefeller, the son of John Rockefeller, Jr., who used to own the Jordan Pond House before it was a National Park Service property.

Reason 3: Whoopee pie

During the beginning of parking lot duty, I was talking with a tour bus driver for Vermont Bike Travel Company. She gave me one of her homemade pumpkin spice whoopee pies. In case you are unfamiliar with the treat, a whoopee pie is pretty much two cookie-sized cakes with a large amount of frosting in between.  I didn’t have time to eat it until the end of parking lot duty around 3:00, but it was still really good even after hanging out in a shaded crook of a tree for a few hours.

Reason 4: Jordan Cliffs Trail

After work and dinner, one of my roommates, Gabe, and I went out to hike the newly opened Jordan Cliffs Trail. Since I’ve been out here, the Park Service had not been allowing visitors to use the trail because the peregrine falcons nest on the cliffs. Apparently, being dive bombed by a territorial falcon is a bad thing.

I can think of no better person to do an after-work hike with. Gabe is notorious in the dorm for either accidentally or purposely making long hikes after the sun has set. My favorite story is when he misjudged how long it’d take to hike back from Bar Harbor. He ended up hiking up and down the tallest mountain on the Atlantic US coast (Cadillac Mountain) in complete darkness. I knew with him leading the way we’d make it back to the dorm no matter what the light conditions were.

Fortunately, it stayed light enough to safely see the trail until we had already cleared all of the dangerous stuff. We finished the actual Jordan Cliffs and arrived at the summit of Penobscot before sunset. The hike down from Penobscot to the dorm starts out with a mile of walking the exposed granite ridge line with expansive southern views of the rest of the island, the off-shore islands, and the ocean as it blurs into the sky in the darkening eastern horizon. The hike was stunningly gorgeous.

Reason 5: I fixed my camera!

After doing some internet research, I found a blog dedicated to fixing digital cameras with “lens errors.” The solution to my problem was to hold the menu button down for about 5 seconds. Some magical mechanical spell came over my camera and it suddenly started behaving again.