I Have a Pack

Boo!

Today’s Exploit:

The other day I went for a run.  

It was going to be boring because the highway is only a mile away and this particular road has no friends joining it at all.

But then after about 200 feet I was rushed by a pack of monsterous, fanged, blodthirsty dogs.

Or rather, the neighborhood pack decided that the prospect of a run was rather exciting, and after I greeted them they trotted off down the road.  Occasionally they would look back to make sure I was still behind them.  

The one that looked like a husky was the fastest.  The lab may have been the leader.  And the little one, that one was determined.  It had 3 inch legs, but it stayed with me the longest each time I ran by.  

It really tried to come home with me, but I was mean and wouldn’t let it in the trailer.  

They were all friendly, well trained and happy.  

They’d even come when I whistled to get them off the road for some trucks to pass.

Just in Time

Is it bad that I can’t remember when I last showered?

Today’s Exploit:

The guy that was working nights for me is going to a training today, and I get a brand new trainee.  Just in time to rig down and go home.  

At least I hope I’ll be going home.  

I really want to make use of my new stove, to make some treats.  

Maybe I’ll actually be able to get toffee to work.  The first time I tried it ended up like fudge.  The next time it separated and I got melted butter EVERYWHERE.  

I have a list 3.2 miles long of the things I want to make in the next 1.72 months.

The Hot-Stove Virus

Cupcake!  What do you think about 31 March?  I couldn’t find any in May.

Today’s Exploit:

It seems a virus is going around in the trailer.  

No one has been able to turn the stove off for days.  

In the last 3 days I’ve gone to the kitchen 4 times to find at least 1 burner on.  

1. I was heating water for tea and couldn’t figure out why it the stove was so hot without boiling my water instantly.  I had made absolutely sure I had the proper burner before turning it on, I’ve started the wrong one a few times.  But not this time!
2. Went to use the toilet only to see 2 burners glowing red, with no one in sight.  Later, one of the boys told me he thought it would heat the trailer because he was cold.
3. Heated some water this morning, but had to go to the trailer.  I turned the heat down, but the solids control guy decided it was boiling too much.  He moved the pot, but left the burner on.
4. I was heating water to make tea this afternoon while Debbie Downer was frying an egg.  When it was done he turned the burner to HI instead of OFF.

Now I’m afraid to go near the stove for fear I’ll trip over one of the loose floor tiles and land on a red-hot burner.

I love my job.  I love my job...Ilovemyjob...Ilovemyjobilovemyjob...

My Yard is too Small

I think I just became the worst lead hand ever.  I slept through my alarm for the second time, on just this job.

Today’s Exploit:

I miss Jack.  He’s now a lump of mush on my porch, attracting flies and making my landlord call with requests for me to remove him.  I want it to still be Halloween so that I can carve another.

I also miss these two dudes.  I think they need to come stay with me.  We would make cookies and go for bike rides and play “Tickle Monster”.  Unfortunately my yard is not as good as their yard for that game.

Helping my sister make pizza for her birthday.

Posing for me when I visited in April.

My Daily ‘Fix’

I have decided that I like eating out of a mug.  So far I’ve had granola, quinoa, ice cream and garlic chicken pasta.  

Maybe it’s just that the mug is red with white spots.  Or maybe it’s because it’s mine and I wash it myself and hide it in my food-box.

Today’s Exploit:

Hurry up and take the picture already, it’s getting hot up here.

The Makings of a Nightmare

The night DD calls me "Princess".  

I’m not sure if I should be worried about this, or find it completely hilarious.

Today’s Exploit:

I had a nightmare last night.  It was horrible, and scary, and terrifying.  I was relieved when my alarm went off.  

My nightmares don’t involve monsters or aliens or murderers.  

They involve me getting hit in the mouth.  Or not.  Yet somehow I always end up with broken teeth.  Last night’s was particularly nasty because whatever I did ended with four of my teeth broken and bleeding.  Yes, in my dreams my teeth bleed.

It never fails that I wake from these dreams feeling my mouth to make sure my cap didn’t fall off in the night.  I have to reassure myself that the rest of the teeth that were “broken” are also still intact.  

Then it takes about 30 minutes for my heart rate to return to normal.  

It Will Probably Be My Own

The countdown has started.  We have to be off this location in 10 days or less.  

I’m jumping with joy.

Today’s Exploit:

A few days ago we had a big wind storm.  It came rolling over the horizon 32.4 minutes before it hit us.  I watched as it progressed, sitting outside in the ridiculous heat of a Texas fall.  

Incredibly, when it hit the temperature immediately dropped 11.72 degrees and it almost felt like fall.

Anyway, a result of this storm was the satellite dish moving.  Now that it’s not perfectly aligned it looks as though the TV is having a seizure.  The screen pixelates and the sound blips on and off with an irritating squeak.  

I’m not too worried about the video quality, but the sound drives me up the wall.  No one else seems to care that every 1.83 seconds the sound screeches on or off.  They sit and stare vacantly at the colorful blur, or go on with their normal conversations and arguments.  

I, on the other hand, am ready to tear someone’s hair out listening to the constant cheeping.

How does that not drive them to club the screen and/or receiver with the nearest blunt object?  After 46 seconds of this I’m ready to drop-kick both across the location.

Tired of Working

Today’s TV gems:  super-crazy preacher-lady, Looney Tunes.

I still get the whole back-story, to be sure I’m up to date on these wonderful shows, and the conclusion, in case I might leave just before the show ends.

Today’s Exploit:

I’ve slept four nights in my bed since moving it to my new apartment a month an a half ago.  Most of my nights have been spent running mile and miles to escape the Friday Night Fight Night or Monday Night Smackdown.  

Naturally the top four shows watched in this trailer are:

*The Newlywed Show

*Deal or No Deal

*Smackdown

*Whatever-other-fake-wrestling-show-they-can-find

And they wonder why I don’t spend evenings lolling on the couch with them.  

With the exception of the Newlywed Show each of these contains excessive jumping-around-like-a-lunatic and far to few articles of clothing.  They also contain horrible acting skills, but are taken very seriously by Pat and Ricardo.  

They spend hours discussing the results of the wrestling shows, and exclaiming, “Did you just see that?!”  Most of these exclamations follow very graceful gymnastic stunts where someone gets “knocked out”.

Another delightful pastime of my roommates is to aggravate the night mud logger.  This guy is not pleasant to be around, he complains about everything and is never wrong, but they get him riled up to a fanatical state.

The other night they were doing this as I tried to sleep, after only getting four hours of sleep the night before.  I can generally hear only pieces of their conversations, but this night it escalated into a shouting match.  When I mentioned this the next morning they said, “Oh, we thought you were just taking a long run.”

Seriously?  It’s been dark for two hours!  I’ve never been gone for more than an hour an a half; and you brush off the fact that I probably would have left five hours ago on this run?  At least I know the roughnecks worry about me, they can tell me how long my last four runs lasted.  

I’m stuck in a black hole of utter oblivion, half-naked TV shows and micro-scrutiny.

I want a day off.

Follow Up: The Mountain

I have spent the last day an a half laughing hysterically at the divine comments Dana makes on this blog.

Today’s Exploit:

Follow up.  

The state of my poor car is not particularly impressive until you see the pile that I managed to cram into such a small space.

Let's pretend, for a moment, that the table represents the pieces I hid in my closet.

This was all in a CIVIC.
It makes me cringe to remember how many times I climbed into the trunk to get all this to fit.

My Amazing Work of Art: The Molehill

We have a cold front today.  The high is only 68*F.  The low is 42*F.  

Sadly it will be back into the 80s in about 4.2 days.

PS Happy All Hallows’ Eve and Happy Birthday to my cousin, Aly.

Today’s Exploit:

My masterpiece:

My back seat is overflowing, but I can still see my blind spot.  I'm just trying to be a safe driver.

Not so much out the rearview...

Packing a Mountain into a Molehill

I’ve been a slacker lately.  

Also, I’ve been too busy to find something funny to write about.  And when I’m not too busy I fall asleep in my chair.

Today’s Exploit:

I went to Oklahoma City one last time.

I had to pack the last few items I left at that apartment and clean the floors and make sure none of the counters had egg yolk cemented to them.

Just kidding.  I’m good at cleaning up the egg yolk before it turns into cement.  Mostly I had to pack and vacuum.  

First I pulled everything from the rooms into the living room.  

Then I covered my eyes and went to find my vacuum so that I could procrastinate the packing part.  

I vacuumed the two bedrooms and the kitchen and the dining room.  

I took a load of things to the Salvation Army while Starla was still empty and went to the store for lunch and Swiffer scrubbies for my kitchen and bathrooms.

After I had lunch sitting on the newly cleaned dining room floor, while shielding my eyes from the pile that was in the living area, I got out the scrubbies and made those floors squeaky clean.  

I was still trying to avoid the hill in the living room, so I borrowed a dolly from the office and took my desk to the dumpster.  I got there just as a nice man was driving by looking for salvageable items.  He liked the desk, so I helped him pack it into his truck.  

When I took the dolly back to the office, I also took a toy dolly for the office manager’s daughters.  Because it hadn’t been out of it’s box in at least 9.72 years.  

Then the only thing left to do was face the mountain.  

I went back inside and nearly cried.  

Then I decided to be tough and take even more stuff to the Salvation Army.  Cause I drive a Civic.  Only so much junk will fit...

The Salvation Army guy was really excited about the vacuum.  

After that I went back, took a deep breath, and started toting stuff down to Starla.  

It was super-engineering to organize all that stuff to fit economically into a small space.  

It was a work of art.

I couldn’t see out the back window.

BUT I DID IT!  

And then I turned in some keys.

They Sent the New Guy

I think someone stole my shirt.  A dirty, muddy, sweaty shirt.  

Gross.

Either that or I lost it,  which is probably more likely.  I just can't figure out when it happened.


Now I’m down to 3, which means laundry every day. 

Today’s Exploit:

I got a new trainee.

I don’t think this one had ever seen a rig before.

And sometimes he gets completely caught up in an idea that really has no bearing on this job.  And won’t let it go while I try to tell him something important.  

Also, he’s a foot taller than me and big and scary.  So I can’t yell at him to listen.

Not really.  

But he is tall.

Mostly I try to answer his questions briefly and then go back to what I was trying to explain in detail to begin with.  

I’m not really sure what to do with him.  Mostly they send me people who have been on another rig, with someone who knows what they’re doing.  So they already have an idea of what is important and what can be left for later.  

I don’t know if I’m the best teacher...

I hope he’s getting the idea.

His Name is Jack

Sitting on the porch watching birds:

Harriet:  Are those martins?

Ricky:  Nope, they’re Smiths.  Or maybe Jones’

Today’s Exploit:

I am still trying to unpack.

I am down to 47 boxes of kitchen supplies.

I started out with 5237 boxes.

I have a table and a couch, instead of random pieces of wood.  And I hid almost all my blankets under my bed so I have room in my linen closet for sheets.  

Now I just need some pictures and maybe a rug or two for it to seem like a real home.  

It already has a pumpkin.  

His name is Jack.  He’s a happy vampire.  And he’s guarding my porch, while quickly turning into moldy mush.

I vant to share your milk and cookies.

I’ve never had a pumpkin get mushy so fast.  Stupid humidity.  

Guarding the yard that I can't see.

Sunrise

I found my flyswatter.  Time to do battle with the mosquitoes.

Today’s Exploit:

I Taught Her Well

I got my pumpkin.

It was really hard to find one that wasn’t perfectly spherical.

Today’s Exploit:

I had to teach my sister how to use her blog again.

And this time I didn’t give in and fix it for her.

I sent her instructions, then I gave her instructions through Skype.  

Then she yelled at me and told me she wasn’t going to do them.

But I held out and was patient.

And she eventually got it.  And she’s really excited.  And...she knows how to fix her own blog!

My little sister is getting all grown up...

Morning, Honey

The mosquitoes are out.  

Tony and Ryan killed 58 last night while I fixed the computers.

Today’s Exploit:

This morning Ryan forgot something in his backpack.  When he came back to the box to get it he had, what I though was, a hilarious story.

He walked into the trailer to find Ricardo asleep on the couch.  

So he quietly shut the door and started taking off his boots.  

Just as he was slipping by the couch, into the hallway, Ricardo woke a bit.   

Not all the way, just a little.

He said, “Hi, honey.”  

Then he snuggled back into the couch and went back to sleep.  

Ryan was a bit disturbed by this.  

Ryan:  No one’s ever called me “honey” but my mom.  I think I liked it that way.  

I just laughed and laughed.  

Eeets a Gooooood Moooooo-veeee

I’m going to get a pumpkin tonight.  So I can have Halloween at the rig.  Maybe I’ll be really motivated and make sugar cookies to frost.  

Or maybe I’ll have time to make those at my new home.

Today’s Exploit:

Ricardo likes movies.  

Every time I go to the trailer he is watching something new.  

Each time he tells me:

“Have you seen this?  This is a gooooood moooooo-veeee.”

Doesn’t matter if it’s a movie made for 13 year old girls, 5 year olds or a really creepy horror movie.  It’s always a gooooood moooooo-veeee.

I’ve seen him watching “A Cinderella Story”, “The Flintstones”, Some nasty vampire movie, “Planet of the Apes”, and “The Mask”.  

Each and every movie he has seen before.  Each and every movie is a “gooooood moooooo-veeee’.  And each one always surprises him.  

He says, “What the...” at least 4.7 times each time I go to the trailer.  

Ricardo:  What the..., did you see that?

Me:  Yes.

Ricardo:  He just mumblemumble mumble, can you believe that?

Me:  Mmm.

I’m never sure how to answer, because I just saw it on the movie, it wasn’t that exciting.  And I’m not exactly sure about his stance on the subject due, partly, to his mumble and partly to his accent.

Sleep Mode: A Baffling Experience

I finally read those dragon and wizard books by the scary octopus lady (I still equate the name Ursula with the evil witch from “The Little Mermaid”).  The ones my mom told me to read about 15.2 years ago.

A Wizard of Earthsea

The Tombs of Atuan       

The Farthest Shore

-Ursula K. Le Guin

I also just found out there are 3 more in the series.  Time to go to the bookstore...

Today’s Exploit:

Sometimes I wonder about the roughnecks I work with. 

Half of them are super-smart and I can’t hold a candle to the things they know.

But then I meet the ones that I rather doubt could find the on/off button on a computer without help.  

Yesterday I got a call saying that the computer I have on the rig floor wasn’t working.  

Me:  Hello?

RN:  Your computer isn’t working.

Me:  Ok, let me check that it’s still on the network.

RN:  The what?

Me:  It’s still communicating, you’re sure it’s not working.

RN:  Nope, it’s just a black screen.

So I walked up the 48 stairs to the sweltering doghouse.  I trudged over to where 3 guys are standing around a blank computer looking stumped.

I touched the mousepad and turned around to go back to my box.

RN:  Wait, what did you do?

Me:  Nothing.

RN:  Let me see your fingers.

Me:  What?

RN:  I want to see if you have a magnet there, or something.

Me:  The computer just went to sleep mode.  All you have to do is touch the mousepad or press a key.  

RN:  Wow, I thought it was broken!