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.