Sixth Month - February

Who knew one month could last 13 months?

Today’s Exploit:

I decided that having regular panic attacks is not beneficial to me or Monkey. So I did lots and lots of research. I looked up midwives and and birth coaches and doulas and birth centers.

Most of what I found was very religious. Which is not something I’m interested in being involved in a pregnancy/birth. 

I interviewed a couple doulas and a couple midwives. Most of them had so much incense or smelly oils that I wanted to turn around as soon as I stepped into their lairs. I found one that I could stand and put it on a back burner thinking I’d talk to the doctor and ask her opinion.

First I told the doctor about my needle-phobia and explained that I was having panic attacks and looking into maybe using a midwife. Her response was to vehemently lecture me on the fact that my body is now a not entirely mine and that if a c-section is necessary so-be-it. She essentially told me that I’m being selfish for having anxiety and wanting to find a way to alleviate it.

She definitely ensured that I leave her practice and run to the midwife.

Please Press 1

I am going crazy. I have been away from home for a month now, and I have about 2 weeks left before I can go home. 

But first I have to go to the office and do a dumb commentary drive to prove that I remember how to drive since the last dumb commentary drive from last year.

Today’s Exploit:

The other day I was sitting, reading and being cranky because my tool wasn’t working properly and everyone was making a big fuss. We had finally gotten a survey and were starting to drill with fewer problems than had been plaguing me for a while. I was being relieved and pouting (fuming) because my manager had blamed me for the problems we’d been having. 

The dd’s had been talking, and irritating me because I was being irritable, and one decided to make a phone call. I don’t remember what he was supposed to be calling for, but was rather startled to hear (he had his speakerphone on) a seductive woman’s voice saying something along these lines:

Hello, welcome to blablabla chat line. If you are a woman and would like to talk to a sexy, naked man please press 1, if you are a man and would like to talk to a sexy, naked woman please press 2...

That is where he ended his call.

I am amazed he let it go on for so long, but the dd trainee was completely confused. 

Trainee: What was that?

DD: I called a wrong number.

Trainee: Oh, why were they asking that.

DD: It was a sex hotline.

Trainee: What?

DD: A sex hotline.

Trainee: ...

I find the recording and the following conversation quite humorous right now, but at the time I was just wishing that they would leave my shack. I have gotten quite used to working alone with my computers, and having anyone else in my unit makes me a little edgy. And working with them for the entire job (about a month) makes me a bit crazy, and endlessly cranky.

A Mini Dorm Room

I am reading Pride and Prejudice. I’m sure I’m missing much of the context due to the language difference, but so far it seems like a bunch of overly dramatic girls and very dense men. I have not discovered Mr. Darcy’s charm thus far. 

Today’s Exploit:

I used to live in a dorm. The rooms are small and you have to share. Also, communal bathrooms are gross, no matter how often they are cleaned. And mostly the whole floor knows exactly what you are doing at any given moment, and can hear all your conversations in HD.

This week I am living in a dorm room again. Except it’s a bunch of nasty guys on my floor, and the walls are made of 2.3 sheets of paper instead of .273 layers of brick. 

Through that wall is the door, people like to stand
there and shout as loud as possible.

The pros of paper:

-It doesn’t hurt when you fling your arm up to use as a pillow. No more scraped knuckles.

-It’s easier to decorate with cork-board “pictures”. A picture and a place to pin your papers, all in one pretty frame.

-If you trip and fall, you’ll fall through the wall and the debris will cushion your landing, rather than bashing your head on some bricks.

The cons of paper:

-If you fling your arm up, particularly roughly, to use as a pillow you will punch through the wall.

-The cork-board picture might fall down due to insubstantial support from the wall.

-If someone whispers on the other side of the building it will sound like they’re standing on your head and screaming as loud as they can in your ear. 

Also, I lived by the main door for 2 weeks. That was pure torture. Everyone is quiet at night. No one is quiet during the day. And they turn the heat to “blistering” and my room is the first on the overflow list. Then, if I open my window to cool down a teensy bit, someone will stand under it and smoke cigarettes the whole time.

My new room is larger, it has shelves and drawers, my
own sink and a connecting bathroom. And the only noises are
from generators. 

Well, That Was Awkward, Please Refrain From Such Comments in the Future

Today’s sunrise.

Also featuring a dirt pile, because I was wearing my gym shoes and didn't want to leave the safety of the walkway and risk getting snow on my pretty pink footwear.

Today’s Exploit:

I think Mitch’s entire purpose out here is to attempt to embarrass me, with the help of Ali, my ‘friend’. 

My first encounter with him was more or less normal, he joked and I smiled. The next time, however, I was fighting an o-ring. I was trying to get it in place around my flow sleeve, a steel cylinder with a flare at one end, and he decided it would be funny to comment on how well I did such a task. Sexual innuendo inserted here. Following that was an episode where Oscar had to help me and Mitch told us, “PJ puts the o-ring on way better than you.” Cue red face. 

Another encounter was the time he blatantly ignored the closed door in the weight room/gym and walked in on me working out. I actually didn’t expect any company that day, and was only wearing my sports bra and shorts. When I packed up to leave I had to walk through the gym to replace the mat and the Lysol. At that time he started a conversation about how difficult it is to work out when working nights, and I made not-committal noises. When he failed to get me talking he came in with this line:

“So, you look good.”

I made a beeline for the door calling out to have a good workout over my shoulder.

I was somewhat relieved when his last day came, and he was to go home for a week, but he had to have the parting shot.

Mitch: PJ, you know the two things I love about you?

PJ: (still trying to comprehend that remark and meaning What did you say?, rather than What are they?) What?

Mitch: Well, your name’s one of them.

He then proceeded to walk out the door and leave me trying to figure out if I heard the first part of that exchange properly. I’m pretty sure he wanted me to follow and beg him to tell me the rest or to be completely absorbed in figuring out the answer over the week he was gone, but I was so relieved to avoid such confrontations that it completely backfired. 

Tomorrow he switches back to nights, and I’m dreading having to be on the rig floor when he is. Especially after Ali told me how my trainee was acting around him, and a conversation the three of them had a few days ago concerning the time at the gym. Any advice on avoiding unwanted attention and diffusing the possible jealousy of someone yearning for attention?

The Trials of the Riverwalk

The person that invented the seasonings for the Long Grain and Wild Rice mix was a genius.

Today’s Exploit:

One of our adventures over Spring Break was a trip to San Antonio, or rather, two trips.

The first trip involved searching for running costumes, huge crowds and sore feet.  

The second was because we missed the Alamo’s open hours.  

First trip:  

We walked all around the Rivercenter mall looking for a good had for Cupcake to wear for the race.  And I looked for a St. Patricks day shirt to be my costume.  

When she found her hat we decided to attempt the Riverwalk itself.  We didn’t realize that being Spring Break it would be so completely packed that being knocked into the river was a probability, not just a possibility.  After fighting the people for 30 minutes and failing to find the desired ice cream parlor we gave up, found the Alamo 3 minutes after it closed, got lost, found the mall and got a shirt, and then went home with sore feet.  

Try II:

The next day we tried again.  First on the list:  the Alamo.  We made it with about 2 minutes to spare.  We also spent most of the time walking around the grounds looking at the Live Oak trees.  We’re not sure what the difference between Live Oak and normal Oak is.  Also we saw lots of cabbage and bark-less trees.

First success!

Then we headed back into sure madness, to find that the Riverwalk wasn’t quite so packed.  Hallelujah.  We also managed to find the ice cream shop and an Irish pub that sold Bangers & Mash and Strongbow.  

Complete success!

Moving: Rig Version

Countdown:  15 Days.

Cookie Project:

Today’s Exploit:

I moved trailers the other day.

I’m not sure if the boys were glad to see me go so they had more space; or if they were just jealous that I got to be in a nicer trailer.  Now that we’re almost done drilling the living quarters are somewhat desirable.  

Granted it does smell in this trailer at times, but it’s due to someone working.  As opposed to boys letting their dishes moulder in the sink too long, or put off doing laundry as long as possible.  

The room and the bathroom are considerably smaller.  But man, is it quiet in that trailer.

Besides the room being smaller, there’s nothing like moving to make one realize just how much junk one has hoarded away.  

It took me four trips to get my junk from one trailer to the other.  And I get to move said junk to my car in another couple days.  

Currently I’m working on a strategy to cram all of it together so that it takes up less space.  Thus leaving me with fewer loads to tote out to Starla.  

Now, That was a Cruel Joke

Countdown: 17 days *whimper*

I am currently addicted to Every Word on my Kindle.  I made it to level 8 once.  I think I may have jumped up and down and done a happy dance when I finally beat level 7.

Today’s Exploit:

I am living in a trailer with 5 guys and a Jeana.  

I’m pretty sure these guys were raised by chickens.  Have you ever smelled a chicken house?  Also, as chickens have no fingers, they never taught these people to wash dishes.  

Another likeness:  when they get together in the living room/kitchen/office they squawk and squabble and screech as loud as they are able.

As for the joke, we were told that we’re getting a new trailer out here.  It, evidently, is for the girls.  Thus, cleaner living for us and more room for the chicken boys.  When the trailer arrived the punchline was revealed.  The trailer with 2 rooms and 1 bathroom is for the directional drillers*.  Not for the people packed like sardines into a smelly rat house.  (They really did see what they called a rat today) 

So, we’re all stuck together.  Me, 5 guys raised by chickens, and a Jeana.

Fridge space and couch space are premium items here.  Snooze you lose, and all that jazz.  Better not hope to get that space back if you get up to get some water.

*A breakdown.  

Right now we have 8 trailers here:

-2 for the rig crews, that’s 6 to each trailer

-1 for the toolpusher, 1 person in that one

-2 for the company men/clerk, that’s 2 to each trailer

-1 for the DDs, 2 persons in that one

-1 for the Mud Engineer, 2 because he’s got the H2S guy rooming with him

-1 for the rest of us salty little fish (8)

PS. Happy Leap Day

Hint Hint Wink Wink

Countdown: 18 days left - *sob*

I decorated cookies tonight.  Now the box smells like too much sugar.

Today’s Exploit:

The mud logger is one of those creepers.

Mostly he’s just irritating and an insufferable over-sharer.  

But lately he’s been hinting that I “need” to bake something.

He walked in one day and said, “So, I hear you’re a baker.”  

Me:  You’ve been misinformed.

Him:  What! Those roughnecks lied to me?

Me:  Yep.

On another day, after I’d gone food shopping I dropped my bananas and was cursing my clumsiness.

Him:  Oh! It’s time for banana bread! You bake, right?

Me:  Grumble grumble. No.

For one:  Who wants to bake in a pig sty that’s infested with mice?

For two:  Trying to force me to do something is probably a guarantee that I’ll do everything in my power to not have to do it.  Especially if you’re being creepy and stalker-ish.  

I have taken to being extra surly in the trailer so that no one will talk to me, since privacy and being alone is not a conceivable option.

The Silence was the Best Part

Countdown:  I forget.

I think I may be dead.  I just finished the first real Insanity workout.  I had to cheat starting the second set of pushups.  And my squats were “bend the knee a little” type squats.  

And now I am dead.

My hair is soggy, my face is dripping and I fogged up all the windows in my box.  Also, I think I may smell pretty bad.  

But I’m dead, so no one really cares.  Right?

Today’s Exploit:

I went home last night, aka 4:30 am.

I slept in my bed.

I locked my door.

I ate from my fridge.

I brushed my teeth in my bathroom.

I had almost silence.  Except for that weird drain noise that I think came from my upstairs neighbors’ washing machine.

It was bliss.

The Drive Takes Forever

Countdown:  64 Days.  

I’m reading Great Expectations.  It’s surprisingly easy to follow, usually I have a hard time with the language in the classics.

Today’s Exploit:

Now that I have my home 1-2 hours from where I’ve been working for most of the last 1.783 years they’ve decided to send me back to East Texas.

So I’m back to the 5-6 hour drives to get home.

Stupid oilfield.  

I caved and moved to the hottest place on earth so that I could actually get home in a reasonable amount of time.  I think they sent me out here just to spite me.  

Or it could be that I’m terrible at saying NO.  

Maybe they’ll let me go home if I beg really pitifully.  

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...

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.

Complaining is Contagious

I’m making Smashed Roasted Garlic Bread.  My fingers are going to smell like garlic for a week.

Today’s Exploit:

I believe I mentioned I’m living with 400 people right now?  We’re packed into that grimy trailer like sardines. 

Smells like a sardine tin also, but that’s beside the point.

One of the guys in the trailer is not happy about anything.

And he wants everyone within a 3.7 mile radius to know.  

Also, he knows everything.  

A know-it-all complainer.  A loud one.  That means that no one is aloud to sleep if he can think of anything to say.  And he can always think of something to say.  He doesn’t even need acknowledgement from another being.  As long as he knows there’s someone within almost-hearing distance he can go on and on and on.

After about a week of listening to this guy, no one being able to get a word in edgewise, I noticed it.  

Everyone else started in on the complaints.  

Mostly it was about the complainer, but it’s hard to withstand all that negativism.

I even caught myself complaining more than usual.  

So I made a seriously stellar effort to cut back on the random complaints, and tried to avoid everyone else that seemed in the complaining mood.  

Luckily I’ve got my box to retreat to. 

And Solitaire.

What I Learned Today

I went and bought a cheap travel mug last night.

I was tired of fighting for and/or cleaning mold out of the one mug in the trailer.  

Now I have one that’s “burnt orange” with the goofy lid and the rubber band around the middle (that’s supposed to look like a cardboard sleeve) to make it look like it came from a swanky coffee shop.  

Today’s Exploit:

Yesterday one of the guys in my trailer, the one who never has anything good or upbeat to say, walked by and said:

“Well, on the bright side, the trailer’s so old that the formaldehyde is probably gone.”

I was a bit stunned.  My first thought was science class and pickled animals floating in green tinted fluid in jars.  And that smell...

I thought maybe he was talking about asbestos, but that didn’t seem right either.

So I had to look it up.  

I never knew formaldehyde was used in particle board, or drapes, or paint.

I just imagined it would smell too terrible to use in a home.  

So.  That was my new thing learned for today.  What’s up for tomorrow?

They Just Sit There, Mocking Me

I need a coffee/tea mug.  This trailer I’m in only has 2.  And I‘m the only one who does dishes. 

That means any time I want tea I have to wash the cup before I can use it.  Usually that means getting the scrubber and clorox out because it has stage III green-and-black mold growing in it.  

I’m learning to keep anything I want to use hoarded away in my food box, otherwise it will disappear and/or culture the newest species of mold.

Also, I’m living with 6 guys, in a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom trailer.  One of the bathrooms is in a bedroom = EVERYONE uses the bathroom I use.  Stock up on the Clorox wipes.  And spray.  And Lysol.  

I might be cleaner if I sleep in my car and not shower for the next month.

Today’s Exploit:

I’m still working on unpacking.  

I’ve got everything organized except for the kitchen.  

I still have 5.7 large boxes of stuff to fit into my kitchen.  It will be trying.  

I can’t throw anything away because I use it all.  Amazingly enough.

It might take me until my lease is up to figure out what to do with this stuff.  

In the mean time, I don’t have hardware to put my table together.  So my boxes are residing in my dining area, quite content to mock my attempts to re-organize everything yet again.

I Have a New Shadow

I made a deal with K.J.

He won’t set his alarm.  I’ll wake him up in the morning

He suggests poking him in the foot, it’s safer than poking him in the arm.

Today’s Exploit:

The other day, when I was past delirious from exhaustion, I met a roughneck.  Or rather, I talked to him a bit.  

He told me about San Antonio, and that the Riverwalk was an awesome place.  He said we should hang out since we’d both be working nights.  He made jokes and chattered about a lot of things I don’t remember.  

The next time I saw him, after I got some sleep, he didn’t talk to me at all.  

He did, however, stand as close to me as possible any time I wasn’t moving.  Now every time I go to the rig floor, if he’s there, I have a second shadow.  A silent second shadow.

I’m not sure if he’s stalking me or if he’s worshiping me.

I wish he’d go back to work.

It makes me nervous.