I Knew I Was a Beast of Burden, But Really?

I have been waiting for a year to find out what the date 22 March 2013 holds that is significant. I was told that if I waited until then I would find out.  I am still waiting.  Rawr.

Today’s Exploit:

I work in a horse trailer now. I am no longer worthy of a box. This is sad, in case you were unsure about that transition.

The box was insulated, and had a working AC unit and blocked the noise, well most of it, of a drilling rig. As much as I complained about it, I rather liked the box. 

My current working conditions are sweaty, loud and wobbly. 

The AC barely works, and does not keep up with spring temperatures. I dread summer. Not to mention, part of it fell on my face the other day. And I didn’t even get a black eye to show for it. Stupid AC. 

I got a little fan, and it helps a little. Sadly, I’m thinking I should have gotten the super-extra-mammoth-industrial-17 speed fan. It might have put a dent in this heat. 

The loud part comes from the fact that my horse trailer is made from some plywood. Just thick enough that a standard cabinet handle won’t work properly. It has no insulation, thus the heat, and the cold at night. (It was actually in the 30s the last 2 days.) And it sounds like I am on the rig floor with my ear against the loudest mechanism. It may be worse. It may be that I have a funnel gathering all of the noise and maximizing it to feed into my ears on the itty-bitty end. And that is on top of the standard buzzing of the transformer, and the AC fan trying it’s hardest to blow hot air into the sweltering mess.

The trailer is on wheels, naturally, but they didn’t think it necessary to stabilize it. Therefore it rocks like a see-saw when you sneeze, and wobbles awkwardly if you dare to breathe. It also dances in the wind and jitters in the rain. I have to work off my “sea legs” every time I get out for some natural light.

By the way, this trailer does not have any windows, the door latch barely works and there is no handle to pull the door closed. It’s fun, you get to slam the door as hard as possible without getting fingers in the way, or letting the wind catch it about 23 times before it latches. 

The Perils of Living With 42 Guys

Okay, Okay. Maybe it’s not 42, but it’s a lot.

On to the real post:

I have finished week 4 of Insanity. I now have a “recovery week” where I do something resembling yoga. And then the hard part starts. The second month is the first month times 7, divided by ‘really hard’, and added to ‘fear’. The solution is ‘I’m REALLY scared”. 

Yay.

Today’s Exploit:

Recently I have lots of stories about boys embarrassing me. It’s a pretty normal occurrence, although not necessarily relating to my bum. Lots of these encounters I can laugh at, and dismiss to guys being guys, and some of them being sleazy. 

I can laugh that Cupcake’s friend told her my bum looks like it weighs 20 pounds.

I can laugh at how tight my work “jeans” are, and that I can’t breathe when I wear them.

I can even laugh, later, when sleazy guys use sleazy lines, and I run out the door as fast as I can.

And I can mostly even laugh at the stupid comments that they make after I leave a room, the ones that Ali relates to me at our next breakfast “date”.

What is not fun is the staring. 

We have a group of guys here preparing the site for the production stage, they set up the storage tanks and the pipelines that lead to the larger lines across the road. They also live in camp with us, while they are here. 

Of the four guys, two of them stare at me constantly. None of the four have ever said a word to me. They just stare. 

And I’m to chicken to confront them.

So I hide behind a table if I have to get up while they’re in the room. Or I avoid the dining room if they get there first. 

Tomorrow I’m going to be really brave and talk to the company man. Wish me luck, because I will probably be shaking, and have sweaty palms. And probably I’ll stammer. But if I have to spend the next 3 days or 2 weeks of month and a half with them it will be worth it if I don’t feel like I need to wear a bag over my head and dress in a tent to hide. 

Ok. That was depressing. Next post will be more fun. Promise.

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 Stories I Hear

I have just spent an hour learning how to cite a reference.

Today’s Exploit:

Right now George is working days because Matt is on paternity leave. 

Being around George is like being lost in a library of fiction stories. Except that his stories are real. And he always has a story. Sometimes I’ve heard them before, like the time he was blown up, or that he’s been run over by 4 cars.

But most of the time they’re new. I’ve learned about his brother, who is 250 pounds of muscle and about as mean as a teddy bear until he snaps. Then, watch out! Or about his snake that he was growing to make a pair of boots, and a belt. But the snake is on the protected species list and they won’t let him. And he just learned that you’re supposed to have a special license to own this type of snake. 

He also was telling me how to train your dog to count. It’s all about the treat. And he’s got a pet goat. It’s named Dog. 

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...

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.

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!

He Did Try to Keep Up

Debbie Downer went home.  Maybe everyone else will be a bit more cheerful now.  

Maybe cookies will help.  

Today’s Exploit:

One of the mud loggers claims he used to run a lot.  And he wants to get back into shape.  

So I told him I was always happy to have company on my runs.  

So he asked me to wait and went to change.  

I was a bit amazed.  Mostly the guys that say things like that are all talk and won’t actually go with me.

But Pat went with me.  In the wind and dust and, later, downpour.  

We ran .748 miles, and walked the rest of the 3 mile trip.  It was very soggy.

The next day he was ready before I got back to the trailer.  

So we took off again.  Pat said he wanted to make it at least a mile.  The last third he spent wheezing, hacking and choking.  But he made it a mile.  

I tried not to ask to often if he was ok, guys are goofy and get offended if you do that.  

I let him walk.

After half a mile told him that I was going to run some more.  I ran the rest of the 3.2 miles to the guard shack and turned around.  On the way back I caught him where we’d stopped running and I walked the last mile with him.  

He limped the whole way, and the rest of the night.

Later he told me he might have to start running every other day, until he was in a bit better shape.

I’ve run alone since.

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?

I’m Worth Two

My favorite song today:

I need you like another broken heart

and a hole in my head,

I need you like a six foot grave

and a high speed train wreck,

I bet you find it hard to believe 

but I miss you like a bad disease.

-Schuyler Fisk

Today’s Exploit:

I was up for ages the other night.  We got all our computers running and the cables routed to the proper places and the tool built and programmed.  Then all that was left was to wait for the rig.  

I waited until 4:30 am.  

We finally started picking up the pieces of the assembly.  I had my tool ready to hook up to the winch and was waiting for my cue.  

I watched the driller and the DD talking, occasionally looking at me and pointing once or twice.  

I ignored them.

Then Rick, the DD, came over to talk to me.  

Rick:  I was asking Hector how many guys he had on his crew.

Me:  How many?

Rick:  He said 6, including himself.

Me:  Oh.

Rick:  Then he told me that I counted for one and you counted for two.  

Guess I’m pretty important, even though they don’t let me work.

No Really, I Was Listening

An update on the sunshade:

George:  I looked for a pretty pink unicorn sunshade, but I couldn’t find one.

Matt:  It’s a good thing.  I’d have wadded it up and stuck it up your tailpipe.

Today’s Exploit:

I got an email yesterday about when I’ll be able to leave the rig.  The guy replacing me will be out sometime this afternoon.  So I thought I’d let the DDs know so they don’t get too much of a surprise.

Yesterday:

Me:  Chad will be out tomorrow afternoon.

Matt:  Ok.  I wonder how his last job went.

Today:

Matt:  So, Chad will be here...

Me:  Sometime this afternoon.

Matt:  Oh, really?  I thought he’d be coming tomorrow sometime.

Ain’t Got No Actright

Today the driller is calling me “Cupcake”.  It makes me look around for my sister every time he says it.

Tomorrow’s supposed to be “Sugar Plum”.

Today’s Exploit:

I walked into the trailer to nervous laughs tonight.

Turns out Tommy was telling dirty jokes and they all got embarrassed when they thought I might have heard.  

Tommy:  Did you hear any of that?

Me:  ...Yep, I heard all of it!

Tommy:  Oh, crap!  

Me:  Hahaha

Tommy:  Bull****!

I smiled and walked away.  

When I returned to the room Patrick was complaining that he didn’t understand much of what Tommy said.  

He also noted that he needed to write down the quotes Tommy says.  

Then he spouted off a few, some rather vulgar.  That really embarrassed Tommy.

Tommy:  You’re not supposed to say that in front of a woman!

Patrick:  But, it’s what you said earlier!

Tommy:  Yeah, but not in front of a woman!  What are we going to do with you, you ain’t go no actright!

I just sit in my corner and watch them, taking notes for my stories.