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.

I Found a Bramble

This week’s recommended reading:

I love this series. I read it all the time, especially since H.
found copies for me for Christmas. Image found here.

Today’s Exploit:

The other day on my run I noticed some red berries along the road. They made me think of raspberries, but I didn’t stop to check it out and imagined they were probably some terrible Texas killer berry. And then I forgot all about them.

A couple days later I was standing on the road, so that the trees would block some rig noise, and talking to H. on the phone. I noticed some berries again. 

This time I looked closer.

The berries are segmented like raspberries, and they have the fuzzy serrated leaves like raspberries, and they have the crazy-mean-spiny poky stalks like raspberries. 

But when I pulled on a berry it didn’t want to budge, normally indicating non-ripeness. 

And then I thought about it for a minute and realized that the berries were not hidden under leaves like raspberries usually are, and the terrain is not at all rocky. It’s more sandy and loose.

That was when I noticed a black one. And another.

Naturally I picked them.

And then I went to my computer to check out the plant identification guides.

They are blackberries.

And it’s a huge patch. Bramble.

And I will get to pick zillions of blackberries in the next week or so. 

I just have to remember to get some medicine for the hives that I get when I get myself scratched.

Yay, Blackberries!

PS I close on my house tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Lost in the Woods

I lost my fitbit. 

I thought it was gone forever and I gave up on ever winning a prize.

But then it came back today and I was happy.

The end.

Today’s Exploit:

I went for a run the other day. And H. decided to be nice and go with me. 

He is a little faster than I am, so I said he could go ahead if he wanted.

Then he said that he would run with me.

And he did for a little.

But then he decided to go on ahead, and didn’t tell me that he decided to do this.

I came to an intersection after he’d left me in the dust. I picked a way and trudged on, yelling for him every few minutes, with no response. And grumbling and worrying that I took the wrong path.

So I went back, and went down the other path for a ways, before deciding that we had missed each other when going back and looking, so I went home to see if he was there.  

Turns out he wasn’t, so I went back to the trails and did another loop and went miles and miles up the original trail I chose. I stopped to ask everyone I met if they’d seen him, but no one had.

Finally I gave up and went back down the trail to get some more water. I got back, after about a 9.9889 mile run to find him walking back from the house to find me. 

He’d gone all the way to the top of the trail, 9.5 miles round trip, and back. He must have come down while I was doing the other loop. And he waited and waited and waited for me to come back, because he didn’t have a key to go home. 

In the future, if he runs with me, I will make sure to specify that going ahead is fine just as long as you make triply sure that I know you are going ahead. 

Conversation About a Stroller

The fitbit tracking competition has begun. After 1 baseline week we stand:

1 Dad: 92410 steps

2 PJ: 82262 steps

3 Cupcake: 71601 steps

4 Mom: 45091 steps

The real counting starts today!

Today’s Exploit:

The other day I was helping H clean out his house, because he is moving. He doesn’t have much stuff and we spent most of the time trying to get gunk off the floor and walls and (eek) bathrooms. Also, we spent a bit trying to organize the stuff that his brother and sister-in-law had left when they moved out.  

In one closet I found a stroller, some bed supports and two Army uniform skirts. I put these aside so that I could sweep.

Klay was with me at the time and asked what the stroller was.

Klay:  What’s this?

Me:  A stroller.

Klay:  What are you going to do with it?

Me:  Probably give it away or throw it away.

Klay:  Why?

Me:  Because we don’t need it.

Klay:  You should keep it, you might need it tomorrow.

He has been hinting for a while that he wants to be a big brother, and has upped his game.  He has also asked when H and I will get married so that he can have a little brother.  And has told us that he’d be ok with a puppy for a younger brother, for the time being. 

Just to be clear... this is all wishful thinking on his part.

Where You From?

I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies last night. Then I ate way too many of them

Today’s Exploit:

The other day, when I was doing some real work, for a change, one of the roughnecks asked me where I was from.

Him: Hey, you ain’t from around here, where you from?

Me: I grew up in Wyoming.

Him: Whoa, you a long way from home.

Me: Yes.

Him: I was jus’ wonderin’ cause you got a accident,

I smiled an went on with my work, while inside I was laughing until my cheeks fell off and my stomach started hurting. 

Texas Style Adventure

My classes are feeling never-ending. I just want these last two weeks to be done. And then I’ll be finished, and no more worthless papers. 

Today’s Exploit:

I made a friend. 

And it wasn’t a tortoise or cow or fuzzy red ant, which, by the way, I have learned are actually wingless wasps and REALLY nasty. 

Ashley is from Florida. She is staying with the company man and she is going to run a marathon in November. 

We went walking because she forgot her running shoes.

On this walk we came across a bull in the road. On the other side of the fence was another, much younger bull. 

We slowed down and I yelled at them so that the one in the road would move. It did, about 10 feet further down the road.

After about 3.2 repeats of this process Ashley decided that the bull might charge us and wanted to be prepared. She found a large hunk of wood and carried it with her for the next half mile while we tried to convince the bull to leave the road long enough for us to walk by. I am not sure why this seemed like it would be a good idea. She claimed that her grandparents owned a ranch. But I didn’t think the bull was going to charge us, either. 

Eventually we made it to the gate and she thought it was safe to drop the hunk of wood. 

The bull decided to leave the road long enough for us to pass on the way back, but the cows on the other side of the fence thought it would be funny to run down the fence line just far enough ahead of us that we were in a dust cloud for half a mile. 

When we finally left the dust cloud behind, Ashley decided that her shoes hurt her feet and took them off. She walked 1.24 miles back to the rig in her socks. 

Thankfully she didn’t step on any of those nasty fuzzy red ants/wasps.

I Was Just Trying to be Healthy!

We finally had rain!

Today’s Exploit:

Last night I went for a walk. I was going to see if a two-track along a fence line met up with a road on the other side of the property. 

Turns out it did. I had to wade through cows a few times, but mostly they’re noisy and smelly and only dangerous if you get between them and their babies who are rarely more than 3.123 feet away. Therefore, not something that is likely to happen. 

I walked and walked, and talked on the phone a bit, and walked some more. Then I came back to our main road near the gate guards. I talked to them about weather, and maybe their granddaughter - the one that they bring up every time I talk to them. 

Then I decided, Hey I still have some light, I’ll do another loop on this new path I’ve found.

About halfway into another loop I realized that this thing is about 4 miles long, and then I have another mile to go to get back to the rig. That means that I have 40 minutes of light and 3 miles to go (I have a very hard time walking faster than a 20 minute mile pace). And I’ve already done nearly 5 miles. Also, my toes are starting to chafe, my back is aching from actually standing with my shoulders back and I am very aware of that place where my shorts are touching my skin. Thankfully that ant bite finally stopped hurting.

Oh well, what can you do? Turning around to go back will take just as long as continuing forward. 

I got to the main road and picked up the pace, because packed gravel and dirt is far easier than cow cratered mud and scrub. The wind was nice and cool and the bugs were out. In force. Naturally the wind was aiming straight into my face, and the bugs were small. 

I walked through about 15 swarms that I could not see until they were pelting into my face and making their way down my shirt. 

The last mile and a half was spent spluttering and waving at the air in front of my face in an effort to divert the bugs around me, when I wasn’t doing that I was trying to brush them off every surface that they could possibly land on. 

I somehow managed to make it back to the rig before all the daylight was gone, scaring a couple whitetail deer and a couple unknown ungulates that were a bit larger (not that this means much, the deer here are minuscule). They were about the size of normal deer, but I could only see legs, the rest of their bodies were against a dark backdrop and I didn’t have enough light. 

The bugs had a large role in getting me moving, and I walked a total of 21002 steps and approximately 8.898 miles. I don’t want to move today because I have sneaky little chafe areas that walking normally or awkwardly does not relieve. Also my blisters think it’s funny to give me a nice twinge every so often, to be sure I don’t forget them. Good thing my job requires very little movement, I suppose.

Spinach Explosion

I have a return customer for my cookies. I just wonder why the favorites seem to be kinds that I don’t like. That means that the extras are not particularly enjoyable.

Today’s Exploit:

I had a spinach explosion this morning. 

I was making a smoothie.

I have been making lots of smoothies this week. 

I’m beginning to consider myself a master.

Ok not really, but some have turned out pretty good. Especially the ones with blueberries and plums because they cover the color of the spinach.

This means that the smoothie is pink or purple rather than army green or gross brown.

Anyway, this morning I was trying to make my smoothie, and I had everything packed into my jar. I put it on the blender base and turned it on. 

The next thing I knew, spinach bits were all over the wall, the desk and my shirt. 

It took some thinking through the ensuing panic before I got myself together enough to hit the off button.

For as big a mess as it made there was still a surprising amount of spinach still in the jar. So I wiped it up and cleaned as much of the green off the wall as I could. And the smoothie still turned out to be drinkable, albeit with a bit of a mess around the rim, but still...

I Win at Guns

My sister has “discovered” a drawing/guessing app that is somewhat like Pictionary. And by “discovered” I mean “I told her about it thinking we could have a fun distraction”. 

However it turned out to be “she has turned into a maniac and will not let me do anything else because she wants to PLAY!”

Today’s Exploit:

Yesterday Matt and George were having a conversation about guns and ammunition.

This is nothing out of the ordinary, generally when they are both awake and in the same room they are talking about guns.

Matt was telling George that could use soap for something, but George said that that might be bad since soap has lye in it.

While Matt was looking on the soap box to see if soap still does use lye, he suggested using candle wax, and said that you could use “shorts” with it.

I automatically assumed some type of ammunition.

George, on the other hand, assumed clothing and said, “No, I think I’ll be wearing blue jeans if I do that.”

Matt: No, shorts.

George: I don’t think that would be fun.

Me: Ahahahaha!

Eventually George realized what Matt was talking about, and I got to make fun of him for catching on before he did.

That is probably that I will know what is going on in a gun conversation before someone who actually uses a gun.

They Plague Me

I have been reading Terry Pratchett continuously for the past 2.475 months. I still have many books to go before I finish them all. Yet there are nowhere near enough of them left.

Today’s Exploit:

Another mouse is in our trailer. It was on my bed again the other night. I yelled at it and flailed around trying to throw it off my bed and into never-never land where it will live it’s life in rodent heaven and never want to climb on my bed again. 

Today I did laundry and washed my sheets to cleanse them of mouse filth.

Ew.

Also, today, George told me that he saved my life last night without me knowing it. He shot the mouse as it was making a dash for my room. Then he shot it again as it tried to escape from it’s spot under the stove. 

I’m not sure which makes me more nervous. The mouse or George.

At least it didn’t come and run around on my bed again. 

My sheets won’t last very long if it keeps doing that, since I have to wash them vigorously after being touched by the horrible, horrible monster. 

I think that this is one situation in which I would welcome Oni, and not hate her when she tries to sleep behind my knees. 

It Was a Bit Drafty, Just Didn’t Realize the Extent

We had a fire today. We had to stop working so that the roughnecks could put on their firefighter hats and save the day. 

PS A rig is not a good place for a fire, the whole thing can blow up. Especially if we have gas returns.

Today’s Exploit:

I’ve had another wardrobe malfunction. 

It was rather embarrassing.

I couldn’t even go hide afterward, they made me keep working.

Ok, I don’t know if anyone else actually noticed, but they could have!

Anyway...I was doing my job, getting the tool ready for the new run. I was all ready to go and had even moved it to the catwalk (it’s really called that) to be ready to pick it up.

*Side note* *My tool is about 30 feet long, weights about 180 pounds and requires the air-hoist, or hydraulic-hoist, or whatever-hoist to lift it to the rig floor.* 

Then they lowered down the old one, so that I could pull it down the catwalk (it’s really called that) and swap the lifting mechanism to the new tool.

Before the bottom of the tool reaches the catwalk (it’s really called that) it hits a ledge, where they can leave big collars and drill pipe that they might need soon. I put my foot up on the v-door for leverage and pulled the tool off the ledge. 

RRRRIIIIIPPPP!!!!!!!!!

My thoughts: Crap, my pants ripped, I hope no one notices. I didn’t think these ones were that old, and they don’t even look worn.

I pulled the tool down along the catwalk (it’s really called that) and set it down as gently as possible.

That was when I got a chance to look at the RRRRIIIIIPPPP.

No chance it was just a small one. Oh no. They ripped from the middle of my zipper down to the middle of my thigh. That’s a good 10 inches. 

So, there I was, parading up and down the catwalk (it’s really called that) with a brand new fashion statement going on. Not a particularly good one, either. 

Since everyone was waiting on me, I had the joy of picking up the other tool, going up to the rig floor to make sure it was sitting properly in the collar and putting a new o-ring on the flow sleeve.

It wasn’t until I went down to change into my backup pants that I realized how visible my electric pink and garish purple leopard print panties were.

Oh joy.

She Wants To Look Like a Monkey, Too

I have been acquiring new nicknames from Oscar and Ali. Some of them include Mikalina, Taylor, Muffin Pie, Dewy and Meeka.

Today’s Exploit:

Ali has decided that she wants to do my workouts with me.

Today she made it almost halfway through the video. 

She complained the entire time about how out of shape she was and that she is a smoker.

She also told me I looked like a monkey, laughed at half the exercises I did and talked loudly on her phone. 

But she wants to do another one tomorrow. I guess I’m impressed. We shall see how long this lasts.

A Late Thanksmas

Thanksgiving pies for some roughnecks, or other oilfield workers, by PJ and Cupcake.

Apple Pie by PJ

Pumpkin Pie by Cupcake

Today’s Exploit:

I made it home for the week before Christmas, it was our latest Thanksmas so far. Only a week before the 25th. 

I went tree hunting with the whole family, to lunch with my mom, and went to work with my dad, and skied and rode in a groomer and had all sorts of adventures. 

And then we had Christmas breakfast for dinner

And my mom made the table look very pretty so that the mass destruction was even more obvious and traumatic

and destroyed my mom’s cleaning efforts with ribbons and tissue paper and crepe paper. 

Everyone is guilty of gift paper-chaos

Cupcake mad out like a stripy-cupcakey bandit

And she loved her babushka hat and russian doll measuring set

And we all got ‘stashes and had an official family photo night. Arley was forced to take part, but Eda managed to escape Cupcake’s best efforts to get her to join. 

Family photos with faux-stashes are totally in

The Long Wait at PJ’s Marathon

It’s snowing! And snowing, and snowing. 

Today’s Exploit:

My family took some pictures while I was running, and then jogging, and then mostly walking my marathon:

We're just waiting

"This is boring, why do we have to wait?"

See that pink and blue speck? That's PJ in dire need of sunscreen.

Waiting some more, this is taking forever!

Look it's blue - Oh rats, not her. More waiting.

Do we have to wait until she gets here? She's taking forever!

Finally!