Summer Fun

Paddling on the San Marcos river

Some News, Because It’s Been Forever

Hi.  It’s been a while.

Today’s Exploit:

I have been working and working, and working and working.

I learned a new tool, and a new computer system. I had never worked with Linux before, and found it quite similar to MS DOS.  Which is ancient.

I am beating my sister in daily steps. She blames it on work, but I think I’m really just better than her at taking steps.

I am buying a house. I think.

I got another flat of Poteet strawberries.  They are sliced and sitting in the freezer, just waiting to be turned into jam.

It is already the middle of summer here and I’m dying.

That about does it for news, but I’ll write again soon, I promise.

Racing Colors

I have been reading so many books lately. They are silly and not well written free books on my phone, but I can’t tear myself away. I don’t understand it. I have so many books for my Kindle that I consider it my own personal library, but I have been ignoring the good books available there for the silly ones I found. 

Today’s Exploit:

At the end of August I did a 5k with my sister. She chose it and signed up for it without my coercion, which is a minor miracle after the half marathon drama. But she wanted running motivation and to celebrate finishing her school. She’s now a real nurse, I don’t know if she’s taken her final test yet, but she’s looking for jobs. 

The race she chose was in San Antonio, in the hottest month of the year. I think she’s trying to get me back for that last race. But I agreed since I never thought she’d run with me again.

It was a color run, where they throw powdered paint at you to stain your clothes, underclothes, skin and hair. It was pretty fun, even though it was Texas hot. The people throwing paint though it was hilarious to throw it at my face and at Cupcake’s legs. 

Afterward we raced to New Braunfels to look at a house, covered in powder and sunscreen and sweat. The lady showing the house didn’t even blink when we got out of the car. However she did ask us several times if we were sure that we weren’t twins. 

We got many stares at IHOP, too, because Cupcake just HAD to have pancakes after the race. 

Also, I still have paint powder in my car from throwing water bottles in the back seat, and having to dig around for my money at the restaurant. 

Walking, Because Running Equals Death By Overwhelming Heat

Today’s Exploit:

I have been going for long walks lately. None quite as long as my eventful walk about a week ago, that one was 8.5 miles, I checked. 

However, with the heat and me being lazy, I have spent more time on long walks with a few bursts of running when I’m feeling super motivated. 

Other times I am far more interested in things like Speedy Gonzalez, here.

Or the endlessly boring, flat landscape.

And the baby cows that can’t decide if they want to play, or if I’m some horrible monster that is going to attack.

Also, last night I met the driver for the landowner. And had 4 other trucks stop to ask what I was doing and if I needed a ride. In the process of getting out of the road so that one of said trucks would not kill me I stepped on a thorn. The first one ever to go through my shoe and poke my foot. Stupid Texas plants and their pokeys.

Did you know that it takes 21,000 steps to walk 8.5 miles? And 12,000 to go 5.5? Yesterday I did 7.5 miles and that was 16,000 steps. 

My Growing Family

Today’s Exploit:

My family has mutated and grown and shrunk and gone through many transformations this year.

I got Pete for Christmas, and the poor thing still has glitter stuck to him from the store. Then I got Jack from one of the roughnecks. Eventually I was motivated and put Pete and Jack in the new pots I’d gotten a while ago. 

Then I got this little guy, from the same roughneck. This little guy doesn’t have a name because it made me mad on the trip home because it bit me when I tried to throw a wrapper in the trash. 

So now it lives with H. because Klay really wanted a plant the last time he visited.

Myrtle and Maya have gotten several haircuts because I leave them in the SUPER hot sun for too many days without water.

I was even afraid I’d lost Myrtle for a while. She needs...something. I guess I need to break her into pieces so that I can add some real dirt to the pot, instead of a mess of roots.

And most recently, I have two new additions to my family. 

Allie has a baby and Pete has a baby. The babies do not yet have names, because they don’t have their own pots. 

Now I just have to figure out how they’ll fit into the crate with 2 new pots. 

The Texas Bug Experience

I have a trainee. Some things he picks up really fast. 

But sometimes I’m left scratching my head in complete awe at how dumb he can be.

Today’s Exploit:

I have been having bug experiences this year.

Everyone has been telling me about how Texas has tarantulas EVERYWHERE! AHH!

But I haven’t seen a single one in 4.12 years in this oven.

Until last week.

Since last week I have seen about 17, Followed 2 around, watched the DD harass one with a stick and probably ran over 2 in Starla because they moved the wrong way when I tried not to squish them.

I have also learned how to catch them in a plastic cup, but I haven’t tested that lesson yet.

In other news I have seen a 7.863 inch long, poisonous centipede and an unknown millipede of the same length. Both were about as big around as one of my fingers. 

Exhibit A: The poisonous one. It has long creepy legs.

Exhibit 2: The unknown one. It has a bazillion short creepy legs.

Attack of the Spider

I have, surprisingly, not been harassed mercilessly by Matt about nearly killing George with my deadly pasta. I fully expect to meet a total stranger on my next trip to a big city that knows the story, though. I think he told everyone he knew.

Today’s Exploit:

I noticed some spider nests in the upper corners of my doorway a while ago, just before Cupcake came to visit. She was overjoyed by the fact that I had spiky egg-sacs living in both corners. She would stand about 3.2 feet away and eye them suspiciously before sprinting through the door as fast as she could while Arley held it open for her. I would have made her open the door herself. 

Anyway, I decided that I should probably move the nests to some place else, because I didn’t want spiders hatching all over my door and getting into my house. I have enough of them hanging out in there already. 

I prepared myself with a piece of cardboard and a piece of sand paper, because those are the required spider catching materials. Then I took a deep breath at tried to gently remove the egg-sacs from the corner.

It turns out that Widows (I now know that Widows can be identified by their spiky egg-sacs) do not make delicate webs and egg-sacs. They make something more along the lines of scratchy-sticky wool/kevlar nests that do not like to let go. So I scraped a little harder with my cardboard, the sand paper held up to catch anything I dislodged. 

Suddenly I did dislodge something, something that hit the sand paper, rolled down it and flew of with a trajectory to my exposed cleavage (this is Texas people, and Texas is HOT! I wear the smallest tanks I can find when I am not “really” in public and standing outside my front door does not count as public). Luckily it hit me and bounced off landing about a foot away from my foot. I squeaked and did a panic dance and then started to investigate. 

My attacker was not large, considering I had a pet Black Widow with a body about the size of a quarter living in my garage (that might be a slight exaggeration, but not by much). But she was brown, with dots and swirls on her back. AND SHE HAD AN ORANGE HOURGLASS! This beast is a Brown Widow, which the internet says are more poisonous but less aggressive than their black sisters. Naturally I had to go get my camera and take some nice photos to prove that I wasn’t making this story up.

After retrieving my camera I chased her around my breezeway trying to get not-blurry photos. Naturally she came to and was being quite feisty by the time I had my camera and would not cooperate with me when I tried to take a picture of her belly. 

After torturing her in this manner for about 5.7 minutes I carted her, on my sand paper, over to the dumpster and released her, shortly to be followed by her egg-sacs, which are not near as fragile as most of those I’ve seen. 

Then I went back to remove the second nest from the doorway. This removal went much smoother, and I discovered that it also housed a Brown Widow. Which I’m told is pretty rare, Matt couldn’t believe that I’d actually seen two together, and that they were both nesting in my doorway.

As soon as I finished moving the nests I went and requested that the pest removal guy come take care of my doorway, and spray for the ants on my porch while he’s at it. 

Attack of the Sugar Ants

I just had to write a paper selling something. So, naturally, I chose Hello Kitty backpacks. Nerdy Hello Kitty, no less. When looking up reviews of this product I found some lovely gems that were something along these lines:

OMG! Hello Kitty is, like, so cool and I (heart) her so much! I totally, like, love this backpack and everyone should, like, totally get one to be as cool as I am now! OMG It's so exciting and I love it so much, everyone in, like, all my, like, classes is going to be, like, so totally jealous that I got this, like, totally awesome backpack. (;

Except with worse grammar, capitalization, punctuation and emoticons.

Today’s Exploit:

I had a nice long break between my last one and this one. Almost 2 1/2 weeks! In that time I worked on shelves (I’m ALMOST done), ran a long way WITH OTHER PEOPLE, and fought some ants that took up residence in my closet on my porch. I think I almost got rid of them, but we’ll see when I get back.

In the mean time. I arrived at the rig to find all my boxes piled up and ready to be unpacked. Which I did, in the heat, all by myself. I put the computers in the box, along with all of the cables and nonsense that needs to be hooked up. I ran cables to my sensor and a separate monitor, and I set up the satellite. By then I was nice and soaked from sweat and covered in dust from crawling around on the floor and sitting in the dirt to untangle some cables. 

My night hand arrived in time to run one last cable and set up his own computer while I showered and got some dinner. When I came back to the box, after a few hours, to set up some computer files I was assaulted by itty bitty sugar ants. These things like to bite. And then you feel all creepy-crawly with phantom ants for about 6.32 hours. 

After the one bit my hand I looked around to discover that they were EVERYWHERE! They were in Logan’s keyboard, on and under his mousepad, under all of the computers in mass quantities and hiding individually under cables. 

I killed 487.

Then I went and got some bleach, because I heard a rumor that they don’t like strong smells cause it means they can’t follow their neighbor’s trail.  

After about 2 hours of alternately killing mass quantities of ants and spraying the heck out of the counter and any possible entry space I started to feel sick from the fumes and gave up for the night. I still have to kill one or two every day, but it’s much better than being swarmed by them every time I try to work at any of the 172.6 computers. 

And now I have the creepy-crawlies again.  Gah.

Making Rolls and Building Walls

I still hate intervals just as much as I did in high school. Yet I’ve convinced myself that I need to do them once a week. This better pay off in November.

Today’s Exploit:

I got to help with a building project last weekend. 

I went to Kevin’s grandparents house where I was force-fed ridiculous amounts of food and listened to a crazy-overwhelming amount of chatter. Everyone there likes to talk and the babies like to get their opinions in just as much, and there are lots of them. 

Glenda (Gramma) told me she’d teach me how to make “hot rolls”, which I’ve finally discovered are just dinner rolls. And Kevin told me I am required to learn this trick. And Dale (Grampa) made Kevin let me help with the framing for the addition on to their house. So I spent the weekend covered in saw dust, occasionally peeling potatoes, moving 2x4s and holding them steady, and sweating through my cloths just in time to go inside for a break. 

And then they looked at me like I was crazy when I offered to help with the dishes.

Bud, the Grasshopper Dog and King of the Table

Texas is hot and humid and gross. I want to go to the cabin.

Today’s Exploit:

Today I went to the trailer to get some breakfast, because I decided that a few drinks of chocolate milk were probably not enough to be considered food. When I got there Bud the dog was sprawled out on the coffee table. 

That was new. Usually he sprawls under it, or under the desk or on the couch. But today he was king of the coffee table. He stood up when I walked in, so I patted him on the head and he sprawled out again.

He got kinda interested when I went into the kitchen, but only kinda because he wasn’t too impressed with the grape I shared with him the other day. He really was more interested in the ham sandwich I was making. But when I stayed in the kitchen with yogurt and blackberries and strawberries and raspberries he got a little more interested.

He stood up on the table and started to act like he wanted to jump down. But it was a little on the tall side. I guess he forgot how he got up there. My guess is he jumped on the couch and then hopped over to the table. But he evidently didn’t think that would be a good way to get down, so he paced along the other three sides of the table for a good while before braving it and diving off. 

Once safely down he had to investigate the kitchen to see if I dropped any tasty crumbs on the floor, one that the cloud of flies hadn’t carried away. On his investigation he found a grasshopper. This was interesting. 

He pounced. I’m pretty sure he pinned the grasshopper to the floor with his face. 

When that got boring he whipped his head around to make the hopper jump. And he scrabbled around and pounced again. This time he swiped with his paw to make the poor grasshopper flee. He spent the next 15 minutes wiggling and bouncing and swiping and whipping and pinning the grasshopper with his face, and was still at it when I left. 

By this time the grasshopper was missing a hopping leg, and the other one wasn’t getting much traction on the floor as he fled. The only way he got into the air was when Bud whipped his head around and threw it across the kitchen, and then it could almost make a graceful landing by flapping its wings. 

I’m told Bud is an English bulldog, so he’s all squat and square and sausage-y with a giant, heavy head (he has to rest it on the table or on your knee for a pet so that he doesn’t fall over sometimes). The grasshopper probably thought it was being smashed by a furry boulder. Anyway, Bud is not particularly graceful and made quite a spectacle bouncing around the kitchen. 

The Big Update

I have acquired a new follower while I was away. Huh.

Also, the new version of Blogger is strange. 

Today’s Exploit:

It is hot here. Yesterday when I walked out of the trailer to go for my run I felt like I was stepping into the oven after baking some cookies. Texas likes to try to knock you off your feet every time you step out the door. 

In other news I have been running, swimming in the river with big rocks and scraping my knees, running, exploring San Marcos on my bicycle, running, writing English essays, running, being frustrated with school, running and baking in this horrible oven of a state. 

How long has it even been since I last posted? Probably years.

I am getting ready for my second half marathon, I will be running with my friend Catherine. It also means that I will be seeing my buddies Eli and Cavan and escaping the inferno for the moderate temperatures of Washington. Yay!

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.  

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.

It Wasn't Heat Stroke

"Colors"

My skin is kind of sort of brownish
Pinkish yellowish white.
My eyes are greyish blueish green,
But I'm told they look orange in the night.
My hair is reddish blondish brown,
But it's silver when it's wet.
And all the colors I am inside
Have not been invented yet.

~Shel Silverstein

Today’s Exploit:

Today Matt discovered the reason the computer on the rig floor keeps doing the freak-out.

It works happily until he goes to slide, or change the direction of the well.  Then “KA-BAM”.  The screen locks up and the mouse stops working and the keyboard says, “Nuh uh”.

So we have to restart it and let it get running and open its programs.  

Then we can send the screen he needs.

First we thought it was the heat.  

It’s really hot.

So we propped it up on a giant bolt to allow air to circulate underneath.

It seemed to work for a while, until the next time Matt had to slide.

After re-sending the screen a few times this morning Matt called to tell me he’d solved it!

The computer works just fine, until he sets his iPhone next to it.  

Who knew?  A phone can shut down a computer just by being in the same air space.  Not even the fancy-schmancy programs that let you start the car or turn on the burglar alarm from far away.  

All it took was being within a couple feet of each other.

Technological magic.

Popeye’s Retirement Village

George jumped on the running bandwagon today.  

I’ve now gotten 62.3% of the people out here running and/or walking.  Lindsay doesn’t count, she was running already.  She told me she ran 12 miles one morning on her last run.  Kinda makes me feel like a wimp to be proud of my 4-5 miles each day.

Today’s Exploit:

I am in the “Spinach Capital of the World”.

I’ve got proof!  I took pictures.  

And now for the history lesson: 

Hard to imagine that anything could grow here when it’s 592 degrees out, but I guess they grow it during the winter, along with carrots and tomatoes and peppers.

And they grow onions in the spring, but spinach is better because it means they get to have a statue of Popeye the Sailor Man.  They put it up in 1937.  

His picture is on the water tower also.  

The town hero.  He is credited with growing the spinach industry 33% from 1931 to 1936.

Next stop: His home town, Victoria.

She’s a Big Girl Now

Happy Anniversary to my Mom and Dad!

Today’s Exploit:

I went to North Dakota.

I was 23.7 miles from the Canadian border.  It was beautiful, I was miserable.  Remember?

I also left Myrtle home alone.  

We went shopping at Home Depot before I left to find a “timed release watering device”.  We found one that was “As Seen on TV!”

It was a big, hollow glass bulb.  But I tried it.

They claimed it would water a plant for up to 2 weeks.  

I filled up the pretty one and watered Myrtle until she thought she was going to drown.  Then I inserted the tip of the bulb into the center of her pot.  It tipped over.  

But she toughed it out and didn’t fall over herself, so I said, “good luck,” and made a wish for her to be alive when I got back.

Then I made a mad dash for the airport.  

When I got back after just a week the bulb was empty, but Myrtle’s dirt was still damp.  And Myrtle was 3 times the size she had been when I left.

I guess I wasn’t watering her enough.  

She’s growing faster than a weed now.

Freezer-rific Treats

I died 32 times yesterday.  

It was 872 degrees, but the thermometers only registered 111.  And I had to work outside.  And just stepping out the door felt like falling off your deathbed, the top bunk.

Today’s Exploit:

Yesterday I was talking to the DD.  

His friend got an ice shaver and makes sno-cones for the roughnecks.  Naturally he was really jealous and wanted to get one for himself.  

But then he remembered that his neighbors had found a cheap-o ice cream maker, and made some “really good sweet cream ice cream”.  One of those that you stick in the freezer overnight, pour in the cream and 20 minutes later you have soft serve.  

He asked me if sweet cream was hard to find.  And he almost jumped out of his skin when I said normal whipping cream IS sweet cream.

Now he’s looking online and telling his wife to check Sam’s for one of these makers.  

He was extra excited when I said I had a bunch of recipes that I want to try.  

And he thought he’d be healthy during this well.  Wahahaha