Nights and Days

Tomorrow is Thursday. Wait, it's not? It's my thursday. sigh. I pretty much hate the night shift. B, the regular guy, who does the night shift most nights, has a set schedule of thursday through monday, 1:30-10 pm. So, since I'm training with him for two weeks, that's my schedule too. It's damn inconvienient, with Michael's surgery and everything, it makes it virtually impossible to go see him at the hospital. Plus, when I'm free, everyone else I know is either asleep (like right now) or working. It's frustrating as hell. I feel cut off from the world, I feel like I can't get anything done, it's very jarring.

I don't mean to just bitch. I'm a little bitter this week. I'm feeling stuck and frustrated. I need a job in my field. There just aren't a lot of those. I'll find something, but I may be doing the ferry for months more. That's fine, I suppose, but if I get a permanent night shift, I'll be utterly miserable. They just can't do that.

Anyway--enough bitching. I promise.

Weekends versus weekdays are really interesting. Weekdays, people are virtually all regulars. We get a lot more people paying with prepaid ferry cards and less cash. Most people on the weekdays have at least ridden the ferry before. On the weekends, there are lot more tourists, who do "annoying" things. In reality, it's not really annoying, it just slows stuff down. The main thing is how they come onto the boat. Basically, if the boat's there, there's a space, and the gate is down, get your butt on the boat. Newbies need to be waved on. And then waved on again. Then reassured that they can come on. Then they need to be pointed to a parking space. If 5 of the 9 spaces are newbies...it really slows down the trip!

Weekdays also have a lot more farmers, farm laborers, and tractors. Weekends have a lot more families, bicyclers, kids, and people taking pictures.

My night landings are getting better. This is what the opposite ramp looks like, at night:

See the tiny cat eye looking lights in the distance? That's a truck, waiting on the other side. It's damn dark!

But the sunsets are gorgeous:

Same with the way the sunlight catches the top of the trees on the opposite bank. The color reminded me of fall in New England. At one point, the entire eastern bank was lit up in golden light.

In Michael news: He's out of the ICU!! Mom's got the phone number to his room if you want to call him. Dialysis is off the table, for now. So SOOOOOO happy! Mom went home for the night (yay! she needs to sleep), and will probably spend nights with me, cause I'm closer to Portland, until he's sent home.