Sunday, November 6, 2011

When Darkness Falls

Daylight Savings started (ended? I can never keep track. Can we just say "happened"?) last night. It was super nice driving to work just before the sun was rising, it was so nice to be able to see where I was going on the back roads. In the summer, I really liked watching what was going on in the fields in the morning and evening, what had been plowed or harvested, how the wheat or corn was growing. For the past month, I was driving to work in the dark, and driving home in the dark. So it was a nice change this morning, to be able to see things.

However. The darkness this evening somehow seemed even darker. I had the boat lights turned on by 4:30, and it was dark dark by about 5. In addition to the darkness, or maybe because of it, traffic was incredibly slow. Between 4 and 7, when I closed, I got 4 cars. The darkness, while I sat there in the cabin, blasting music, knitting, playing on my ipad, felt like it was starting to take over. My imagination ran away with me and it just started feeling flat out creepy out there. It's funny, if I could turn the lights all off on the boat, I could see the stars, see the faint lights from Salem lighting up the outline of the trees. But with the lights on, the boat is lit up like a night game at a baseball field. Everything is bright within the circle of light, and pitch black outside it.

Anyway.

So last week, I got an Ipad. And I'm so so so SOOOOO happy I did. I can connect with my friends online, which makes me feel a lot less alone out there. I can check my email and type a full email a lot easier than on my phone. I've got games, access to the library to borrow ebooks, music, basically everything. I had no idea I'd be quite this happy with a little piece of technology, but holy cow, I really am.

Last week was also a training week, and so is this week. Last week, I spent a few days with M, a young guy, very sarcastic, he was decent to hang out with at least. This week, I get R. I'll be working with him all day tomorrow and a handful of hours on tuesday. R is older. From his photo, he appears to be in his late 40s or early 50s. Don't know anything about him. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but of course I'm apprehensive. It's a tiny space to be stuck with someone else in. Even if it was my mom or sister, I'd still go crazy being stuck in the cabin with them for 8 hours.

Today, something broke on the boat. It's hard to describe, but basically, on the concrete ramp heading down to the boat, a 1/2 inch steel strip got caught up in the boat, and was sticking up, making landings really weird, and could potentially either rip up the bottom of the boat or catch and tangle the low water line. I called the boss, basically to tell him what was going on and to say that he should hopefully have a plan so we could deal with this tomorrow morning. To my surprise, he drove down to the boat about an hour later. He had a grinder, and ground the steel to cut it off, getting rid of the problem. It was nice of him to come, and when I thanked him, expressing my surprise, he said he came down cause it was me. Which meant that, since I so rarely call him with problems--I don't call him to complain about the little stuff, and according to him, that's rare--he didn't mind coming down to help me when there was a slightly larger problem. I think the boss plays favorites and I'm his favorite, but I don't mind, at all. It makes my life easier.

No, I haven't heard from the city about the job. I did get an email from them, a "we're still working on it, you're not out of the running, we'll let you know" email. It's frustrating. I am going to put together a friendly email to send to the boss, to remind him of how much I want the job. We'll see.

This ended up a very random post. Maybe it's the wine. or the fat cat stretched across my arms right now. I think I need to get in bed soon.

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