A Summery Day

I had forgotten what a summer weekend day was like. Yesterday was a huge reminder. I had about 80 cars, 30 bikes and 20 motorcycles. 130 vehicles in all. It was hectic! By the end of the day my legs and feet were exhausted. But at the same time, it was great fun. I saw regulars I hadn't seen since last summer, talked to a ton of people who were happy because of the sunshine, and enjoyed the sunshine on my shoulders. Every Sunday, it seems that I forget something. My first work day of the week, I bring a full backpack and full food bag. I fill my backpack with entertainment (knitting, books, ipad, ipod, etc), and my food bag contains 4 lunches, fruit, snacks, drinks, silverware and dishes. Except that, of course, this week, I left all silverware at home. Fork, knife and spoon, all at home. I couldn't find anything on the boat, not even a spare gross plastic spoon that's usually behind the microwave. I ran up and scrounged through my car, hoping to find old used fast food plastic silverware. Nothing whatsoever. And I didn't have a lunch I could just eat with my fingers. I had stirfry. Rice with tons of veggies and chicken. Not the easiest of foods for finger food. I realized I'd have to improvise, and ended up finding two small branches and shaving one end of each down and making chopsticks. They were hilarious looking:

They worked pretty well. The larger branch was a bit curved, which was a pain, but I got my food from the dish to my mouth. Unfortunatly, the wood on both branches was green. I looked for old wood, but with all of the high water we've had, it's all been swept downstream. And new wood, when you take the bark off, has just about the most bitter taste ever. I ended up basically dropping the food into my mouth. Still, I managed to eat lunch. Of course, about a half hour after I ate, a dear friend, Jen, had seen my silverware complaint on Facebook and had driven over and gave me a baggie full of plastic sliverware. Awwwww. It was really sweet. I'm going to keep it all in my car, just in case. I think I'll also toss in a coffee mug, plate, and some other supplies. I realized this last weekend that it's now been a year since I started working on the ferries. Isn't that crazy? When I left my planning job, I felt like it was the end of the world. I felt like I was being exiled to some faraway place of torture. And now I've been here a year. Some days, it does feel like a torturous exile, but for the most part, it's decent. Still, not something I want to do for the rest of my life, but it's a job, it pays very well, and now we're coming in to summer, which is the best time to be down here. Right now, as the mercury slowly makes it's way up to 80 degrees today, I'm sitting here with the sun shining on me, I can hear at least 5 different kinds of birds, fish are jumping, the sky is stunningly blue, and I'm getting paid to sit here. Life could be a heck of a lot worse!