Roughin' it
It's been a weird week. To summarize:
Sunday Near-death experience while kayaking on the Estero River. I was out on the Calusa Blueway Paddling "Trail." To me "trail" implies that a path is designated as such, you know, with markers, signs, or the like. I did my duty -- I had two maps, one of the "trail" and one of the river, provided by the park ranger at Koreshan (to be fair, he did tell me that Gilligan and the Skipper used the same map. If that's the case, why not, oh, I don't know -- make a new map?). Both of these maps got me lost twice; the fact that there was not a single marker on the trail didn't help. Once I finally reached the bay, I was spit out into a busy boat channel. So, I paddled along the mangroves, stalked some pelicans (which are
easily startled, as my photo demonstrates), and followed a group (a pod? a school? a gang?) of dolphins. Lovely day, right? It was lovely until I headed back up river and encountered a gang (a group? a pod? a school?) of jet skiers. There were no fewer than 20 of them and they did not slow down at all, for anyone. Oh god, it was like getting stuck on one of those water rides at an amusement park -- you know, it's fun for the first minute or two, but then you wonder whether you're going to get out alive. After I got past them, a raging thunderstormed popped out of the clear blue. I was paddling straight into the rain; not only was it filling my boat, but it was washing sunblock into my eyes, which, in turn, decided that they didn't want to hold onto my contact lenses any more. Great fun. I did get a sweet workout, though, and wasn't at all sweaty afterward. Shivering and concerned about hypothermia, yes -- but sweat-free.
Monday Beloved naturalist, The Bird Nerd, announces that she's moving to Ohio. This is a major bummer because she's a cool chick and we're breaking up the best naturalist staff we've ever had. Plus, of all places to move, why, god, why Ohio? People leave Ohio for Florida; they don't go there by choice. I bought a laptop to console myself.
Tuesday K., the other naturalist who is my best friend here, is in a foul mood, as she often is on Tuesday mornings (these are her Mondays). Today the mood is so foul that I cannot say or do anything right, at least not without getting some serious edge from her. Argh, it's a rough thing working in an office full of women; not only are we intimately familiar with each other's cycles (for example, "K. must be on her period because I'm seriously starting to break out"), but there's also a fair amount of chatter that goes on. I got to hear today,"oh, she's nice as pie to me, but she gets nasty when you're in the room." Isn't that sweet? And the thing is -- the thing that has frustrated me with every female friend I've ever had -- is that I don't know what happened. Today, I said "good morning" as I always do, like everything is normal, which as far as I know, it is, and I get a frosty "yeah," in return. And it goes downhill from there.
In other news, today my computer decided it wanted to go on early vacation without me; however, I did get to spend some time on the roof of the Planetarium looking for the space shuttle, so the day wasn't a total loss. I don't spend nearly enough time on the roof at work.
Wednesday I avoided K. because she was so unpleasant Tuesday and I was honestly afraid to be around her. She came into my office and apologized for being weird, saying that she just feels like she's living the same day over and over again. Welcome to the next 40 years before retirement. And it's still no reason to be a bitch. I have tried to so hard to make her happy because she is so good at her job and I don't want to lose her, but nothing works. She refuses to be happy or to even try. It's wearing me out. Now I understand why she has had so many jobs. What sucks is that I feel like a bad friend because I am so worn out from her.
Giant African dust cloud floated across the Atlantic and settled on my car. Let's hear for it scratched windshields!
Foxy peed on my bed in the middle of the night while I was in it. I woke up at 3:30 when I rolled through it. Ernie would never do such a thing.
Thursday Ernie's acting a little weird. I hope he's okay. Foxy's still in trouble.
Had to ask a child not to return to camp, the first time in two years. This five-year-old was overly violent, even for a little boy; he pretty much tackled anyone who walked by and made them cry. When I talked to his mom on the phone, she broke down in tears. She can't bring him to work and doesn't know anyone who could watch him, plus she's extremely worried about what he'll be like in Kindergarten next week. It was rough. It's things like that that make me not want to have kids; I don't want to think about being responsible for a child that hurts other children. At least he didn't kill any frogs -- as one camper did last week, at nature camp. I've said it before -- this job is the best freaking birth control.
Sunday Near-death experience while kayaking on the Estero River. I was out on the Calusa Blueway Paddling "Trail." To me "trail" implies that a path is designated as such, you know, with markers, signs, or the like. I did my duty -- I had two maps, one of the "trail" and one of the river, provided by the park ranger at Koreshan (to be fair, he did tell me that Gilligan and the Skipper used the same map. If that's the case, why not, oh, I don't know -- make a new map?). Both of these maps got me lost twice; the fact that there was not a single marker on the trail didn't help. Once I finally reached the bay, I was spit out into a busy boat channel. So, I paddled along the mangroves, stalked some pelicans (which are
easily startled, as my photo demonstrates), and followed a group (a pod? a school? a gang?) of dolphins. Lovely day, right? It was lovely until I headed back up river and encountered a gang (a group? a pod? a school?) of jet skiers. There were no fewer than 20 of them and they did not slow down at all, for anyone. Oh god, it was like getting stuck on one of those water rides at an amusement park -- you know, it's fun for the first minute or two, but then you wonder whether you're going to get out alive. After I got past them, a raging thunderstormed popped out of the clear blue. I was paddling straight into the rain; not only was it filling my boat, but it was washing sunblock into my eyes, which, in turn, decided that they didn't want to hold onto my contact lenses any more. Great fun. I did get a sweet workout, though, and wasn't at all sweaty afterward. Shivering and concerned about hypothermia, yes -- but sweat-free.Monday Beloved naturalist, The Bird Nerd, announces that she's moving to Ohio. This is a major bummer because she's a cool chick and we're breaking up the best naturalist staff we've ever had. Plus, of all places to move, why, god, why Ohio? People leave Ohio for Florida; they don't go there by choice. I bought a laptop to console myself.
Tuesday K., the other naturalist who is my best friend here, is in a foul mood, as she often is on Tuesday mornings (these are her Mondays). Today the mood is so foul that I cannot say or do anything right, at least not without getting some serious edge from her. Argh, it's a rough thing working in an office full of women; not only are we intimately familiar with each other's cycles (for example, "K. must be on her period because I'm seriously starting to break out"), but there's also a fair amount of chatter that goes on. I got to hear today,"oh, she's nice as pie to me, but she gets nasty when you're in the room." Isn't that sweet? And the thing is -- the thing that has frustrated me with every female friend I've ever had -- is that I don't know what happened. Today, I said "good morning" as I always do, like everything is normal, which as far as I know, it is, and I get a frosty "yeah," in return. And it goes downhill from there.
In other news, today my computer decided it wanted to go on early vacation without me; however, I did get to spend some time on the roof of the Planetarium looking for the space shuttle, so the day wasn't a total loss. I don't spend nearly enough time on the roof at work.
Wednesday I avoided K. because she was so unpleasant Tuesday and I was honestly afraid to be around her. She came into my office and apologized for being weird, saying that she just feels like she's living the same day over and over again. Welcome to the next 40 years before retirement. And it's still no reason to be a bitch. I have tried to so hard to make her happy because she is so good at her job and I don't want to lose her, but nothing works. She refuses to be happy or to even try. It's wearing me out. Now I understand why she has had so many jobs. What sucks is that I feel like a bad friend because I am so worn out from her.
Giant African dust cloud floated across the Atlantic and settled on my car. Let's hear for it scratched windshields!
Foxy peed on my bed in the middle of the night while I was in it. I woke up at 3:30 when I rolled through it. Ernie would never do such a thing.
Thursday Ernie's acting a little weird. I hope he's okay. Foxy's still in trouble.
Had to ask a child not to return to camp, the first time in two years. This five-year-old was overly violent, even for a little boy; he pretty much tackled anyone who walked by and made them cry. When I talked to his mom on the phone, she broke down in tears. She can't bring him to work and doesn't know anyone who could watch him, plus she's extremely worried about what he'll be like in Kindergarten next week. It was rough. It's things like that that make me not want to have kids; I don't want to think about being responsible for a child that hurts other children. At least he didn't kill any frogs -- as one camper did last week, at nature camp. I've said it before -- this job is the best freaking birth control.
~~~~~
I can't end this post on thoughts of animal cruelty (though the subject has been on my mind this week, what with the horrible alligator story that surfaced this week).
Next week I get to take out my ring for the first time. I'm a little worried and really hope that I don't need to call in any backup. The whole concept is bizarre. That dude in The Graduate was right -- the future is "plastics."
posted by BPDubs at 8:09 PM
1 Comments:
"I bought a laptop to console myself."
LOL, omg I starting laughing so hard here at work that people were starting to call over and ask if I was okay.
I have SOOO done that! Actually, I think that's how I got my laptop: "What do you mean you're leaving me? Fine, I'm going to spend $1500 on a laptop... that'll show ya..." :)
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