at home

This is the first morning in almost two weeks that I've been able to have a quiet start to my day. Having a bagel and reading the news has never felt so good.

             With Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife suffering and heavily medicated with limited mobility, it's fallen on me to handle the hundred household tasks that she normally takes care of. Along with tending to her and the indignities that come with being helpless, the sequelae of a seven-hour surgery- risk of anasthesia-related pneumonia and blood clots requires that we be up every four hours and have her walking, plus medications that have to be given 3, 4, 6 times a day, so every two hours I have to wake her up for a couple of gulps of a protein shake and a handful of pills. The challenge here is that she can't be doped into insensibility, because she's got to be able to walk, so pain is a constant companion.

At night, I can't sleep deeply- bathroom breaks, and moving in her sleep or rolling over and she's pulling at surgical incisions, which hurts, so who can sleep when they hear their wife wake up with a yell?

 I say this not to evoke sympathy- for better or worse, right? And this is temporary. She'll recover and is already starting to do so.  No, this opened my eyes to what my brother went through for TWO YEARS with my mom, all while dealing with his own spinal injury and constant pain. I'm bitching after two weeks. I mean, fuck yeah, it's hard work. But my brother did this for two fuckin' years. He lost 50lbs, and his hair went gray. Guy's a goddamn tank, though. I knew he was doing heroic duty, but given daily exposure, I didn't recognize him for being a hero at the time. He is. Absolutely is.


 So, regardless of my bitching, there's been some great stuff too. My kid has also been kicking ass helping me and his mom every day. I'm as proud of him as a hen with a new egg.

 My challenge this week is to prep for Christmas around the house- decorating is a big thing for us, and normally, other than hanging lights and bringing a tree home, that's not my department, but I'm now on decorating duty along with cooking, cleaning, laundry, maintenance and healthcare. The good news is that I'm mildly hyperactive in my obese way anyhow. I tend not to sit.

 I'll actually be looking forward to getting back to work and getting some sleep in.

Best Laid Plans

Blogging has been light. Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife had surgery last weekend, which went well, but recovery is going to be constant unceasing pain for at least a month and  a few months of living in hell for her, so say a prayer if you're so inclined.
 For me, I'm playing nurse, cook, housekeeper, etc. I truly believed that I fully appreciated everything my wife did as a housewife while I'm out bringing home the bacon. I did not. Holy shit it's hard.
Having to live on 2-4 hours' sleep and keep house and be with her too has been a challenge. She'll be well enough to come home in a few days time. Not gonna be much of a dinner on Thankksgiving, but we're sure as shit grateful here.

 You know, this makes me also realize that guys I know who live with spinal injuries- my own brother, and Peter Grant too, have to live with limited sleep and not just pain but the FEAR of pain to surely come, which seems to make doing things even worse.

 At any rate, I won't be here much. 

Not a super auspicious start

Well, I'm at LaGuardia airport in New York, and like it always does on crew change, it's rainy and windy. I'm up to SIX flights in a row that have been delayed or cancelled on me. So far I'm only delayed an hour, though the three airports that serve NYC are the three worst airports in the US for delays, so I'm probably fucked. So it goes.

          I'm searching for a zen moment here. It started off pretty good. My relief showed up at the same time as our tugboat to charioteer us to the next job, so I called a car service and bugged out. The road to the lay berth we were at this morning floods during rains, however, so I get to enjoy wet socks and pants for the 8 hours I had to wait for my flight- I never know what time I'll actually get relieved at, as it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours for my relief to get to me from the company HQ, depending on my location and availability and accessibility of a ride by land or sea. So I usually get a late-afternoon flight, although my relief showed up 2 1/2 hours early to be sure I could get off at the relatively convenient lay berth in Brooklyn,  rather than at an oil terminal in New Jersey, our next stop.

    So far so good, right? I happened to know my taxi driver pretty well, too, so I got to chat with the guy, catch up a bit which is nice. At the airport I got breakfast and changed to an earlier flight- 1pm instead of late afternoon, so I'd only be here for 5 hours instead of 8-9. But with the shitty weather my flight will back up as all flights to and from NY do when the weather isn't pristine, and in the end I'll have paid an arm a leg and half a nut for 2 hours more time at home.

 Screw it, worth it. My late afternoon flight is already showing a 4 hour delay. So far I'm winning. I might get out of here just 2 hours late.

 I'm not sure exactly why I have had such a bad run of luck when it comes to flying in and out of here. After 4 years of this, it's been unusually bad the last 6 months. Long as I get home, I'm moving in the right direction.

One year

It's hard to reconcile with my memories, but my mom passed a year ago today.

    In most ways, it seems longer. My life has changed quite a bit since then. Handling the disposal of her estate I guess was good closure for me.

 Despite all the changes, and all the details, I still get the urge to call and check in, which was my habit. Until I was 40, when I was home, I stopped at her house 3-4 days a week to check in. Not doing that left  a pretty big hole in my life. It feels like a lifetime since she passed away, but in many ways it feels like just a few weeks have passed. I can't really reconcile that part of my life. 
    Well, I'm not too messed up today. Of course i miss her, and I probably always will. But she and my dad busted their balls raising us, and did a good job at it. I wasn't ready to say goodbye, but they gave us enough emotional stability to weather it.

It's a Mads Mads, Mads Mads Mads World

If you've been following recently, my marathon tour here at work this past summer and fall had some ups and downs. One of the ups is that I discovered watching boat restoration Youtube videos. I've been able to reach out and ask questions from some great pros and great amateur boatbuilders and restorers. Guys like Andy from Boatworks Today and Leo Goolden of Sampson Boat Co.  and  Acorn To Arabella. Watching these guys work and build really helped some fairly unhappy days go by, especially on days where I stood watch, then corresponded with the Coast Guard about the various endorsements I added to my license, and then going to bed and rinse, repeat 8 hours later.  Taking 30-45 minutes to watch other people make progress on their own dreams certainly helped me relax and sleep and inspired me to keep planning on my own little projects when I get to go home. 


 So this month I've been watching "Sail Life" 

 Mads Dahlke is a guy from Denmark who took a life-changing accident and turned it into life changes where he persued his own dreams- in his case, he sold his house, bought and restored an old small sailboat and moved aboard her with his dog... and then bought a much larger sailboat and has been restoring her in preparation for sailing all over the world. 

     What is unique about Mads is the man himself. Aside from his flawless near-accentless English, the impression you get is that this is a really nice guy, a classic Late Bloomer. When you see his early videos, you see a seeming friendly but introverted man with some latent DIY talent sharing some ideas and trying to reach out into the world a bit as a means to connect with others and become part of a community- despite a very upbeat nature, the guy was probably fairly lonely at the beginning- and this resonates with people. A community of commenters formed, and over the last couple of years, binge-watching the videos, you see him become more confident, interacting with viewers, and meeting his now-girlfriend in the comments section, in fact. 

 Along the way, Mads has been making his sailboats rugged and strong and beautiful, and the successes and screwups are there to be seen, as well as his response to good and bad days, which he faces with a very upbeat personality and a smile, so occasionally hearing him swear in English or Danish is jarring in a very funny way, like hearing Sally Field dropping an F-bomb  kind of funny.  
 At any rate, if TV was this entertaining, I'd probably watch TV.  What is most endearing is that he obviously values the comments, and a lot of people tune into his channel once a week to take part, and you tend to walk away impressed and happier than you start out. Pretty cool stuff. 

 

On being social on board

I'm just getting older.


 I was introduced to my company's new daytime bunker dispatcher the other day. It was...a mixed review, but an honest one.

"This is one of your best guys here in New York for bunkers. The (the actual name of HAWSEPIPER's Afloat Global HQ/Fusion Center for Hypertension and Getting The Hell Off the Lawn) is run by a pair of really crotchety guys who will get the job done if you leave them alone."\\


 Hell of an intro. But he's right- not about B and I being good or not- I mean, I hope we are, but about us being crotchety, perhaps more than the norm.   B is one of my closest friends, and I suppose it makes sense we'd end up with similar traits since I spend more time with him than I do with my wife. Among the reasons why we're good friends is a matter of compatibility and work ethic- get the job done with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of efficiency, represent the charterer and the company well, and (and this is key) DO NOT DISRUPT THE PROCESS.  This creates repeatability and reliability. The Process (with a Capital P) is what defines efficiency, and also what sets our standards for operations, and through that, safety, too. Paying attention lets you catch things like maintenance issues before they're breakdowns, and things like that- if you have a system and it works, and in the process it helps you maintain good performance, don't change it.

 This sort of philosophy at work is sort of delicate- it isn't always possible, so flexibility is required- sometimes we're asked to do things way out of the norm, and if we can, we do them. We are little  teeth on a larger gear, at the end of the day.

 As we've evolved our system of working together and working the HQ to get the job done, we've become more sensitive to disruption, though, and that's where B and I have gotten labeled as 'crotchety.'  After 10 years here and being happy and I hope a good employee, I came very close to quitting my job 2 months ago when the HR lady put a trainee on the HQ, and that's with a trainee who I knew personally and who I really liked!  Training people disrupts The Process too much for me. I spent two days talking with my wife discussing whether or not to walk off the job over the issue.  A few years ago, when my port captain told me that I should be training guys and told me ecactly how many dollars this would earn me in every paycheck, I offered then and there to give him that money out of my own pocket to NOT give me a trainee at work.

 OK, yeah, crotchety. Would I really quit over it? I would. And I'd be really sad about it. That's actually kind of ridiculous, but it's so.

 I was warned by my first port captain that going from an oceangoing ship to bunker work was going to make we weird. He had been there, he knew, and he was correct. It just took a little time.

 If you know me in meatspace, you know I'm fairly social. I talk kind of a lot.I'm sure the guys in the office would be happy if I didn't chew their ears off when I get ashore. BUT, put me on the HQ, and I prefer to look and listen. I don't like to talk much, and I don't like being talked to. I don't even like using the phone. I email if I can. Talking interferes with my thought processes, with seeing that things are in place and in order, and that everything sounds ok (sort of an understatement- many of the most important things have a sound that is right and a sound that is wrong- a cargo pump hits an air bubble, a chain clinks in a right way or a wrong one, a mooring line sings out when tension changes, and vibrations that are right and wrong happen too, transmitted right through the soles of your shoes. Talking interrupts the flow of information that tells me the state of things on board, under our system.

 B and I can sit and talk for hours at the galley table. We can also sit at the galley table for hours and NOT talk, just as comfortably. That's part of why we are friends, and also part of why we don't want disruptions, as two people who NEED quiet more than most, in order to enjoy peace when we want peace. That's actually a pretty rare thing, to be able to sit quietly and be perfectly comfortable in close proximity... but it's also the exact opposite of what a trainee needs, and the opposite of what most people like, too. Oh, we have friends here who visit, and sometimes we'll have a dinner on board with friends, too. That sort of social activity brings happiness for its novelty. We don't drink alcohol and don't smoke or gamble. The monotony of the job is absolutely draining at times, and how you compensate without cultivating bad habits affects your mind and your performance on the job, too. Given the work and the schedule, our social lives on board the HQ are more than 50% of our social lives,  which is something that shoreside management rarely gets. To be unhappy on board means spending a majority of my life unhappy, period. B and I have had a fantastic team of shoreside support who understand that and who tolerate our quirks as a price to be paid for what I hope is adequate performance. They don't mess with us nearly at all, and it's wonderful. Doing a good job to ensure that just gets that much easier.

 Well, Ed, my first port captain here, was correct. The job does make you weird. Makes me satisfied, too, though, so long as I'm left alone to do it, anyhow.