One week to go

 So yesterday I switched watches again, as we're coming into my last week aboard the HQ for the hitch, and that means it's my turn to take the back watch again, 1800-0600. 

      The heat came back on in a big way this week, so I'm thankful. I got my ass handed to me the other day after a busy 12 hour watch combined with complex cargo ops more or less kept me outside turning valves, swining wrenches and running the deck cranes for the entirety of the 12 hours, in high heat, direct sun and high humidity.   It was pretty gross. 

    Now, however, I'm working in the cooler half of the day and that's entirely to the good. 

    So my initial plan was to work over- rather than go home for my off time, I had agreed to go on an old beat up bunker barge that was being brought back into service and sailed to NY to go to work. I was dreading it a little, as it had been mothballed, and wasn't well cared for by her crew prior to the mothballing, and I know the barge well- it was my first barge when I joined this company 15 years ago and the living conditions aboard are not good. I mean, it does have a head, a working bathroom, but you can't actually wipe your ass if you have to poop. The stall, made of heavy steel, is the same width as the toilet seat, which is to say, narrow, and you have to enter the stall backwards, hips dragging against the stall sides, to sit down., and wedge your ass into position. . My shoulders don't actually fit in the stall, being wider than my ass, fat as I may be, but by clasping my hands together and reaching out with my arms and hunching my shoulders together, I can make it. Barely.. So yeah, to clean up you have to stand up, step out of the stall and wipe yer bungus out by the sink. My partner Big E, who is the size of an olympic powerlifter and also tall AF, can't even use the stall. He has to crap in a bucket on that class of barge if they make us go on there. 

 Yeah. But I volunteered. The money is good, and I spent a lot of it in Brazil last month. 

  Thing is, the deal fell through. The barge was left in Philly to work down there, and they have their own peeps to take OT down there, so I no longer had work for my off time. 

 And glory be, I am damn glad I am going home next week. I only had two half days at my house in the past few months. I'm actually pretty tired. I'll miss the money, but I miss my wife and I miss my bed more.   I am content to muddle through my last week here aboard, go home and recharge, and be back here a couple of weeks later ready to do it all over again. 

 Plus I'm not going to get more skin cancer this week, working in the dark. Trying to be positive here.