The second dog watch day

 Well now, waking up at 1am is never fun, but glory be, I am waking up to a quiet watch. No cargo ops until tomorrow night. 

    So, with one week to go on this tour, we stand dog watches, shorter shifts, so that over the course of 24 hours, our schedules reverse. I'll go to sleep mid-morning today, a few hours early, and wake up to stand the night watch tonight. It's always hard to sleep for a few days after having our circadian rythm inturrupted and by the time we fully adjust it's time to go home, but when I leave in a week and Big E returns from home, B will be on days, and the transition time as Big E gets up to speed will be smoother as B, who has had a week to stand the day watch, is fully up to speed and has full situational awareness of what's going on in the HQ. 

...and it being July, I will not be sad to be working in the cooler evenings. I roasted my balls off these past few weeks. 

      I also missed getting rained on yesterday. That almost never happens. I have a pet peeve about working in the rain, despite having worked outdoors for 95% of my working career.  There was a running joke when I was in my 20's that I was secretly a rain god, and the rain loved me and just wanted to be near me always... I dunno, something from a novel someone stole, but it does shake out that if it is going to rain, it will happen when I am outside. There's been WAY too many days when the rain stops 5 minutes before the end of my watch when it's a watch where I need to be outdoors, these past 25 years... and for 1980 to 1999 when I was fishing.

     I know it's not reasonable for a man who's been working outside from age eight to fifty mumble mumble years old to bitch about weather, but to be fair, you work all day all summer all winter in wet fucking underwear and get back to me about what a ray of God-damned sunshine you are!

        Still, tonight. Tonight I'm grateful to have a quiet night watch. I wish I could take a slug of nyquil or something when I go to bed, but nyquil is wildly verboten aboard by decree for the side effects, which, sadly, are the effects I would have wanted.  So no, I'll have to raw dog it when I go to bed. Generally that means a 3-hour nap and a long evening tomorrow, but oh well.

       I'm not someone who gets easily bored if I have something to read and essentially a square acre or two of steel machinery and parts to tinker with, so at least there's that. I've been being good with diet and exercise again too to I'm in a good head- and ass-space as I muddle my way through.