Workload's been pretty light. Seasonably slow, which has been good as we caught up on things on here, hosted the coast guard for our annual dog-and-pony show, etc.
I got ashore a few times. Got 5 mile walks in every time.
It's tonight and 2 more watches and I can go home.
The light workload undid some of the butthurt on my part given the musical chairs we're playing this month personnel-wise.
Really, all is well enough, just haint been in a writing mood.
My partner B came in on time by Wednesday and it was good to have him back on the HQ. The new guy was wearing thin. Not a bad guy at all, just... not a compatible personality and not a 'Can Do' guy workwise, which is what our people are on here.
Big E is home now for a few weeks, and it'll be my turn next month.
We were pretty quick to settle into routine, which felt good. Today I finished loading us deep; tonight and tomorrow we'll be discharging and hopefully Sunday will be free.
As far as ship traffic goes, it's been seasonable. Home heating oil season in the northeast is winding down, and April/May isn't usually unduly busy, so I can't see any impact from world events from my micro perspective, so you'd have to ask someone else for the macro.
Yesterday I was so free at work that I made marinated mushrooms and 2 jars of dill pickles.
We're experiencing a lull in demand for bunker fuels here in NY harbor. There's plenty of traffic, don't get me wrong, but it's mostly ships with onboard exhaust gas scrubbers, so they can buy the cheaper shitty oil and burn it, whereas the HQ carries the good shit (Very Low Sulfur Heavy Fuel Oil) and also the best shit, Ultra Low Sulfur Fuel Oil, the hi-test, which is just retardedly expensive right now. And diesel, which most ships use to fuel their generators in port.
Well, with the fill-in guy having figured out that I'm not a talker, and free time, yesterday after some morning logkeeping and my weekly environmental hazard inspection (looking for signs of leaks in pipelines and joints, cracks in welds, examining anything that has oil in it, and inventorying the spill cleanup lockers, deployable oil booms, etc etc...), went for a 5 mile walk through Brooklyn, stopping to go to church-good for the body, good for the soul, and also got some groceries (bad for the wallet, holy shit), then returned to the HQ, where I made a big stir fry for lunch, smoking out the galley with my giant ass wok. After lunch I pulled out my spices, some herbs I bought, and a jug of vinegar and made marinated mushrooms and dill pickles.
I put too much flaked red pepper in the mushrooms. Just a pinch adds a subtle pepper taste, but a pinch and a half was too much, but too late. Gonna feel that.
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| If you know, you know. |
And today? The same, just moreso. Gonna walk again and maybe spend the afternoon in the generator house for spring cleaning. It's too hot in there in summer to work if I don't have to, so now's a good time.
Oof, what a week. For everyone else. Me? I'm doing fine. Oh, I was feeling put-upon earlier, but... perspective arrives and I need to be grateful when I looknat what others go through vs what I went through and cried about.
So, me first: the fill-in guy hasn't woken me up once to answer questions in the dark. He's not my cup of tea, personally, but that's no big deal. I'm sure now that he's a decent human being. He can load and discharge with direction and independently solve some basic problems. He maybe lacks initative, but appears to have been trained to not change anything as a visitor, to the point where he won't touch anything he does not have to, but he's also not familiar with the layout here, as the HQ is a simple beast, if heavily modified. He works on a floating Swiss Army knife (capable of more things, but awkward and uncomfortable for the user).
So, for all my bitching, beyond that he talks too much, isn't looking to up his game and doesn't seem comfortable with companionable silence, it'll be fine. My first impression of him was brutally bad; but he seems ok.
Given that, I can't cry too loud because relative to what some others are going through, in my network, I've got it good, and I got reminded of that several times. One of my friends out here, also one of my favorite tugboat captains to work with, and just 3-4 years older than me, had a stroke while in his room about 2 weeks ago. He's alive, and facing a long recovery I think. Insanely high stress life, not enough exercise, and carrying too much weight. Also the family breadwinner, so this won't help.
Blogfriend BCE lost his job and his estranged stepdaughter took her own life (in front of her mom, who was trying to help her) as a final eff you) on the same day, while I was bemoaning my lot in life a few days ago. Jesus, I gotta quit my bitchin. People have real problems and I'm getting all cunty about things not being perfectly ideal here in my self-chosen oasis of... well, this fuckin' place.
One of my brothers is partially disabled, with a severe back injury that limits his mobility, but he works full time at a job that physically pushes him to (and past) his limits regularly.
My sister has early-onset rheumatoid arthritis, and a weird ass massive seizure last year that came out of nowhere, and may or may not have had a mini-stroke chaser, had to move back to Sodom Boston to live with her daughter.
I feel (and see) tragedy all around me, and I know everyone can look and see people worse off around them, but as things pile up on others, I see myself, and I am ashamed to not be more grateful. I know my time will come. I think I had better start reminding myself that I need to be more grateful and positive.
Also, today is Sunday, and while it's rainy and dark, we tied up in Brooklyn at a dock with shore access, around 2am, and are free for the day, maybe. If the rain holds off, I will go for a walk, maybe go to mass up at the church about a 30 min walk from this pier. Feel like I might need it.
Dammit, I jinxed myself.
We had a guy elsewhere who had a health emergency, and Big E has to get off here tomorrow for the last week of his rotation.
I didn't want to go as the barge in question has a trainee aboard and, having tiny quarters, isn't made for the extra body. No bribe is worth having a trainee up my ass for a week. I just don't have that in me anymore. We have vessels with larger accomodations and space to make a trainee a pleasant addition, but this isn't one of them and so I declined.
I've met the guy who's coming over to be my bitch... girl Friday helper and I... well better to say his introduction to me was me, a stranger, climbing up his pigeonholes yelling the whole while, and then cussing him out at length for not standing a proper watch and causing damage to equipment.
So while I'm not thrilled to have a possible crewman good only for ballast, he's going to be even less happy. Still, in the name of peace and managed blood pressure, I'm absolutely ready to see if he learned how to do his job in the interval between then and now.
He yelled at Big E's, stepson, who, like Big E himself, is a hard worker and a genuinely good person, though. Abusing deckhands is a no-no.
Well, we'll see what's up. I shoulda kept my mouth shut about how good it's been with E and me this week.
It's been good to gwt back into the routine. I didn't mind the chaos of my time home but the weather's been decent here, the workload is about average and Big E and I have been making time to exercise and eat right, and working together in the afternoons to up our fitness game. Yesterday, for example, was a combo of body weight exercises and plain old walking to keep the heart rate down, as we were alternating walk-out burpees, flutter kicks and air squats every lap around the HQ.
I'm feeling good, though. Being over 50 now, and still trying to feel my way around avoiding joint pain as it pops up, exercise isn't an intense thing if I want it to last more than a while. Plus, I haven't done any in ages, so I'm pretty creaky.
Workwise, the job's the job. My days don't change much, and when they do, I don't like it anyhow, the extra training I've done in the past 6 months aside.
It's nice to be in long-sleeve T-shirt weather, anyhow.
