Home!

 I'm home, all is well. 

 BRB

Almost the whole watch off

With just two days to go on this tour, I finally got a watch to myself. Most of one, anyhow., and even better, the annoying tasks that have to get done before my relief show up are all done too, so I got to have this time to myself. And really... to myself.  Partner B, who has Crohn's disease (now in remission) and hadn't taken a solid dump since the first Obama administration,  got hisself constipated, which is... well not humorous, but surprising... And painful apparently, as finally the floodgates opened and B went to bed as soon as his watch was over, on account of his backdoor looking like the cigarette lighter of a car when you hold it in for 5 minutes and don't let it pop back out. 

     So I have had the HQ to myself most of the night. We're at a lay berth, the real lay berth, where we go when we have more than a few hours between jobs, over by Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

    I'm not feeling sick, either. Oh, I'm a bit congested but I've improved greatly in the past 24 hours. It was nice to sit down to a meal tonight, and not have to eat it one handed while writing or typing with the other for once. All in all, things are better than they were a week ago for sure. And the prospect of going home is uplifting. 

 I got a call from a good friend, the first friend I made when I came to my present job, in fact. He's a rock solid dude, a damn fine tankerman too. He left my employer last year after almost 20 years here, after having been done brown by one of the shoreside staff, and his wife sadly being diagnosed with terminal cancer, and our insurance being fairly well shitty and cheap compared to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which most other maritime companies offer, including the company he moved to, who are famously bad but pay OK and have great insurance which his wife needs...  anyhow, said friend got an offer he couldn't refuse from the highest-paying tug-and-barge company on the East Coast,  (who also have BC/BS).  So he's headed there for his last few years before retirement, which will also enable him to work shorter hitches and have more time and more money for his wife's care.  I'm really happy for him. And while I didn't need the temptation, he promised that he'd make me an offer to whoever recruited him, and fuck me that's tempting.  I don't like blind jumps, though. I don't want to go. Not yet, anyhow. It's not a good time to do laundry in public, but I appreciate the offer for a new job and a new company, but am hopeful that good things are coming. 

Still grinding

 Not much to report, really. We're working every day. I haven't had a watch off since I came aboard about 10 days ago,  not a whole one, anyhow. I had more than half my watch off, 3 days ago, which felt nice. 

 Healthwise, I feel better in terms of my energy level and focus. I am still 100% congested and I believe this is day 21 of me gorging on Dayquil. I can't take Nyquil at work on the off chance that something happens and I need to operate some heavy machinery. I mean, the entire HQ is heavy machinery, a young boy's fever dream of hydraulics, cranes, engines, pumps, piping to climb over, under and around, and ropes of every sort and color. The HQ, if I added a slide, was 7 year old me's dream playground. I guess we need a fireman's pole to get down into the forepeak now to round things out. 

 But yeah, my flat, absurdly high pitched and sadly nasal speaking voice is still worse than normal with my sinuses being full of what feels like cement. 

   It's the weekend, though, and tonight's watch, which was busy from 1730 to 0130 -we're underway to a lay berth where B, the lucky booger, gets to have a watch off when he wakes up, whereas I will get about 3 hours. Still, 3 hours free is nothing to lament, as it's as good as I can expect for now, and It's the end of the watch that will be free, which means I can probably wind down and relax and watch a show or something, maybe read my book.  All good things. 

 We're bucking the tide HARD tonight. I thought we were close to our lay berth in Newark, but we're only making 4 knots, lol. Still only halfway there. Looks like my break will be about 2 hours. Bummer. Better than 1 hour, though, and maybe we'll pick up speed when we leave the Kill Van Kull, which we're presently transiting, and which is a narrow tidal bore at Bergen Point where the Bayonne Bridge is. As the channel widens out after the bridge, perhaps we'll pick up a knot or more. 

           So with the prospect of two weeks at home, the honey-do list is forming up. The list this time is formidable. Lot of mindless labor in there. It's time for the annual pressure washing fest outside, which is a multi-day orgy of being damp for 8-10 hours while hunched over and trying not to get eye damage. This is along with some painting, water sealing, and the usual last minute additions that my wife can think of. 

 I dunno, I'm looking forward to it. I haven't been able to get into the zone around the house in a while. 

channeling Eeyore

    

      I don't like admitting weakness, but I'm  just not feeling it this month. 

          I have a cold or sinus infection that came in the wake of the flu I took with me to Brazil and back. It hit right as I was going back to work last week. 

     So, between hospital bills, funeral expenses and last minute international plane tickets, I had unexpected expenses somewhere north of $35,000 so far this month. Now, my salary is munificent compared to, say, what I was making when I got out of college, but it's a sailor's salary, and 35k is enough to really  take the lead out of my pencil, as it is to anyone. 

  

      The prospect of collecting OT for working overtime for a few weeks, not flying home and back to work, not eating and drinking and engaging in high living (by which I mean buying wood, power tools, paint and such) and putting my helmet on and my head down and starting to get out of the hole that just got dug for us,  well, that's just the start of smart decisons I'll need to make for the next little while. 

             This stupid cold of mine is disheartening, and it won't leave. I've been sick now for several weeks nonstop and I don't seem to be getting better. I'm not sleeping great, which I think is most of the problem. I'm simply run down. 

 So it's probably not the smartest decision I can make financially, but I'm going home next week for a few weeks of downtime. It's my scheduled time off anyhow, and I feel like a bag of smashed assholes,. I've got 9 watches to go, including tonight.    We're steady busy here on the HQ, pretty much doing somthing every watch, but the gap between the last job and this one  is about 8 hours, of which 4 are on my watch, so I get to sit at my desk and catch up on papers, write this post, and shortly, precook tonight's dinner, which is a low-effort meal-  4oz of steak, onions, peppers, pea pods and mushrooms and garlic pan-roasted and wrapped up in a big low-carb wheat tortilla. I throw a 50/50 blend of oyster sauce and hoisin sauce on top to church it up, and it's a decent meal. It'll build a turd for sure. 

        I figure some down time will help. I gotta get my ass up and moving when I get back, might as well rest while I can... and hopefully sometime in the next week this stupid fucking cold will let go. 

Still sick at work, and a visit to My Hole in Brazil

 I'm on my second watch now since returning to work. The flu that I left with last week when we flew to Brazil has come and gone, and in its' wake I caught a hell of a cold. Or maybe it's just a long bug, I dunno but either way it's been a miserable almost 2 weeks of being sick, and I'm not a sickly person normally. I'm pretty tired of feeling like ass. 

         Last night we were bunkering a small chemical tanker, and thankfully they were about the same size a the HQ, so when I was talking to the engineers and crew, they were only maybe 8 feet away so I didn't need to yell, as I have a hellacious sore throat as well and talking hurts. So I was grateful for that. Tonight promised to be busy but the Office People (Long may they complain, long may they Shit Light on the heads of the damned) changed all out plans and in a fortunate turn of events, the next move was pushed back to the 3am tide later tonight, technically tomorrow, at the tail end of my watch. 

        I wish I had felt better last night. the engineering crew on the chemical ship were cool guys and I apologized for not talking more. They were all Poles, and I have always found Polish engineers to be pleasant to work with. There's a reason why they're one of the better regarded castes of engineers I think, between work ethic, personality and skills.  Plus, I'm a huge Jan III Sobieski fanboi, so learning more about him from someone who grew up with a greater knowledge of his history makes me geek out. 

_____________________________

    Since I still feel like hammered shit, I will throw some pictures up from last week's trip to Brazil. Bear in mind that this is a poor city on a high plain in an arid area. It's not beautiful to any but the discerning eye, but it's a place I very much enjoy visiting, mostly for the people, enough so that I'm building a house there, which, last time I wrote about, was mostly a series of pillar foundation holes which the building crew were inordinately proud of, as I wrote in "Please Admire My Hole. "

Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I out for a walk

The Hole is now that building on the right. The tall walls around the yard are 15 feet for privacy and shade. 

The main house, as seen from what will eventually be a 40' pergola running from the main gate. 

The dining room, eventually. 

Part of the purpose of the new house was that it was going to be a place for my mother-in-law to live as well, along with her maid and a nurse. As such, with her gone,  there will have to be some repurposing done I think in order to breathe some life into the place.  Against her will, inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, with all the organizing, planning and help she has given between her mother's care and  coordinating reunions and events to reunite the whole family, has been more or less appointed matriarch-in-exile since she's in the middle of the 5 generations of family among the hundreds of them all and the one person everyone takes a holiday to visit when we're in town.  So it appears that my house, since I had planned to be able to feed 40-50 at a time from just the outdoor kitchen alone, will be a social hub when we're in town... and we're hoping to spend a month or more in town every year after we finish building it. 

    At any rate, it's a more pleasant thing to contemplate at the moment than how shitty I feel with this stupid cold. 

I'm home again, for the day

 Wow, crazy week.  I flew to Brazil on Tuesday, and flew home on Saturday, arriving just now, Sunday morning. My wife and son are dead asleep, as they couldn't sleep on the plane, and we never slept more than 4-5 hours a day the whole time we were in Brazil.  We buried my mother-in-law on Wednesday, and it was an all-day affair, 24 hours, a vigil from sundown on Tuesday to sundown on Wednesday. 

           How to explain? Brazilian funerals, at least the Indio ones, are emotionally exhausting, and cathartic as well, moreso than I've experienced here in the US.  Deeply moving, dignified, beautiful in a way ours are not, in that many more of the old world traditions are still upheld. The traditional diamond-shaped casket, the body completely covered in flowers except for the face and chest, and the whole casket with a gauzy piece of white lace to soften her features.  The interment was done in the family crypt, and she was laid to rest next to the bones of her great-grandmother, and above the bones of her husband, dead these many years. We watched as a mason bricked up and mortared the casket in place, where it will lie for 20 years before being opened and the casket discarded, when her bones will join the pile of bones from her great grandmother.  

 I'm spent. I feel like too little butter scraped over too much bread. I have so much to do and so little time before I have to fly out for work, and I'm jetlagged and having a post-stress reaction I guess. I spent the past 5 days doing my utmost to keep my family safe and supported, and my Brazilian family, all 300+ of them, were there with us the whole time. 

 I guess I will write about it more. I also got to see my new house under construction, hung out with the builder, who is married to one of my wife's cousin's aunts' I think, and got my wife hammered drunk along with another cousin when she struggled with processing everything, which actually turned unto a nice story.  The hangover I woke up with, along with the night I spent talking with her and letting her cry things out and laugh too, were worth the price. 

 Anyhow, I got her in bed about 30 minutes ago, and have hours of shit to do before I can rest yet. 

 What a ride it was. Some great moments, I have never been hugged and kissed and made to feel included this much, ever. The pain was awful, the heartache worse, but as that started giving way to the laughter and the stories and shared memories, I know we did it right, and by me, I mean my wife, who deserves her nap for sure. 

Pictures and some of the better stories to follow. 

Bereavement flight

 

 

  Of all the places I expected NOT to be at 0430 on a Monday, the airport in Newark NJ is certainly one of them. And yet here I am.

 

  My mother-in-law had been ill for several weeks, culminating in a systemic infection and a blockage in her one working kidney. Once I wired pretty much a car’s worth of money to the hospital in Brazil last week, they unblocked the kidney, but found a tumor in her bladder while they were headed uptown, so they removed that as well as the blockage.

  Given the language barrier, a certain hesitation to pin down the attending physician and question him, Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I never felt like we really had a solid grasp of what was happening, despite arranging 24 hour care over and above the hospital care, which is a thing in Brazil.  Over the past few days, my MIL’s recovery waxed and waned, though in truth I assumed the infection was under control before they performed surgery on her.  Yesterday when I got up, she was talking about going home in a few days. She started vomiting around 10pm last night, and at midnight I got a text that she had vomited again and was on oxygen, and 10 minutes later, the shitty call that we all dread, after she passed away.

 

  I went through my parents’ deaths a few years ago, and it was painful, even though it was expected.  I knew my Mother-In-Law wasn’t doing well, but I tried buoying up Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, and trying to keep everyone optimistic, and at 8am our time she was going to talk to the hospital and decide whether or not to get a flight to Brazil, as her mom seemed to be rallying the past 2 days. 

 Ugh. I can see just as far through a brick wall as the next guy, but boy howdy I am kicking my own ass for it now.

 

  I got to say goodbye to both of my parents at the end, and it was still awful. My father cheated death so many times that one of my brothers and I both have a weird phobia about calls between around 9:30PM and 6:30AM, which is when we'd always get the notification.  So when the phone rang just a few minutes after midnight, and 10 minutes after my wife said her mom was vomiting and on oxygen, I knew;  of course I knew. Nobody calls with good news after midnight. 

 But my God, when I picked up my phone, the absolute wail of pain was something I’ll remember forever I think, even knowing what was happening. My wife does NOT cry. I have never heard her hysterical before, and if God is kind, I never will again. My heart is absolutely broken for her. In a crisis my wife is an absolute rock. Chokes me up right here, remembering it. 

  Turns out, it’s worse, much much worse, when it’s not you, but your spouse, who loses a parent.

             Like as not I’ll be going to Brazil tomorrow for a week or so. It's the least practical thing I could possibly do, and I absolutely have to.  In talking to my wife an hour ago, she's regained her composure and we talked about telling my kid about his grandmother in a few hours, as he was working overnight at his own job, and we didn't want to blindside him. He talked with his grandmother every other day and my idiot ass talked to him about 8pm last night, saying that he didn't need to worry so much, that she was holding her own. Ugh, he's going to get home 2 hours before my plane lands, and my wife will have to tell him without me there. 

   And why the fuck am I sharing all this? I'm sick myself. I have a flu-like bug, ironically enough. Started about 36 hours ago. Not  covid, turns out, as I checked, but I feel like hammered shit and the runny nose thing just came in as a little fuck you just for me a couple of hours ago. Awesome. 

   I dunno. I'm not myself here. Gotta get my shit together.