I'm beginning to feel at home again. I don't know if it's the comfort that I feel around people or just the new acceptance that I have for myself. I don't have an awful feeling like I'm supposed to be somewhere else. For the past several years, no matter where I ended up, I felt like I was in the wrong place.
I just had a pretty good capper on a gnarly day. I will get to that, but you need to hear the kind of day that it was, and the suprise feeling that I had at every turn.
Starting at 630, which is obsurd because you don't need an hour and a half to get the guys out the door in the morning, I wandered over to the guys condo and got set up to make breakfast. The "mud room" is the laundry room off the back of the house, and the guys condo is really the only one that the name of the room is not derived from the function. It is actually a laundry room. The doors are locked to keep the guys out of the medicines and other dangerous things, like cleaners and worse chemicals, that we keep stored in there. The menu is also in there. This morning was supposed to be biscuits and gravy, but I managed to cook the last biscuits a few days ago and there was no gravy in sight. I opted to make sausage and scrambled eggs, two things that the guys will always eat.
It was a pretty easy morning. I wasn't too stressed out by the amount of work that we had to do and we managed to be helpful and not too obstructive to the daily routines for the kitchens. Wednesday is the food order for both sides of camp and the guys help put these away. There are 100's of pieces to the orders right now because the camps are coming in this weekend and the kitchens need to be well stocked and ready to go. We finished off the morning and had a good lunch, then started the afternoon with some quick help around the Mark 2 area of camp.
After we left home, things would into a mess. We were slated to work on the club room, getting the carpets all cleaned and shampoo'ed before camp this weekend but one thing after another just seemed to go wrong. First it was the actual equipment that we had in use. One of the vacuums didn't even work properly. It would turn on and make all the usual noise, but the brush didn't spin at all and it was like pushing an angry rolling pin over the floor. I didn't catch the mess up until after one of the guys had "vacuumed" for about an hour. I couldn't help but laugh but I was starting to get mad at a few of the other things going on.
Two of the guys I had set on scraping up gum from ther floor. This wouldn't seem like too difficult of a job, except that I don't think either one of them knew what gum looks like when it gets trampled into carpet. They walked all over the club room and then told me they were done. Within sight of where I was standing (mind that it was on one of the top steps) I could see over a dozen spots of gum. I pointed some of them out to these two and they said they couldn't get them to come up. I took the tool and within a few seconds had two of the spots out of the carpet. They were set back to work.
The housekeeping staff has two of the most... well, they have more than two, but today they only had two fo the most wonderful inventions ever that we went ahead and borrowed, without asking. They have pack vacs. These lovely things instantly transform the casual Mark 2 employee into a Ghostbuster. It's a large tank, with a hose, that makes noise and pulls dirt form the ground... but only if you put the hose to the ground. My guy today was walking around with the hose about a foot from the ground and expecting me not to notice that he was not doing a very good job on the floors. I was getting close to my wits end, but this wasn't the end of my ordeal today.
The last was the sole reason that we were in the Round-Up today. They needed the carpets clean. There is a hunk of machine called Whitacker that is basically two spinning brushes and a sprayer that introduces chemicals to the carpet to have the rubbed in to pick up all the dirt that is in said carpet. This machine seems like it might be fun to operate, but I never really got the chance to. I couldn't get the sprayer to work. I called one guy to check with him about coming to fix it, he was in a meeting. I chatted with guest services to see who else to call, he directed me to housekeeping. The head of housekeeping wasn't sure what the issue is, so finally the housekeepering assistant showed up to save the day. We might as well have been kicking the thing. I wasn't doing anything wrong and it just wasn't working. By the time I finally gave up on the beast, the guy that set me up to clean showed back up and there were then three of us at a complete loss. We gave up trying for the day and I put away all the equipment, broken and working, and with tears in our eyes, crawled back in the car to head home for the day.
I got all of about 20 minutes to myself before I had to go back to the guys house. I was frustrated from the complete lack of work that we got done in the afternoon and I wanted to unwind, but I have to do personal care for one of the guys every day after work. I helped him out as I always do, and then went home. I sat in my chair. And I sat... and sat... and finally there was nothing left to do, I started laughing. It was just an awful day, and I'm so glad that it happened. I wouldn't want to change any of it, because this is the kind of day that I am supposed to be having. I learned all kinds of stuff and managed to keep my temper in check and finished it out in a good mood.
The evening started off making pizza for the guys. They powerred through two large pizzas and when everything was cleaned up, I was off home again to wait for basketball to start. I spent a little while talking with Mark and Mandy... the boss and her husband, and then went off to shoot hoops. I had flashes of brilliance, then when I rememberred that I'm not very good, I started to play like that. I left the games early because I was meeting a buddy for just some conversation and maybe a few beverages. We sat and talked for a while, then he asked where I came from. I'm not sure what possessed me, but I started to share my testimony. I wasn't going to go into detail, but after a bit, I just felt like I was in a safe environment and he would appreciate hearing it. I shared for about 20 minutes and he listened. Some people get bored when they hear stories, but he was captivated and glad to hear what I was sharing. He helped to end a normal day in extrodinary fashion. Now here I sit about to go to bed myself, and I'm happy with how today turned out. Bad and good, it all makes sense to me at the end.
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