well, they’re here. the orange people. sunday afternoon we got word that the plane hit its wheels down at 11:56am. that’s right, i was off by 1 freaking minute. phil won 2 pools, totalling about $7000. bah.
rachael and i went out to the back dock to see the shuttles and ivan the terrabus coming into town. it was unreal. i took pictures of them coming off the shuttles and coming into the foyer of building 155. they were cheery, excited to be here, tan. i’m sure that i was exactly the same way when i arrived minus the tan, but i’m still having a hard time accepting the change.
the morning of first flight was hard, saying goodbye to people, not knowing if you’ll see them again. knowing that in a few short hours you won’t know whoever it was that walked around the corner by name, or even by sight. knowing that you can’t tell who is walking towards you just by the way they walk when you’re outside at night. people will start making eye contact with you when you don’t want them to and asking you how your winter was.
brad was sitting on the steps outside the galley with angie, so i sat down with them and took pictures of people coming into the building. brad said that he felt like we were at the zoo watching the monkey cage. sally, the executive chef, came in on first flight, and angie came to tell us on the stairs that sally had apples, oranges and sushi in her bag. we nearly trampled sally when we went running to get said goodies. we didn’t know sally would be coming to us with them! she asked us if we wanted an apple or an orange, it was a tough decision! i picked an apple. then we headed to the sushi - apples and wasabi is a new interesting combination for me.
the new people had their arrival brief, and we headed to the computers. during our break, angie came looking for us, and that could only mean one thing - freshies were in. all hands are needed when the freshies come in so that they get inside as soon as possible. the first flight brought in 500 pounds of fruit that is designated “winterover only”. apples, oranges, bananas and a little bit of strawberries for us galley folk (angie says they come in all moldy, so we were lucky they came in okay this time). jason was holding a pint of strawberries with a wild look in his eyes.
we brought the fruit into the salad room and broke open the cases. angie, jason and i got down to stick our noses in the case of bananas, my god, they smelled amazing. then, we opened up the kitchen for the madness. every winterover is invited into the kitchen to fill a brown paper bag with their freshies. you have to watch people though, they’re sneaky and they try to take more than that. it was awesome to see how happy everyone was to get fruit.
that evening, after work, brad and i decided not to venture into the galley to eat. we went to gallagher’s to have burger bar and sat there in a dark corner and had our dinner. cora joined us for a while, and it was nice.
monday was a rough day. new people to train, someone had hung their coat on my coat hook (its right next to troy’s hook…i should have a label for it), so i moved it over one hook, hoping that they wouldn’t notice. in our DA meeting in the afternoon we had to introduce ourselves to the new leads, and tell them some stuff about ourselves and our winter. troy was first. he said “my name is troy….what else am i supposed to say?” we all spaced out.
i never felt so toasty as when i couldn’t remember the name of the “coffeehouse”, a place that i go to quite often here. i made an arched motion with my hand and said “you know, that place with the drinks…” mandi was right on and said “the coffeehouse?” thank god there’s another winterover taking care of translating for me.
yesterday was interesting as well. 2nd flight came in, and then we found out that 3rd flight would come in today. usually they fly every other day, but i guess we’re expecting bad weather tomorrow and friday they pushed our cargo flight up a day. we didn’t have anyone come in today but we had people going out. so all those people (shane and larisa from our department were two of them) found out around noon yesterday that they had to finish packing and cleaning their rooms a day early. i don’t think anyone will complain about an extra day in christchurch though.
first thing in the morning, at breakfast time, mandi fell in the dishroom and whacked her face and chest. me, being the every helpful first aid responder, yelled “help”, and glenn (the doc) and sandy (our nurse/DA) came running in. safety ryan was there as well, so we couldn’t be hiding this one. mandi was okay, i told her that i yelled “help” because if she had looked up to me and there was blood on her face, i wouldn’t have been able to help her.
i was taking the garbage out yesterday, and out of habit looked both ways before crossing the road to the plastics triwall. in the sky, perfectly in my line of sight, was the c-17 flying in. it was unreal. for months i haven’t seen ANYTHING moving in the sky other than satellites or shooting stars. i was standing in the middle of the road, determined not to lose sight of the plane. nickle pickle came outside and was giving me a hard time about standing in the road with no coat on, but all i could say was “there’s a plane in the air”, and he ran over to me to see it as well. he’s been here a year now, and he won’t leave until november i think.
yesterday at my 1:15 break i sat with brad and cora in the galley. we could see the new people from 2nd flight coming into 155 again, and it was like watching a train wreck. we were totally drawn to it and couldn’t look away. before we knew it we were blocked into the far side of the galley because everyone was in there for their arrival brief. after some careful deliberation we decided to just walk out in front of everyone. so we did.
after that we headed to cora’s work since she had to get back. brad had the day off, and i was still on break and not wanting to face all the new people again, so we walked cora back to work. well, a little over a week ago, cora took a nasty spill on the ice right next to the jsoc building on her way to work. there is a stair cut out of the snow, and to me, yesterday, it looked like i could negotiate it. boy was i wrong. both of my feet went right out from under me, like a comedy sketch, and the next thing i knew i was sitting on the ground laughing hysterically. it hurt so freaking badly, but i had to laugh so that i didn’t cry. i ended up going to medical, after hunting down the doc in 155 and then talking to angie and sally. angie walked me over to medical to make sure i didn’t bite the dust again. i was deemed fit enough to go home and rest for the rest of the day and to take it easy today (my day off, luckily).
while i was in medical, mandi came in because she was having a hard time catching her breath after her fall that morning. it must have been quite a site, 2 DAs in uniform sitting on the couch in medical, just 2 days after sally gets in. ay yi yi.
i went home, took a shower, and then went over to cora’s. i napped after taking some muscle relaxers and then asked brad to bring me dinner back, since i didn’t want to walk over to the galley. he called me from the galley to tell me that i was lucky to have not gone over there. it was insane with all the new people and he would be heading right back. he was going to get some chips from the store as well, but the line was wrapped around the store, so he just came back home. a wise choice, i believe. we watched the village, i had forgotten how angry that movie makes me.
i was feeling pretty okay, so brad and i went to play scrabble with scott and vanessa at the coffeehouse. that place was packed! it was craziness. troy was bartending, i hope he had a good night of tips! brad won scrabs, and it was a fun time. vanessa is celebrating her birthday week, so she’s the princess. i love it!
after coffeehouse, brad poked his head into southern. as soon as i heard everyone in there i turned around and headed home. i knew brad would catch up to me, since i was walking slow due to my back killing me. i was due for another round of painkillers, and i wanted to lay down.
cora let me spend the night in there with them, so that was nice. she had to get up for work at 5:30, but i went right back to sleep after she climbed over me to get out of bed for work. i slept until brad went to work, then i turned on the tv to watch waiting. i dozed while i watched that, then headed back to medical to check in. things were looking good, so i’m on the mend. yay!
sent out 2 suitcase and 4 boxes today. my room looks manageable now. i think i can fit everything i need into a backpack. in fact, that’s what i’m going to test out right now.
2 more days of work, then i fly on saturday. i’m freaking out.