Grind

Thursday signals the end of my second week on the job in the Maintenance Department of the distinguished Fife school district. We work a stellar schedule of 4x10's Monday through Thursday giving us three day weekends every week. This is a plus, but also requires my alarm to go off at 4am. This is not a plus. I will survive. I am suriving. :)

The guys I work with are awesome, hilarious. Middle age to old with some of the dryest humor in the maintenace biz. There's Song, the Korean who has worked here for over 20 years but still speaks thickly broken English, and a guy who I only know by the name of Ornery. Which I know is a joke, but I don't know his real name yet because that's all anyone calls him. He has a purple spot on the end of his nose and smokes Bronco cigarettes. I've never heard of that brand before, but he smokes two during morning break while relating how he knew a guy in highschool who would spit the metal bridge out of his mouth into fellow student's drinks to claim them for himself. We play cribbage between mouthfuls of PB&J or spaghetti during lunch and ride in trucks without wearing our seatbelts. O yes, we're dangerous - on the edge of madness with a scraper blade in one hand and a fire-proof filing cabinet in the other - don't mess with us.

So far, my job has consisted of running a wire brush and scraper over the exterior of the Junior High building, followed by two days of painting. On hot, sunny days like today, the shower of paint chips flying off the old wooden boards sticks to my arms, gets in my hair, eyes, mouth, and down the back of my shirt. Nasty work. Painting is much better, though the fumes can bring out the craziness in anyone. Now, I've been trying to eat better to get in muy bueno shape so I find myself craving junk food all the time. I was stirring the paint in my pan with my finger this afternoon and found it surprisingly cool on the warm day. For some reason, this reminded me of chocolate pudding. The next thing I know, my finger is two inches from my face with every intention of getting closer. That, friends, would have been some sick chocolate pudding. Later, as I scraped a pillar ten feet in the air, I felt my hand hitting something over and over as my arm arm went back and forth across the wood. I looked down to see my hand bleeding as I repeatedly slammed it into the blade of another scraper I'd stuck in the wood earlier. Someone stop me.

Cheerio, all.

Games

It’s a backyard game atmosphere, and that is fine with him. Because he doesn’t belong here – so it is just as well that the other players are as likely to laugh as to cuss, to be drinking beer as Gatorade.

It was hot out, sticky, and the roof of his mouth clung to his tongue between gasps for air. Occasionally, a stray elbow or knee found its way to his gut making him wince with pain as air left him in a thin wheeze.

Sweat dripped from his fingertips, ran down his forehead into his muddy brown eyes, and matted his back – turning the grey Puma t-shirt into a dark, second-skin. Flecks of blood oozed from knuckles and a purple mound appeared on the left corner of his lip.

The game moved in a haze, blurred snapshots passing quickly in his vision. Every sound was slurred and seemed to last for eternity, lagging behind the images it accompanied. Every millisecond slowed and demanded it be noticed and recognized.

Now and then, his eyes went black and the sounds disappeared. Only the crunch of cartilage as a fist met with his face or chest. When his sight returned, it was a little dimmer then before, but that was alright. A nod in the offender’s direction – almost in thanks.

Then he drew the back of his hand across his face, wiping clotted blood and saliva, mucus and tears. Turning from the others, he spat a chip from a tooth into a group of clover, and shuddered.

He didn’t belong here, but at least they let him stay.

Battle Animalia

This is one of my fishes. Inside his little heart he is actually a piranha the size of a blue whale. He will eat Steve's gorilla. So there.

I can barely keep my eyelids aloft as I sit on my bed. But I wanted to write, and am disappointed that all I can summon forth is a couple of sentences. Tomorrow...

Bonney Lake is wilting in the face of the ruthless advance of progress. :(

Discovered!

The secret to a long and happy marriage: "a glass of whiskey, a glass of sherry, and the word 'sorry'."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8047095/?GT1=6657