Ok, so I worked an extra day this week to make up for that horrible day in which I was sick. Whenever they ask if you want to work some overtime, that means that you’ll be doing something which isn’t your regular job and you really have no idea what it entails until you get to work and report to the supervisor. I got to work and the first thing my supervisor said was “so are you ready to get dirty?” I’ll admit that I was a bit excited to see what they had in mind for me to do that day. Unfortunately my job for the next 12 hours consisted of cleaning an area of the plant which hadn’t seen the light of a broom or dust pan until about 1985, and normally I really enjoy cleaning but this kind of cleaning had a whole new dimension. When she first showed me the area I was to clean I thought to myself “they want me to clean this tiny area in 12 hours? I can do this easily in 5”…yeah right. This part of the plant was covered in this extremely fine zinc dust which I compare to the kind of dust that you see on TV when they show the ashes of a cremated person blowing in the wind. It’s the kind of dust that seems to disappear the second that a breeze hits it. I am a bit of an anal retentive crazy person when it comes to cleaning (sometimes…) so cleaning up this stuff gave me a bit of a complex. As soon as you sweep it off of one area it settles in another area, so then you sweep it off of that area and it gets into the air and settles back onto that area you just swept off. There were times in which I had to remove dust from an area 6 or 7 times before I felt it was passable for me to move on from that spot. There was a point that day in which I was certain I would need therapy to get over the trauma that zinc dust caused me.
Fortunately the next 4 days went by without any complications or stories of dismantling forklifts. Quite quiet and uneventful which is good for that place.
My first day off, Chris and I headed to the lake to spend the night at my parent’s trailer. They have a place out at Woodbury which is about 5 minutes past Ainsworth Hot Springs. I’ve been waiting for them to head out there on my dad’s days off so that they can show me how to work the trailer in lieu of the event of the two of us spending some time out there alone someday. We arrived around 5pm and got to work on setting up a tent for us to sleep in. About 10 minutes after its completion we realized that the weather might not work in our favour that night but decided to wait and see how it turned out. After dinner we came to the conclusion that the 40km/hr winds that were quickly coming from the north would not be the easiest to sleep in, so we crashed on the supremely uncomfortable hide-a-bed in the trailer. I won’t be making that mistake again. The next morning proved to be a bit more accommodating to our plans for the short trip to the lake. After breakfast, dad and Chris headed out in the boat to do some fishing (I won’t leave you on pins and needles…they didn’t catch anything). While they were gone I went for a little hike up the mountain to enjoy the lovely weather and coolness that the trails generate. When I returned I decided to just go for it and jump in the lake. In case you are not familiar with Kootenay Lake, it’s a glacier fed lake that is just slightly above “omi-effing-God this lake is effing freezing!” temperatures. I was sweaty and warm and decided it was now or never. It turned out not to be all that bad. Plus my mom and uncle were there to witness my misery to I had to go in or else I would have looked like a wimp.
After the quick dip, dad and Chris still weren’t back so mom and I decided to drive to Kaslo to see what it had to offer. She wanted to pick up a few odds and ends for supper and I just love Kaslo so it was easy to drag me along for the 20 minute drive out there. Kaslo is this tiny little town in which the main street is about 4 blocks long and consists of amazing little organic restuarants and mom 'n pop shops which make lovely locally made crafts and gifts. I always fall in love with the area all over again whenever I go there. Plus, in my opinion, the area has the best mountains in all of the Kootenays. Dare I say even in all of BC? Perhaps. Anyway, I ended up buying some amazing hemp body lotion which is locally made and left me smelling my hands every 2 minutes, plus some infamous Kalso Sourdough Bakery bread. Yummmm.When we got back to the campground the boys had returned so Chris and I took the kayaks out onto the lake for a while. We paddled around for an hour or so and admired the amazingly huge houses that people have out on the cliffs. If I wasn’t such a klutz I would have brought a camera along to prove the obsceneness of these houses that people build. But I can just picture myself hopelessly watching the camera quickly sink into the dark lake water as Chris points and laughs at my stupidness. Luckily I got to laugh at him while he nearly flooded his kayak as he attempted to paddle up a very fast moving creek. I was going to warn him but boys will be boys and I know that me telling him to not do something would just end with him calling me a paranoid woman. I know my role. Sit back and watch them stumble along while I clean up the broken pieces and tell them they’re still a man even though they failed miserably. Did I say that outloud?
Today was an odds and ends kind of day. Amy called and asked me to baby-sit Cadance while she did some errands around town which didn’t include packing around a 2 year old. Cadance and I ended up having this hilarious water fight which involved me laughing so hard that my stomach was aching. I don’t think I realized just how playful that little girl was until today. She’s hilarious. Chris showed up a while later so we decided to walk Cadance down to Gyro park so that she could play at the playground and enjoy the water for a while. It’s so hot out so a nice cool off in the Columbia was definitely called for.
All in all, my days off so far have been pretty great. Only one day left before I head back to work. Booooo. Luckily after I finish those 4 days at work we are heading to Vancouver for a couple days to see some friends and go to a concert. TOOL!!! I’ll admit that I might actually be more excited to see Doug and Dustin than I am to see Tool. I think someone should check my temperature because I might be sick.
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