Home again

 I am on the struggle bus today.  I enjoyed the heck out of USVI despite working.  I will for sure go back and vacation, Dennis would love it.  I would 100% pick it over Hawaii. The last two weeks have both gone by super fast and at a glacial pace.  We would be talking about something that happened that morning and if felt like it was a week ago.  

As said in the previous posts, Florida remains a shithole.  Despite that, I am thinking about putting in for a job in the Jacksonville District.  It is a Realty Specialist job, fully remote.  I am a little concerned that it could turn into a hybrid or worse but since it is advertised as such I am not sure how difficult that would be to convert.  I hate writing resumes but I need to get on it, the job closes soon.  

Last week turned out to be great.  They demobilized us on Saturday and told us to give the FEMA people who needed to get back to NC a chance to get flights off the island before we attempted to make plans. By that time we had to push our departure date to Monday.  That gave us Sunday to 'finish up'.  I asked if I could just not log time and go enjoy the island and was told to keep it on the DL.  Me and a coworker took a snorkel charter to St. John Honeymoon Beach and another island that sounded like Las Bambas but I couldn't be sure.  The water was a perfect 87 degrees, I could have stayed in all day.  The first stop had tons of turtles, a sting ray and a reef shark!  My mask was leaking so I had to go back to the boat to get another one and if I hadn't done that I wouldn't have seen the shark.  No one else saw it so I'm not sure they believed me, lol.  After the first stop they opened the bar and we had a couple of painkillers.  They are not my favorite but they were 'free' so I managed.  I think the nutmeg they put on the top was a little off putting to me.  The second snorkel stop had a lot more reefs and we saw another stingray and a nurse shark.  I wish they had a photographer like the charter in Maui because all I got was a crappy video from another snorkeler that is not great.  However, it did capture the nurse shark.   

I am so sad about leaving all the cats behind.  Little twin was hanging out on my patio regularly, mama cat was pretty close by too but she was a lot more skittish than Spooky and the twins.  The kitten was pretty feral but I think I could have gotten him tame if I had another week.  He started coming up to my patio door but ran off when I opened the door.  He hid under the bushes on the other side of the sidewalk so I made sure and put food out for him there.  Bob and Grey Goose were in more common areas and I know they got fed from people as they walked up to their rooms.  FYI I didn't name the last two, the golf cart driver that drove us around the property told me their names.  I am really sad about getting them used to eating at my door and just abandoning them.  I hope the next person in my room is nice to them.  

Monday was an incredibly long day.  The girl I have been working with and I were on the same flight out of STT so we rode in my Jeep to the car return/airport.  Our flight was supposed to leave at 1150 but they asked if we would move to the 1045.  We were like, sure.  So they asked us how much we weighed and weighed all of our luggage 😱 After swimming at an island that sounded like la bamba I wasn't sure that would be a great thing.  It was a tiny 9 passenger Cessna 402.  The seat next to the pilot was a passenger seat.  It was a little concerning.  When we landed I looked them up though and they have a great record. Only one crash and it only had the pilot in it.  He had to open the window to get any air and give hand signals of some kind, they started one prop and it sputtered and just kind of stopped so he had to start it again. I was like dude, what about the other one?  Eventually they got them both started and it was interesting.  The islands looked beautiful and you could see the reefs from the air.  It was a 40 minute flight as opposed to the 25 minute flight we had on the way over in a slightly larger aircraft.  It added to the experience.  Once we got to the San Juan airport we stopped and got lunch.  I was connecting through Houston, she was going out of Chicago.  We were both a little sunburned from the day before and not looking forward to a 5 hour flight.  I was stuck in the middle seat so I sprung for an upgrade and got a window seat.  I took a advil pm and slept about an hour and a half.  The layover in Houston wasn't as long so I grabbed a $20 sandwich that was really bad and I didn't end up eating, and a soda.  The day started at 9 and I ended up getting home close to midnight.  I took Tuesday off and teleworked yesterday.  

I still haven't done any grocery runs so I am scrapping by on what I have in the freezer and fast food for now.  I need to go Sunday and get stocked up.  We are still number one on the rotation if we get another disaster but FJ was supposed to be up next the last time but passed so he wouldn't miss halloween (stupid excuse if you ask me) so if it happens after 1 November he has first choice.  Something tells me he didn't enjoy his deployment as much as I enjoy mine so he might not go back.  Either way it adds a layer of the unknown for me.

Now that I am back it looks like I am going to have to suck it up and help my cousin move after all.  I don't want to but I don't want her to have to drive back and forth to SD in a moving truck by herself either.  I would really like it if I could just pay to have her moved but that is $4K I just don't have to throw away.  My old body is going to be screaming for a break by the time the holiday comes around and my 2 weeks off I have planned to burn up my use or lose.  

Last night Dennis went to a meeting at the fire station and called me in a panic.  He didn't get much out because I heard a tiny little mew in the background.  I just asked him where he was and told him to hold on I had to get dressed cause I had just gotten out of the shower.  It was after 8 pm so our options were limited.  It was such a tiny baby!  Dennis said he almost ran over it.  I wrapped it up in a shirt and he went to look for mama cat or other kittens but didn't find anything.  The poor baby was starving and tried to nurse on the towel, my ear, my lip, my shirt, you name it.  I obviously didn't have anything to feed her so I suggested we take her to my friends urgent care that stays open until 10.  If nothing else they would have someway to help us feed her.  We got her in and she was scream mewing at this point.  A young couple came out of a room because they knew it was a tiny kitten.  They almost ripped that little thing out of my hands and asked if they could take it. The clinic staff said they were good pet owners so we handed her over to them.  We tried to get her to eat something but she wasn't interested until they gave her some left over mac and cheese so her name is Roni.  My friend wasn't working but the one that was said she would hook them up with what they needed to get her fed. She was just the cutest little thing, all velcro claws and tiny teeth.  I just hope she was the only baby and we don't find more when it's too late. 

OK.  I need to get my travel voucher done so I can get my card paid.  

Bigger and better

Well, Florida remains one of the worst states I have ever had the misfortune of visiting.  I had a decent time when I went for a meeting and added a day to go to epcot but that was the week before my dad died so I don’t count that.  New Jersey beats it as the top (or bottom) contender. Just a real armpit of a state.

 

Milton was a big bust as far as emergency management goes.  Good for them, sucks for us.  I got there Wednesday and we were demobilized Sunday and flew home.  While we were getting on the plane we got a message from our green suiter not to unpack because it looked like we might be turning right back around.  Sure enough Monday we got the call that we needed to book flights to the Virgin Islands asap.  I was on a plan at 7 the next morning.  So far I love it here.  I am having a little anxiety driving on the left side of the road, a lot of anxiety when it’s dark.  The roads are narrow and steep and the on-coming led headlights make it terrible to see.  I had a little bit of a melt down yesterday when I was blinded by lights as I was going down the mountain.  I know muscle memory is going to have me swerve right into traffic.  Not that going to the ‘shoulder’ is much of a better option as it is just the side of the mountain.  We made it safely, but my heart was in my throat. 

 

Back to the Florida mess.  We flew into Pensacola, our staging area was in a town, aptly named Milton, and we stayed in Destin.  The drive to the airfield took an hour so we had to leave at 0600 and didn’t get back until 8:30pm and it made the day excruciating.  Not to mention we were staged at the generator storage yard so there was only a mobile command trailer and nowhere to wait except in fold out chairs or cars.  We just sat around and went over procedures waiting for the storm to come.  The hotel was a terrible budget Hilton with a 4 inch foam pad as a mattress made for families so it was LOUD.  As you walked in the door to my roo there were bunk beds where the entry should be.  I couldn’t get the tv to turn off on the main bed and was too tired to fuck with it, so I just slept on the bunk bed.  Tuesday afternoon they told us we were going to convoy to Orlando and stage in the Disneyworld parking lot.  However, the amount of money they wanted was astronomical so they wanted to make sure we were needed.  Milton hit the next day and we were in a holding pattern to see what the need was.    We just sat around waiting for the dipshit governor to see if they would request help.  One thing I can say about FL, it is pretty self sufficient when it comes to emergency services.  We got word Friday night we were demobing asap and to start booking flights.  Me and another coworker got flights at 6:40 the next morning.  We would have to leave the hotel by 3:30 but I was ready to get the fuq out of there.  I was home before noon.   Dennis and I stopped for lunch and I went home and cuddled with my baby Olive and Bai.  I didn’t even take my suitcase out of the car. 

 

We got the word about going back out but no word on where so I just kind of chilled.  I did absolutely nothing on Sunday.  It was everything I remembered, lol.  Monday was a holiday so I decided to get a pedicure and massage because my feet and shins were tore up from walking around in steel toed boots all week.  It was amazing.  I had planned on taking Tuesday morning off but we got a text to call in on Monday evening to a call.  We got the word to mobilize asap to St. Thomas!  I got out on a flight at 7 am on Tuesday and landed at 1900.  We are staying at Margaritaville resort, and I have a margarita machine, an ice machine, small kitchen, and a washer and dryer in my room.  I am going to say this is my favorite deployment ever.  It is gorgeous here and much more affordable than Maui.  It is also so stupid hot!  It has rained everyday for about 10 minutes and turns into a sauna.  The water is also warm, unlike Maui. 

 

The storm was supposed to come in today, but the sun is shining, and the humidity is 175%.  I have come to the conclusion that this is an exercise to test out a new team concept.  We are the first of a team that is very scaled down and I think they want to test it out before they have a real life situation.  The storm never developed into a tropical depression, let alone a tropical storm/hurricane.  That’s the theory I am going with anyway.  My duties shifted a little here, I am doing reports at the joint office with fema and other emergency support personnel and they are a little confused as well.  The FEMA guys that are local are not happy with all of us being here in the least.  There are 9 generators on the island to support critical infrastructure and the contractor did a dry run for the hospital.  The generator storage base (GSB) is co occupied by the airport and FEMA guys keep saying we are going to ruin the relationship with the airport by asking them to vacate their portion.  They also couldn’t find the keys for one of the big boy gens and they told the contractor to cut the lock.  They were like nah, you can come out and do that.  They weren’t happy about that either.  It is definitely a vibe.  Island life.

 

We are just kind of sitting around waiting for them to send us home.  I don’t want to go home yet but even if they send us home, I will stay another day.  Flights are scarce so we might be here anyway (fingers crossed).  Tonight, me and the Cpt are going to eat at Margaritaville at the hotel and hang out at the swim up bar. 

 

I have made a few friends at the hotel.  I named the black cat spooky.  We had a little margarita party in my room the other night and invited him in to join but he noped out.  Most of the cats are very friendly except for a mama cat and her kitten.  I want to take them all home with me.  At least they are tipped so looks like they have a community cat program.

 

So we wait for them to tell us what to do.  It could be so much worse.  At least I am in a relatively a/c’ed office and not at the GSB this time!

Here we blow again

 Well, plans have changed thanks to impending hurricane Milton.  I got a call about 3:30 asking me if I would be ready to fly out tomorrow.  It is technically my co-workers 'turn' to go, however, they put me on the power team, which is the response team that goes out in advance of the storm in a safe location but close enough that we can head out to the hard hit areas as soon as the storm is over.  We will be coordinating and looking after the power mission, as the name implies.  Co-worker isn't on the team so I'm not sure he would have been asked anyway.  However, he told me Friday that he can't go because he can't miss his daughters last halloween at home.  That is the stupidest thing I have every heard.  I was prepared to be deployed for Christmas last year. Plus, since we are going out in advance, we could very well be heading back by the weekend.  The last few years he won't go anywhere if he has to fly.  He is a very large guy, maybe large enough hat he would have to buy 2 seats.  The government won't do that and he is too cheap.  My gain, so I'm cool with it.  We had a call at 5:30 and we won't be leaving until Tuesday.  After 2 hours on the phone with the coordination calls and travel agent I am all booked to leave at 6 am Tuesday to be in Pensacola before 11, hopefully before the storm backs everything up.  I am supposed to have a 4 wheel drive rented.  Fingers crossed they don't jack that up.  

That being said the plan for moving Heather back had to change.  My cousin that was going to help won't drive by herself.  I don't understand why, but I guess I am just used to it.  So, Heather is flying to Tulsa, renting the truck and driving to SD to load her stuff and back to Tulsa.  Probably would have been the best plan anyway, less intrusive on everyone.  I hope she finds someone to drive with her.  It wouldn't bother me to drive alone, I would almost prefer it since awkward conversation with someone for 20 + hours isn't on my top ten list.  I would much rather listen to podcasts and playlists.  I kind of like spending time alone.  I cancelled my flight back from SD for credit so I have some money for my next trip and maybe I will get lucky and get some major hotel points and get a cheap broadway trip next year.  

My friend Linda is going to be in town from Dallas tomorrow.  She is the one that had the big issue with her MIL getting robbed blind by the daughter, who went to jail for a short time but is now on probation and is supposed to be paying restitution, but I digress.  The house they were all living in was uninhabitable so they moved MIL into a senior facility in Dallas.  They got a call that the house was vandalized so she is coming in to meet the insurance adjuster.  She hoped they will pay to just level it.  I hope I get enough done to meet her for a quick dinner tomorrow.  I have a ton to do, obviously.  

I got a lot of running around done the last 2 days.  I went and took my mom to lunch.  We went to a new place in Sapulpa, the town she lives in, Il Gusto.  It's Italian and I didn't have high hopes for small town eyetalian IYKYK.  But, I was really surprised!  

Chicken Cremora

I was pleasantly surprised with the quality.  It was made fresh and way better than most chain places.  My mom asked me how I found out about it and I told her that I am on a food review group.  Before I left she had already added herself to it so I can no longer post anything on it.  I had posted asking if anyone knew where you could get a burger like the one I got in NC and my mom saw it and started asking me about it.  So if I post anything and she sees it she will call and ask a thousand questions.  She already let me know that the dish I got look horrible because of all the mushrooms.  I told her that I didn't know I liked vegetables until I was in my 20's because she doesn't like them and what we got was canned.  Hard pass on canned veggies but fresh broiled, grilled, sautéed, I'm all for it.  

Mom didn't want to stay out long.  I had to take a pair of Gap jeans back that I ordered online.  I ordered a 25 thinking it was a 2, but I guess a 26 is a 2.  Sized confuse me sometimes.  If a 30 is a 10, 28 an 8 , you I thought 25 would be a 4, nope, it's a 0.  None of it makes sense.  I did get them taken back and got new ones in my size ordered.  I also went to Madewell and bought a really nice pair of jeans there.  Not sure if I am going to take them to FL, as they were $$$ and I don't want them to get ruined in mud and crap.  I have cheap Old Navy and Gap jeans and some light weight cargos that will

 be plenty 

From there I went to Costco and picked up a few things I needed.  I have a bunch of bootleg broadway shows on my google drive and I need to figure out how to transfer to get them downloaded on the external hard drive I bought.  I will probably play around with it tomorrow.  I am probably going to work from home for the first part of the day and go in and get stuff from our emergency management office that needs to go out.  Surely I can get away with that.  I think I have a pretty nice collection that none of you would be the least bit interested of, but if you think of any, let me know, I might have it.  

As I was dropping stuff off at home Dennis called and said his mom feel and asked me to come help her.  Before I go too far down the road he called back and said she was up and ok.  I have asked how she was going today but I bet she is sore.  

Today I got up and went to Sam's, with I hardly ever to.  They expanded there premade food selections.  I got some grilled chicken breast and some of those pinwheel sandwiches.  I hate that we are flying,  I like to take an ice chest It would be nice to take those pinwheel's with to snack on.  Who knows what the food condition is going to be.  

Well this will be short.  I'm getting laundry so  I can get packing.

Spooky season

Today didn't start out well.  I woke up and knew I had to get gas on my way to the office but I hit the snooze anyway.  In my mind I was thinking I would just telework but I realized it is Tuesday and there is a high likelihood that AP will telework today.  So after I stopped for gas I was 15 minutes late.  Turns out I made the right decision because AP did in fact telework.  I unloaded my laptop, plugged it into the docking station and realized I had taken the USB thing out for the keyboard/mouse.  There is one other person in the branch today so I told her what was going on and if I couldn't find an old corded keyboard and mouse I was going back home to work.  As luck would have it there was a spare keyboard and a mouse in the deep corner of the file room.  So I am on a shitty keyboard and a mouse with serious lag but I'm still here for now.  What a great start to the day.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

I was able to get some time with my nail tech friend and get my official haloween nails done, so it is officially spooky season!  She has me scheduled for my next appointment already because she has an idea for another design she wants to try.  It's win/win for me.  Cute (relatively) inexpensive nails and a few hours of gossip and trash tv.  Plus, when she does my nails from her house I get to see her big Bear dog and give him some love.  The salon she works at does 60/40 commission so as much as I hate her doing my nails on her day off, I like to see her get the full amount instead of 40%.  How insane is that?!

Yesterday was a WFH day and Dennis called me just a little after 7.  He took Bai for a walk and they saw a kitty friend that belongs to a neighbor and he wanted me to run some treats over.  I grabbed a bag and drove around the corner.  As we were talking to Ms. Cally, a black and white puppy comes running out from behind the garbage can.  She looks to be under a year old.  Once she arrived the cat ceased to exist for me.  I fed her the entire bag of cat treats.  The owner of the house and cat came out to take out his trash and the little baby rushed at him and nipped him.  This tells me she has been out there for a little bit and feels the need to resource guard.  I really wanted to take her home but I didn't.  Dennis said something later about it and I told him that if I let him drag every cat in the hood home he can't say a word about me wanting to take care of a stray puppy.  I saw her posted on the neighborhood facebook asking if anyone knew who she belonged to.  Someone said it might be his neighbors so I am waiting to see if she is claimed  I might have already named her (Dahlia, Dally for short because Outsiders) but I really hope she does have or find a better home because I would love to be able to travel with Dennis one of these days.  He told me he would take treats and look for her on this morning's walk.

I had a therapy appointment yesterday and she commented that I seem to be in a much better space.  I told her that things are pretty calm, relatively speaking and that there were a few tense situations at home in which Dennis stayed calm and rational.  He realized that I was getting really anxious in anticipation of his energy and he told me that he was fine.  In one instance he lost something and that normally means the world comes to a stop while he tears through things.  He told me that I should go to QT or Sonic and get a soda or fill up my Owala with good ice and he would find it.  He later said that he knew I thought he was going to get irrationally (my words not his) angry but he was fine and that the medication the doctor put him on seemed to really be working.  I have noticed that he doesn't obsess over his family issues lately so all good signs.  Therapist asked if he ever apologized for his outburst when I was sick and I said no.  She asked if I felt like things were normal and I said no, it is going to take a long time for me to fully trust that he isn't going to twist off for no reason again.  She said she was kind of glad to hear that.

We also talked about my cousin Heather and the move.  I told her that will probably be the next fight Dennis and I have because he thinks we baby her and she is in her 30's.  Well, she is practically my little sister so yeah, she's spoiled.  He also wants to know what she is going to do for a job when she gets here because being a photographer isn't really a job you can make a living at.  I told him, and my therapist that right now I don't care and that I am going about it from a selfish perspective because she will be able and willing to help out with my mom.  Therapist said that is absolutely understandable.  Dennis said she is taking advantage of me and my mom.  Well, I have more positives than negatives in the pro con list so I am all for it.  I was miffed that she hadn't called me or told me any solid plans and I didn't even have dates to tell work about.  Heather said she can't talk at home because she is afraid her mom is listening in on everything.  I was like, take a fucking walk, do something to help me out a bit!  At any rate, we will see if fireworks are emanant and the talk with therapist helped me to see that I am not completely selfish for wanting her to move back.

After talking to therapist I sent Heather a message and told her that I needed to talk to her, not FB message and come up with some solid plans.  She called me and we talked for about 15 minutes and I got more information than I had gotten in the month or so we have been talking about it.  The other family member who is going to help move has already asked of work for the week of 21 October (first I heard of this).  They were wanting me to take a rented truck and pull a trailer to get all of her stuff.  I was like first of all you should have told me the details a lot earlier, second not only no but hell no.  I am not pulling a trailer all the way to SD up and down the mountains and through the insane traffic.  She has a storage building in Vegas, where she used to live and she wanted us to go get the stuff from there as well.  I told her it doesn't make sense to take stuff from storage in one place and move into storage into another.  Why doesn't she wait until she has a place of her own to put the stuff.  She complained that it was costing her $250 a month in storage.  I wanted to throttle her because she has no money, living with her mom in a one bedroom apartment with no car and instead of selling the stuff and buying new when she needed it she has been paying the fees.  I get that she paid $7K for her bedroom furniture but come on. Plus, she is going to have to pay that in storage fees here too.  I don't get it.

Not only have I fell off the diet wagon, I dragged it into the woods set fire to it and used the insurance money to buy cupcakes.  For some reason I have been really craving chocolate lately, just plain milk chocolate hershey bar type.  As luck would have it, with Halloween it is really easy to just fall into that trap.  I bought a jumbo bag last week and it is gone.  I had serious withdrawals yesterday but I refused to buy more.  This morning, since I had to get gas I ran in to get a drink and sure enough there they were on the counter 2/$3 calling my name.  I have decided that if I am going to fall into the trap I am going to buy a package of full sized bars and get one a day instead of the snack size where I just tear through them with reckless abandon.  Dennis ate some of them but it was mostly me.  At least I have really cut back on soda since I found an emotional support water bottle.  Funny how finding a bottle you really like makes such a difference.  I am going to stop, I have to if I don't want to buy a completely new wardrobe.  As if that wasn't bad enough I have had a serious spending surge.  It was to the point that I was like fuck it, I might as well die poor.  I bought a cheap laptop since my work computer is so locked down.  I can use my ipad but the storage on it is crap and it isn't easy to use an external drive on.  Plus if I have to fill out forms ie taxes and stuff, I want an actual laptop, not just the tablet.  I have 1TB cloud storage as a part of the deal and when the black friday deals hit I will find an external hard drive to store stuff on and use that as the memory instead of the internal storage because it doesn't have much either.  I like my ipad and my iphone but when it comes to computers, I am not a mac person.  It's like learning a whole new language.  I think some stores are starting to cut some prices to make way for Christmas stuff too because I came across some major deals over the weekend.  I spent way too much but I told myself I was putting the stuff up for Christmas presents.  We will see if it lasts that long before I use it or give it to someone because I am horrible at holding on to stuff.  I can't shop early.  I also came across the cutest retro 60's style dress at a sample sell for a great price.  So, what did I do?  I bought a pair of Fluevogs to go with it 🙈 Not like I am going to have to take a pretty last minute trip to San Diego or anything. 

OK, I gotta get back at it.  ✌