8/30/2010 Mr. Smokin' Hot or How I Came to Scrub Soot at the Olympia City Hall With Brenny

So August 13th, the morning of our formal reunion,
Brenny calls me and asks me if I want to work
with her for forty dollars an hour.
I told her I did then told her I didn't.
My anxiety about my reunion was at 100%
since it seems like most of our classmates went right to
college and have had cool careers for thirty years
which made me feel like the biggest loser in the world.
So, I left it at no and enjoyed the reunion and woke up
the next morning broke and wanting to work.
I called Brenny and picked her up and we went to a
drug testing clinic at Northgate, where we sat for three hours
waiting for a drop in drug test that ending up taking one minute.
Funny 'cause Bren flunked anyway 'cause she drank too much water.
So Monday, August 16th, I woke up at four AM and was out on the highway
to carpool with Bren and her Nephew Eric and his brother-in-law Robert.
Eric had one of those fancy-pants Chevy SUVs that was like
a Cadillac on steroids AND it had a built in TV!
How stupid is a car manufacturer to build that on a dashboard?!
We got out to Superior Cleaning in Woodinville and jumped in
the crew van at five AM. We made a stop for more crew at Southcenter.
Now I'll tell you what Mr. Blog,
I have worked real jobs since I was sixteen in 1973
and I have NEVER worked with such honest, funny, hardworking
people as I did cleaning the soot off the new city hall down
in Olympia. A stupid kid, on probation, started the fire
where the police department will eventually go.
The fire fighters put out the fire but the smoked did
three million dollars worth of damage to the unfinished building.
So we arrive at the building and are given our PPE stuff.
That is construction lingo for personal protective equipment.
Well Mr. Blog, the last time I had to wear a hard hat
was in 1978 when I was digging ditches for the street maintenence
crew for the City of Seattle Engineering Department!
It was darn annoying on my head all day long!
I brought saftey glasses from home but when Eric saw them
he started laughing his head off on the way to Woodinville
and said, "Where the heck did you get those, from a NASA store?!"
I discreetly shoved them in the bottom of my backpack.
So we got our hardhats, safety glasses, reflective vests and rubber gloves,
earplugs and dust masks and we started working.
There was no meeting that morning so Brenny
and I just followed the other workers.
We were like a trail of ants inside this enormous building!
The rest of the crew had been there for weeks and cleaned the
second, third, fourth and fifth floors and we started our day
carrying all the equipment down from the first floor to the basement.
Well Mr. Blog, I had always wanted to go inside a construction site
of a huge building since I was a little girl and
my wish was granted.
But it turned out to be very scary!
There we eletrical cords on the floor everywhere that you had to
watch out for to run all the cleaning machines.
I lost Brenny in the maze in ten seconds and just followed
a guy named Chris around.
We carried all kinds of buckets and cleaning stuff
downstairs into the dark labyrinth of the basement.
I kept waiting for an alien monster to pop out of the
ceiling grid-work any minute!
My safety glasses constantly fogged up from my state of terror.
Chris and I started carrying these metal parts downstairs
and I accidentally whacked a guy turning a corner on
a landing. I felt terrible
and had to concentrate like crazy not to injure anyone!
Once we had everything downstairs I found out what the
big metal things were.
Scaffolds!
Ugh!
When I turned fifty and quit having bravery hormones,
I got not only afraid of heights, but also veritgo when up high.
I watched the other workers assembling the scaffolds
with a level of anxiety higher than anything
I'd had since getting ready for my high school reunion
the previous Friday.
It did not help that the board fell off one and landed
on a guys toes. Luckily he had on steel toed boots.
Brenny found me and we were handed scrubbers
and assigned a scaffold to scrub soot off the upper
walls and ceilings.
She scrambled up like a happy monkey
and I followed her up, just barely avoiding
puking on myself.
I'll tell you what Mr. Blog.
THAT WAS THE LONGEST FOUR HOURS OF MY LIFE!
Brenny is a lot younger and taller than I am
by a year and an inch
so when she started scrubbing at full strength
the floor of our scaffold was bouncing like a trampoline!
I would grab the railing to keep from falling off
but they were loosy-goosy and wiggled a half foot either way!
The sheer terror I was feeling had the disadvantageous effect
of making my safety googles steam up
so then I was blind, deaf from my ear plugs,
bouncing like a ping pong ball
BUT making forty dollars an hour!
At lunch we got to come down and I dragged myself to
the outhouses out across the road from the job site.
Brenny went to make phone calls so I wearily
followed ten crew members across the street
to the shaded sidewalk next to the auto parts store.
That was my routine for the next four days.
Drag to the wall, lean back against it and slide
down the the lovely cool concrete sidewalk and gulp as much
fresh air as I could during the half hour.
My career as a construction clean-up artist
took a turn for the better after lunch.
A Albanian gal named Margarita became our lead-person
and we were assigned a luxurious job on the ground.
Nothing was ever bad after being on the scaffold.
She was around forty and a compact gal right out of the "Alien" movie.
She had on tight black clothing with color coordinated
tool belt and tiny steel-toed boots.
She took to me and Brenny like scrambled eggs
to salt and pepper!
We were sent to a back bathroom to clean these four foot
long light fixtures.
Margarita trained us to disassemble them, clean them
and reassemble them to meet the IH standards.
IH is the industrial hygenist job that she was
certified in. When a job is done, government inspectors
check for soot and if there is one speck it has to be redone!
Isn't that interesting?!
*looks at Mr. Blog who is gently snoring on his couch*
So we did that for the rest of that day and at the end
of each day we had a debriefing in the huge room
by our foreman, whom Brenny and I hadn't met yet.
We were sitting on overturned buckets side-by-side
with our other two dozen co-workers when our foreman showed up.
Brenny threw me an elbow and whispered,
"Check him out."
I removed my steamed up safety glasses and there was Trevor.
He looked like a thirty year old Nicholas Cage and Val Kilmer
had been put in a splice machine.
Now he looked much better than soot and Brenny whispered,
"He's definetely Mr. Smokin' Hot!"
It was so hard not to laugh!
So that was what we called him all week when no one was around
and if people were around we called him, Mr."SH" for code.
It always made us laugh and smile no matter how
hot, tired, exhausted and cranky we were.
The second day of our job we got moved to two tables in the
big room to work on cleaning light fixtures and later
white cabinents and drawers.
Now I don't know how I got off the scaffolding gig,
but there were enough light fixtures and cabinenets
to kill a horse that needed cleaning.
We go into a rythym by the third day and felt fairly good
about going to work except for Thursday morning.
I had unplugged my alarm clock to plug in my laptop and was
sound asleep Thursday morning.
I was dreaming I had a cleaning crew cleaning my huge
beach house, which doesn't exsist in real life,
when Brenny came up to the yard and was calling for me.
Well! I woke up and my other clock said 4:50AM and I ran to the
phone machine and told her to wait there.
I jumped in my clothes, flung open the door
and felt the chilled air and looked down to
see I was missing my pants!
Once I got those on
I ran to the highway
and hopped in the driver's seat of my van
and drag-raced from Kenmore to Woodinville
and pulled in the parking lot
at five AM!
The crew was still waiting around for Eric to come out
and load the van to Olympia!
That was a close call and I slept most of the way down
and back everyday wearing my sleep-mask, foam ear plugs
and orange Home Depot headphones with my inflatable neck-pillow
that I used to use when I was a flight attendant commuting
from Bothell to Denver then later to Honolulu for work.
Well, that job ended a week ago Mr. Blog
and my right arm and shoulder are still tender
and if I raise my arm and lower it my joints
sound like pop corn popping.
The important thing is that when
I got paid, I handed Terry one hundred dollars
for allowance and that job saved my marriage.

8/24/2010 My Roosevelt High School 35 Year Reunion

I have not done paperwork all summer and now school starts next week
and I have ONE DAY to try to get twenty hours of work done.
Bleh. Terry took the boys camping up to Sol Duc Hot Springs
and they'll be back Thursday.
So what a great high school reunion we had last week.
It was by far the best out of all the reunions
we have ever had.
I think it is because I didn't drink any devil water
so I remember everyone that came very clearly.
I carpooled down with Molly McClean,
who is the most wonderful person in the world
as far as I can tell.
She looked so cute in her black tank top
and red sequined mini-skirt and red high heels.
I was on the planning committee this time so I got
scheduled to greet people from 7:00Pm on.
At one of the meetings last month, one of the committee
members said a person they called to invite to the reunion
said that they did not feel like the greeters were that
friendly at our thirty year reunion.
I think we let the Reunions With Class people greet last time
so we decided to add ourselves to beef up the aloha level a notch.
I was very serious about my duty greeting
even though I was starving to death.
I had had a few weeks to ponder what made me feel the
most welcomed and loved
and I decided a big hug usually got me
feeling the best.
So after the people signed in and turned around
I rushed at them and gave them a hello
and I giant hug.
I'm pretty sure I frightened a few people
that did not remember me from high school.
But most didn't seem to care if they knew me or not.
They enjoyed some love.
In this dog-eat-dog world
it is good to know you are valued.
Jeanne and Margo and John did a great job as Masters of Ceremonies
and it was a warm, gorgeous night!
The UW Faculty club was swanky without pretension
and the view of the Husky Stadium
and Portage Bay was spectacular.
When I got done greeting after an hour and a half
I was plum worn out.
I ate with Molly, Marta, Marcia, Vida and Lynn
then mingled as much as possible.
Mostly with my Latin Club pal, Marie McGarry
since she lives in California and I never see her
except at reunions.
When I was president of the geeky Latin Club
senior year, she was the vice president
and we'd drive to all the other high schools in her
dads metallic blue convertible Cadillac with fins
to visit with other Junior Classical Leagues.
We had so much fun and would laugh non-stop in 1975!
By ten, my feet had huge blisters from my
oh-so-cute black leather high heeled sandals
and I had to wrap it up and couldn't even dance. :(
Molly had to get up early to go fishing with Marty anyway
and wanted to go, so we just slipped out.
We ran into my good pals Tom and Aime and
poor Aime girl was on her lips!
Tom was sort of half-carrying her to their
car so Molly and I helped.
I had the weirdest dream that night Mr. Blog.
All one hundred and twenty five people that showed up
were sitting together on risers
only when I backed up to take a better look,
it was giant God Fingers in a terraced
position so we could all fit.
I could see us
but I could also see myself sitting near Molly and Tom and Aime
and we were all smiling and laughing
like all of us were on some mild
carnival ride
that we just couldn't get enough of.

8/21/2010 Why Women Live Longer or How Cleaning the new Olympia City Hall Made Me a Better Person

So I did NOT clean the governor's mansion but I did clean the
new Olympia City Hall building that an arsonist got a hold of
during the last phase of construction.
I don't have time to tell you the details
but I'm certain that I know why women live longer.
Getting up at four in the morning to commute two hours
and then scrubbing all day long
and using port-a-potties
and commuting back two hours made me certain
that women live longer because men
usually do the harder physical work
in this world
and just wear themselves out sooner.
Women are better at pacing themselves and finding enjoyment
in the process of working which makes work less stressful.
Of course when I told this to Brenny in our crew van
coming back from Olympia to Woodinville,
she said God takes men first to give
women a chance to hold the remote control.
What I am sure of, is that I ache from head to toe.

8/9/2010 The 16th Annual WATCH convention in Bothell Washington

I had the BEST time at the
Washington Association of Teaching Christian Homes convention!
I had met Bill Waring, one of their leaders
at the Puyallup home school convention and he
told me about their convention right next door in Bothell.
Praise God!
I almost got in a fatal car wreck driving to Puyallup on I-405
so popping over Finn Hill to Bothell was very relaxing.
The only snag was that I got back from camping late
Thursday and barely got my van unloaded and reloaded
for the convention by bedtime.
Might not have been the smartest thing I ever did to
volunteer as a early morning greeter.
I was worn out from having fun camping and slept right
through my alarm Friday morning!
Terry woke me up and I had a whopping ten minutes
to get ready.
Eight years as a flight attendant taught me to pack the
day before and lay out my clothes so I was almost
on time. Working those New York and Boston flights were
so brutal. Six AM at the lobby was two AM Seattle time!
So the nice teen, Micah, hauled my rolling duffel to
my booth and I set up lickety-split
and dashed over to the registration table.
Siri was next to me taking payments and I did all the nametags.
The home school families are so nice!
Since I substitute in the public schools I can't
say something like, "Praise God" or "Let's pray for good test scores"
without getting in trouble, but the home school families love
God and can praise him all they want.
It's awesome.
Besides seeing Bill again, I got to meet Jodi and she
was amazing. Warm, friendly, organized and she has the rare gift
of giving directions without sounding bossy!
After I finished my nametagging,
I went to the vendor hall and was so delighted
to meet my vendor neighbor Sandi.
She has a brilliant game she designed called Rummy Roots
that is similar to my Gin Latin game!
I bought one to show Terry and he was gaga over it.
She has been in business for eighteen years and you'll
never guess where she lives!
COLVILLE!
My dad was interim pastor at the Colville Congregational Church
in 1988 or so and I drove over there in my hot
red and black Camaro with my little dog Susie.
I LOVE Colville!
She was about as wonderful as a person gets Mr. Blog!
She gave me so many business tips!
Across from me, my new vendor pal, Kande Underhill
had a marvelous reading tool of flash card called
"Inside Story."
I will so buy the entire set the minute I get hired somewhere!
I wish I could have bought it to show you but I didn't have
enough money. Fabulous photos of animals with the word usage.
Every teacher 4th-6th should have BOTH "Rummy Roots" and
"Inside Story!"
Kandi was a total kick and made me laugh so hard.
She and Sandi and I had such a fun time sharing stories
of starting up our businesses. Well, they have been in
business way longer than I have and had GREAT start-up stories!
Kande gave me mountains of advice and tips and I wrote everything down.
I saw lots of vendors from Puyallup I had met down there:
The Runkles of geography, the rubber duck man,
the tall gorgeous youth literature lady. I forget her
name but she lives right in Kenmore and I had met her around town!
Oh, and the lovely Mennonite mother and daughter from Oregon.
Ugh. I forget their names but they are amazing.
I asked the mom why they wear the little caps and she told me
it was to remind them to submit to God and men.
Well, when I told Terry that he said he was going to
try to trade me for a Mennonite wife! Dirty dog.
I don't mean to be sassy.
So every family with a teen bought my game to help
them pass the driving test. About ten families.
Then another ten families with younger kids bought
the game to play like Monopoly!
They were all such delightful people
and one lady-I forgot her name, had just inherited
a ranch near Coulee City!
We just went through there on our way to Yellowstone
and she and her husband are historians and you should have
heard her story about their ranch!!!
Three generations back, her husband's great grandfather
found the location and lived in a cave
while starting the homestead
and it is still there!
I love history and geology and we had a long conversation
about the Lake Missoula and she said they
found a cave of a rhinocerous that had died thousands
of years ago and the mud perfectly captures his form!
Whadaya think of THAT Mr. Blog?!
I was so excited by that story I could barely see straight.
Right at the end of the conference, Kande told me she
sold a case of cards wholesale and pointed at the lady.
Well, I chased right after her and waited until she was
done talking to a vendor and told her I'd sell her five games
wholesale at half price.
She said she'd talk to her partner.
Well, I am optimistic so I packaged
five games and wrote up the receipt and
then packed up to go home since the convention was over.
Right when I was getting ready to go, they came
back and bought those five games.
Well, they almost bought them.
They only had a business charge card with them so
I just handed them the bag with a business card and said,
"I trust you. Just mail me a check."
They were so startled!
But isn't that the beauty of owning your own business Mr. Blog?
You get to do whatever you want,
including trusting people.

8/7/2010 Dosewallips State Park or Can Someone Please Turn Down the Crows?

I had the best time this week at Dosewallips!
I had never taken Teddy and a friend before and he picked
his friend Krystian Keu and we had a wonderful time.
I'm so used to leading boys at camp that it seems really quiet
with only two instead of twenty!
We got there Monday at lunch time and set up campsite 127
in the loop near the group campsites.
The weather was hot and sunny and heavenly!
Ever been there?
It was a farm and orchard so it is perfectly flat and around
four hundred acres so we just rode bikes all day and night!
I swear the minute I jump on my bike it is 1963 and I am seven
and feeling the freedom and excitement of speed.
The river was too high to float safely so we just jumped in the
sheltered area to get refreshed.
It was about 35 degrees! Hahaha.
We did float the tide canals along Hood Canal and we
really enjoyed seeing all the seals and bald eagles.
I like the way the seals bark like dogs.
Orcas and seals were smart not to evolve out of the water!
I wish a branch of humans had stayed in and I'd be in
that pod for sure. We'd look like orcas only with fingers
so we could play underwater instruments.
I was dog-in-the-sun lazy when we got there
and bribed the boys with slurpees to set up my tent
and that worked out really well for me.
The boys loved making giant campfires every night!
I brought a bunch of wood from home and they made s'mores
and made up silly songs.
Long after I'd climb in my tent to read
I could hear them singing and laughing for hours on end.
I met the nicest campground hosts ever too!
Cathy and I forget her husband's name.
We had a wonderful chat about their campground host career
and she had an album about their drive to Alaska and hosting there.
I was very disgruntled that they have removed all pay phones
at Brinnon. It was always something I looked forward to.
Calling my sister or Terry and the kids from a campground.
I think everyone in the world has a cell phone but me Mr. Blog!
We played UNO for hours and cooked over the fire
and had pretty much a wonderful time.
I love that campground Mr. Blog.
It has all my favorite things:
biking, hiking, water, a beach and the most beautiful huge
maple trees I think I have ever seen anywhere in my life.
But, there are crows. Not as many as in Kookmore but
every morning the flock of crows was directly over my tent cawing!
I had to shout, "Would someone please turn down the crows?!"
There was a big sign telling about how the Roosevelt Elk
crossed from Asia to the Pacific NW 100,000 years ago
and how the Olympic Park has the biggest herd in America.
Thursday morning I woke up trying to think of when I could
visit in the fall to see those elk and then I fell back asleep.
When I woke up, the man across the way asked if I saw the elk
go past my tent!
I hadn't!
I dashed over to the meadow where the group was camping the previous
day and there they were!
About three dozen huge elk and four babies!
Sure looked funny when they were all standing around
the volleyball net!
Then they all plopped down for a morning rest.
The babies were so cute lying down with their long, spindly legs
that they folded up like a lawn chair!
So now I don't have to go in the fall or winter but
if I had a job and cash for the tent fee, I sure would
because I LOVE Dosewallips!