Really?

So this morning I was awakened at 8:00 by the sound of male voices and a vacuum cleaner in my hallway. Very not cool. One of the voices was Dan Boyle, who should know better than to break intervis. For those of you who haven't heard, he's also the one who informed me exactly one week ago that I would have to move out by next Friday so that they can wax the floor in my room before the next person moves in. It will be an interesting feat, since I'm scheduled to work at the park through the 17, next Sunday (don't worry, Audrey said I could crash at her place for a few days, so I've got a place to go). Needless to say, I'm a bit aggravated right now with residence life in general and Dan Boyle in particular. Even though I fell back asleep for another half hour, what I had heard morphed the dream I was having and made it a dream about living in a co-ed dorm hallway (which will be a reality in a matter of weeks). It was very odd...

In other news, my park hired a new night person, so I'm not working by myself anymore. This means I won't get overtime next week after all, but I think I'll be able to handle it. The interesting part is that Brent gets bored easily, so I had to keep thinking of things to tell him to do last night to keep him busy. I find it funny that the city keeps hiring people who aren't prepared for the relaxed nature of our job. Sure, we work hard when we have to, but most of the time it isn't really necessary. Although, last night I assigned myself an unusual project that was very enjoyable, partly because I got to use power tools. The stall door in the upper womens' restroom has been having trouble with its latch all summer. It's a hook and loop arrangement, and the hook part kept falling out of the door. I assume this is because the girls are in too much of a hurry to get out of the stall to unlatch it properly and just push on the door. Whenever I found the hook on the floor, I would screw the end back into the hole in the door, and it would hold for a few days before I had to replace it again. But about a week ago, the hook fell out and disappeared. Last night I decided to do something about it. The first task was to find a new hook. This was actually the easiest part of the project, since I found a shiny silver one in a box of random metal bits after only a few minutes of searching. My first thought was to just insert it in the old hole and continue with my pattern of replacing it every few days, but that didn't seem good enough. So then I had to find a drill so I could make a new hole. In our shop we have three different drills and about seven different battery packs, and two battery chargers. And no charger fits a battery that actually fits one of the drills. Go figure. Finally a found a drill that had a battery pack with charge. But there were no drill bits in sight. I looked in the bin where the hook had been, but could only find one that was too big. Eventually I found our collection of drill bits (half a dozen in all, and most of them too big to ever be useful) in a coffee cup pushed out of sight behind a tool box on the work table. Once I had all the pieces, the hook replacement was a simple enough procedure. Even so, I'm proud of my work. I took the initiative to complete a project that no one thought to assign, and I did it in spite of a work space that was "organized" by someone who clearly never used the tools or gave any serious thought to where things should logically be stored. It was my moment of triumph.

And as long as we're talking about moments of triumph, I beat Sherwin at mini golf on Wednesday. Twice. And I got a sunburn in the process but, as it has already mostly faded, it was well worth it.

I'm also finally getting used to how empty this dorm room feels without Dianna in it. We knew we would have to separate eventually, and I'm glad things are working out for her in Texas, but I miss her constant presence and ever-ready laughter. But soon I'll be gone too, and then the room will welcome new guests, and only the chips in the walls will show we were even here. Dang, that ended up more emo than I had intended. Sorry about that. Moving on is good! We're going places and learning new things and connecting with the world in new ways and becoming the people we were meant to be. The grieving for the end of this stage is brief and will soon be overshadowed by the thrill of new adventure. Besides, we still have facebook.

-Kim