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

Tales form Tuthill

There's never a dull day in the park. No, I take that back. There have been a few dull days, but those were rainy days. Those days don't count, because a park isn't really a park without people in it.

Anyway, tonight there was more craziness than usual, and all in the last hour. I had been running a sprinkler on some new grass seed for most of the evening and was on my way to turn off the valve by the bathroom when I walked through a group of six guys arguing about somebody's girlfriend and what another of them had done, knowing full well that she had a boyfriend. It was tense, and at least one of them was ready to bring it to blows right there. I was very much relieved when one side of the fight got in their cars and left without incident. That left me rather freaked, so I was very glad that Audrey came with me to lock up, especially when we got to Yankton and discovered that one of the restrooms had apparently lost power, since all the lights were off, inside and out, even with the switches on. Had I been alone, I don't know how I would have handled checking the dark bathrooms to make sure they were empty. So, when we got back to Tut I had to call the night supervisor to check out and report the power outage. Unfortunately, he wasn't answering his cell phone. The usual guy has Mondays off, so I gave the fill-in the benefit of the doubt, but he never answered. In the end, I called my boss at home and he told me to try one more time and then just leave, promising that he would explain to his superiors tomorrow why I never checked out properly and wrote down a half hour of over time. (I'm already getting over time this week, so I'm not sure why that part matters...) Leaving the shop later than usual, in a night that was darker than I usually experience, it was such a blessing to have the presence of a friend.

And that was just today. Yesterday a little girl fell off the playground and dislocated her elbow. The mother was absolutely hysterical, and they chose to wait for an ambulance instead of taking her in themselves. So I stood by and watched, not knowing what to do. Technically, we're not supposed to do anything if the people involved have everything under control. And we had a thief. A disc golfer had his bag stolen, along with the 20 or so discs inside. (For anyone who doesn't know, that's at least $250 worth of stuff) He even filed a police report and enlisted the park workers' help in looking to see if it had been stashed in the trees. As it turns out, the kids had hidden it in the corner of the park that they treat as a hideout, and the owner found it himself. That made my job easier.

I don't remember anything particularly exciting about Saturday. I guess that was one of those rare boring days. My only other real adventure was nearly a month ago, but since I never blogged about it, I'll tell it now.

So we've replaced all the upper disc golf tees with cement pads now to make them better. (In the process we also moved a couple of them, but that's not the point at the moment.) On the day that we poured the last two tees, me only job for the evening was to watch the cement dry and make sure no one wrote in it. Simple enough, right? Unfortunately, the two tees were pretty far apart, making it impossible to have a good view of both at the same time. I happened to look at tee 4 right when a girl was writing in the cement and saw her continue playing disc golf with her friends. they say me calling my supervisor to report it and got away, which was terribly frustrating. Luckily, most of the Tut kids just go sit at Tomar when they leave my park. So I spotted her later that night while I was locking up. This time, the cop got there in time to talk to her, and she gave up her two friends, who had also written in the cement. Ah, sweet justice.

Usually, the excitement is smaller changes of pace. Like today, for instance. Jack, who mows all the grass in the park, has decided to trim every tree in the park because they've been left for far too long. What he's done so far is a great improvement. Because he's doing that, I get to spend time hauling branches away in the gator, which is much more fun that it sounds. At least, I prefer it to weeding all night, which is the other option.

So there you have it--an almost detailed account of my experience as a park worker. For these next two weeks I'll be working every night and getting overtime pay, so I fully expect to acquire some more stories for your reading pleasure.

-Kim

The View

I promised pictures of the amazing place my grandma lives, so here it is, The View on Elk Drive.





This is the lobby.



Here's the third floor lounge where we played Scrabble every night.



And here is grandma Elsie and me in her apartment. In all, it was a good trip. Quality time spent with grandma, fun playing mini golf and swimming in the hotel pool with my parents, phone calls and texts from the boyfriend and the traveling roommate to keep me updated on life outside Minot, and time in the car to finish two 400 page books--what more could a girl ask for? Probably a better score on the mini golfing, but I did manage a hole-in-one on hole 18.



-Kim

wireless in Minot?

What do you call a dangerous sea plant that is constantly seeking your destruction?

An enemone.

I invented that word on my Scrabble rack last night and really wished I could have played it. At least is made us all giggle. I am currently spending the week with my folks in Minot, ND, visiting my grandma Elsie in her new assisted living condo. It's an amazingly nice place, and I'll probably take some pictures before we leave so you can see what I mean. We've spent our time so far looking at photos and playing Scrabble in the lounge on her floor. It's been good to see her, since I haven't been able to for quite some time.

I know I promised an update blog, but there just hasn't been time yet. what with doing laundry on Friday and having wedding duties on Friday night and all of Saturday, it just didn't get done. But the wedding was amazing, and I'm so glad I could be a part of it. Jesse is practically family (like so many of my close friends), and to play violin at his wedding was as much a gift to my soul as to their special day.

More on all aspects of life later--we'll be heading back to the condo now to look at more pictures, eat in their amazing dining area and undoubtedly play a few more games of Scrabble. Good times.

-Kim

separation anxiety

Sorry for the long absence. Geoffrey was having battery/power cord issues, and the Mac store ended up keeping him for a week figuring out just how to deal with it. But, with a new used battery and a new power cord to go with the power jack they replaced last month, things seem to be running properly now. And as long as he makes it through the next two years, I'll be happy. After grad school, when my little laptop reaches his seventh birthday, he'll probably just need to be replaced, but for now things are going fine. And the guys at the Mac store were really nice about it all, trading in the bad cord they sold me even though it was past the 30 day limit. And I'm pretty sure they cleaned Geoffrey while they had him, which is nice, and they replaced the missing little rubber foot on one of the corners, so now he sits level again. So nice.

As for the rest of my life, I hope to write a general update later. For now this is all you get, but take heart, with Geoffrey back in my hands and a day off tomorrow, I'm pretty much guaranteed to write.

-Kim