The Whole Wide World

It’s Saturday. For most of the community, it’s the last day of work for the week. For me, it’s the start of my week. I start my Saturdays out with my weekly coffee shift, which runs from 7:30 until 9AM. What is a second bar during the summer season, is our coffee house during the winter. It’s called Southern Exposure and much like any bar there are TV’s, seating at high and low tables, a bar, darts, shuffleboard, pool table, and no windows. The station has a Quonset hut that is an actual coffee house during the summer, but many of the buildings get ‘winterized’ and the Quonset hut is one of them. It’s kind of a shame because that space is much more cozy and coffee house-esque than Southern is.

My coffee shift is pretty busy as our waste department and our supply team have Saturday morning meetings that finish up just as my shift starts and they usually stop by on the way to their respective work centers. There is a proper industrial coffee machine and volunteers take turns making different flavored simple syrups in the galley, so we get to have a little fun with the coffee shifts. Coffee is a volunteer gig, but most community members tip so it’s a nice little side hustle.

I thoroughly enjoy my shift as a barista. One of my college roomies, Clare, was a barista and after visiting her at this adorable bistro in London, I envisioned myself owning a bistro one day. I’ve kind of always wanted to have some sort of bistro or B&B. In my younger years, the dream was to own a small bistro that served fancy small plates paired with the perfect wine. Now that I am sober, the dream has shifted into a little coffee shop. I channel that energy every Saturday morning down here in Antarctica. Brewing mediocre coffee and frothing powdered milk, or when lucky, expired UHT milk.

After my coffee shift, I headed over to the gerbil gym which is back in service with no evidence of the Great Flood of Winter 2023. There isn’t enough time for a shower on Saturday mornings so I walk, rather than run, and I usually listen to a Brene Brown podcast while doing so. After a not so scenic walk on the treadmill, I get my little ab and yoga routine in and then it’s time for work. I typically work from 10:30-8:30. I start the day checking emails and drinking coffee while basking in the glow of my happy light. I have no idea if it actually affects my mood, but I don’t think it is making me any grumpier, so I’ll keep it up. 

This is when my day got interesting. During the summer season down here I met Ian and Anne. Ian was a chef in the galley and Anne was one of the stewie team leads. They met thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail the same year I thru-hiked it and are also sober. We hit it off and have kept in touch via social media-they left the ice after the summer season and started thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) a few weeks ago. I’d already looked at Instagram before I got out of bed this morning and saw that due to the unusually heavy snow on the PCT this year, they had made the hard decision to end their hike and were getting off trail. I didn’t have time to send them a message before heading to my coffee shift, but made a mental note to send one when I got to work.

So, sipping my coffee and basking in in the glow of my tropical happy light, I signed into Insta. I had a message from my friend Moon who was part of my Appalachian Trail thru-hiking family (which is called tramily in the land of thru-hiking). The message was a picture of Ian and Anne with a note that said, ‘look at who we picked up today!’ I still can’t believe it! Ian and Anne, who I met in Antarctica, were hitchhiking on the Pacific Crest Trail, and someone I met walking while walking from Georgia to Maine stopped to pick them up. How crazy is that?! I kind of lost my mind over this. BIG SMALL WORLD. I seriously love stuff like that. 

If that didn’t tickle you, don’t worry, the day got even more interesting. I know. The excitement. After dinner tonight, the Winter Site Manager, Karen, who is second in charge here, held a funeral procession in the main hallway, which is known as ‘Highway 1’ and goes right by the store. I’d received advance notice and was stood outside in the most formal funeral wear I could muster up-a white table cloth draped over me and a box of tissues in hand. We were promised two pieces of candy if we could produce tears. There were others in attendance, three of which were in proper black dresses with black lace veils and sunglasses. The funeral was for Karen’s nieces’ hamster (both of whom are back in the States). For the record, her niece is twenty-two years old.

It gets even better. Karen was dressed as giant hamster-yes, there is a massive hamster costume in our gear rental room. Oh, yeah, did I mention it’s weird AF down here? It’s weird AF down here. She capped the giant hamster costume with a massive sombrero and danced her way down the hall carrying a small box with a coveted kiwi fruit, which I’d drawn a sad face on in permanent marker. It was the closest furry thing I could find that resembled a hamster. For symbolic purposes, obviously. Also, I definitely feel like yesterday’s ramblings about the vision of me in gerbil gym running with a bunch of gerbils was a premonition. So much synchronicity today! Don’t worry, I will be gathering photos and footage of the very somber event and posting them on Instagram soon. 

How was your Saturday?