The Whole Wide World

What a difference a day makes. Today was such a better day than yesterday. I actually smiled today, haha. Often. No longer feeling lowkey homicidal, I was also super productive in the stockroom of the store. I mentioned yesterday’s grumpiness to someone and they shrugged and said, ‘angry August is upon us’. It’ll be interesting to see if yesterday’s mood returns. I keep saying it was the steroids, but who knows. I think so much is a combination of everything down here and then pile some steroids on top and you get yourself a perfect storm. Today was good though.

It started with my normal Saturday coffee shift. Often when things slow down my friend, Piper, stops by for a catchup and she did just that today. That time together is always a treat. A nice cup of coffee and a good conversation is a great way to start the day. Piper is 22 and wise beyond her years. She was a stewie with my in the summer season and works in the fuels department now.

I went straight to the store from coffee, which is earlier than I normally would, but I had an update running for QuickBooks over night that I needed to check on. It hadn’t finished…after so I am trying again this evening. Ugh. As I said it was all work and productivity in the store. I found out yesterday that my boss back in the States is headed down at the end of September. He arrives on my birthday, September 23rd and we will have almost a month of overlap. Nothing like closing out the season with a supervisor on site when you haven’t had one all winter, haha. That might have added to my mood yesterday.

Big news on station for today was a couple of frozen pipes. It was -60F almost all night and someone left their fancy camera pointed out of a window which they propped open in one of the dorm lounges, which froze out the entire floor when the blankets they’d stuffed in the crack blew out in the middle of the night. Oops. I’ve seen them do this before and admittedly the time lapses of the auroras they catch are fantastic, but they are in the troubles now. The pipe that burst as a result of the open window, happened to be above the library so some books, but not many were damaged. Mainly old travel guides. The other frozen pipe was in the galley, so different building and unrelated to the window, just the extreme cold. It meant the galley dishwasher was out of service for lunch, so we ate off paper plates and used plastic utensils. A picnic lunch haha.

Saturday always leaves me extra tired with the early start for coffee. And then Sunday is my long day in the store, but I am hoping for another productive day tomorrow…with more smiles.