Mayday! on May Day!

Yesterday was May 1st. That means yesterday was May Day, except in Texas, where not one single person that came through our gate (maybe 150 or so all told) had ever heard of May Day.

Heidi baked a big batch of warm cookies for the 5:30 meeting. We cheerfully passed out candy to everyone who came through in, greeting them with a hearty Happy May Day!

It quickly become apparent that no one had ever heard of May Day. Is this just a Midwestern thing? May baskets made with pipe-cleaner handles, filled with candy and sometimes flowers that you hang on the front door knob or leave on the Welcome mat in the case of no knob. Then you ring the doorbell and hide in the bushes until your friend opens the door and sees their gift! 😀

I did it. My kids did it. My Facebook friends assure me that it’s still happening in Iowa, but in Texas, not so much. Clearly there’s no point in Tap to create event here. We did have one Californian who’d heard of it but he was probably a Midwest transplant.

Anyway, everyone was happy to eat the candy and cookies and it didn’t really matter to them what the occasion was. They did make it known that they know what Cinco de Mayo is. They’ll be pretty disappointed when they come to the gate on Saturday if they’re expecting Margaritas!

Last night, Henry and I were having a Mayday of our own.

 Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal. It derives from the French venez m’aider, meaning “come help me”.  ~Wikipedia

If you’re a regular reader, you know, we’ve had some mighty mouse duels. Heidi – 14, Mice-0 at last count. Henry and I have enjoyed weeks of peace until last night. We both heard it at the same time. As usual, the sound started in his food dish.

Henry, who had been long asleep in his bed, switched to his high alert mode, ears straight up. He took a few tentative steps toward his dish. I took a few steps toward his dish. The sound changed from the rattle of dog food to the familiar stuck in the sticky trap thumping.

At this point, Henry changed course. He’s a perfect, certified, pet therapy dog. He’s not a watch dog or a mouser.

I’ve never seen him hide between the footstool and the chair before. This caused me to become a little alarmed at just what was thumping the trap up and down under the cabinets. But not alarmed enough to look. Just alarmed enough to build a protective barrier to prevent it from thumping out onto the kitchen floor.

I knew a mouse could easily squeeze between the water jugs, but I didn’t think he’d be able to drag the trap through. For, oh I suppose an hour and a half, the thumping persisted. Henry continued to look alarmed behind the footstool. I turned on yesterday morning’s GMA to drown out the sound.

I made periodic trips to the coffee pot to make sure the mouse was still safely ensconced. You can’t really do catch and release with mice and the only traps that have worked for us down here (and believe me, we’ve tried them all) are the sticky ones.

When we caught the first mouse under the sink, I was going to take it out, but I saw it’s heart beating and I couldn’t finish the job. Heidi has no problem with this whatsoever and considers every mouse caught a personal victory.

I was relieved when the thumping stopped. This was a change in the pattern. It usually goes on night. This mouse had also been blessedly mute (not a bit of squeaking).

I decided that either the mouse was very, very tired or sleeping or inexplicably dead. I slowly pulled away the water bottles.

A cricket almost the size of a Dorito had been thumping the trap all over the floor.

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Seriously, don’t let anyone tell you everything isn’t bigger in Texas. We need a mouse trap for our bugs!

Rig Move Day 2 Photos

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

OK – that’s probably true so I’ll try to share a mix of both the big picture and some close up shots. Hopefully, you’ll be able to click on any of these images and take a closer look around.

Because the gate is busy and the computer and I are still at odds over posting photos – tonight will be a few more shots from Day 2. I’ll try to get a final Day 3 slide show in the hopper. I made a dozen attempts last night but the pictures kept floating off into… well, I don’t know where. One minute they were here and the next they weren’t there. 😀

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As you can see, the derrick comes in backwards.

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It gets put together like an everything is bigger in Texas Lego.

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This gives you a bit of perspective on just how huge everything is.

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Either you run the day or the day runs you.  ~ Jim Rohn

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Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others. ~ Winston Churchill

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Every morning at 5:30 and each evening at 5:30, there’s a meeting of the minds. The day shift and night shift rig crew, the rig manager, the safety guy and the day and night Company Men talk.

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Heidi made creamed filled cupcakes for their meeting. It didn’t take any time for them to go through 2 dozen cupcakes!

The guy in the white shirt is our head Company Man, Jimbo. He’s the second CM we’ve worked for from Louisiana and both were named Jimbo! Funny! Must be a common name there. Next week he says we’re having a craw-fish cookout. 😀

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Well, that brings us to the close of the second day. One more slide show to go to show you the last day of rigging up.

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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day… ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The rest of that sentence –  Tomorrow is a new day and you shall begin it well and serenely –  just seemed a little discordant with life on an oil rig.

Although, when no one is snaring wild hogs 10 feet from my window; the cows aren’t eating the satellite cables; the donkey isn’t guarding the gate; there aren’t any tarantulas in the crock pot or rattlesnake loose in the truck bed, it’s pretty serene. Surreal sometimes, but serene. 😀

Rig Move Day 1 Photos

Rig move day 1 of 2. I’ll try to describe what’s happening for those of you who requested more information. Every oil company and even each individual rig does things a little differently. This describes our experiences. Other gate guards have different stories.

By the way, if you’re interested in taking a closer look at the activities on the site, you can click on these pictures to enlarge them.

So here we are on the left, sitting on top of a little swamp that the oil company filled in and made a pad for us. I can hear the frogs at night. 😀

Our gate guarding company provides two service (nurse) wagons. One holds a generator, our diesel and a water tank. The water is fine for a shower, but woe to any who dare to drink it! The other wagon is taken up by the big green septic tank.

The white trailer on the right houses the 24 guys that comprise the drilling crew. They work 12 hour shifts (usually – sometimes longer); 6 day guys, 6 night guys; 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

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This is the Company Man’s trailer. We have four: 1 day guy, 1 night guy for two weeks. Then two other Company Men for the other two.

They typically have an office in the front with all the monitors. The other 2/3’s of the trailer is a living room and kitchen area, two bedrooms and a bath. It’s not fancy but it’s quite a step up from the rig crew.

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The Safety Man’s trailer is being lowered into place in this photo. The oil company has their own safety guy on site all the time. Billy is here for two weeks. He’ll go home and Eric will be here for the nest two.

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The trailer for the geologist was a tight fit. He won’t start for a couple more days.

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I missed the shot where the guy on the left fell into the water. And I missed the shot where he threw his soggy boots in the air behind the tanks. 😀

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The picnic table has a misting fan at the end, just like at the state fair. As the weather heats up, it’ll provide a brief respite for hot weary guys.

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There’s no distinction between day or night or weekend or holiday on an oil rig. There’s just work.

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H & P (the drilling company) has a Rig Manager (sometimes called a Tool Pusher). I can’t tell you how surprised I was a year and a half ago when someone pulled up to the gate and said: I’m just here to see the pusher. 😉

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I love it when Heidi’s does the talking! People seem to be a lot more intimidated by an English teacher than a counselor. Imagine that!

Actually, we’ve found almost everyone we have contact with to be unfailing nice. It’s been one of the biggest surprises of the job.

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Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all. ~ Sam Ewing

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We’ve been with this rig for 6 weeks and this is the 7th or 8th time they’ve brought us dinner. They have caterers come in for the SPUD meetings and rig move days, but also at just random times, like tonight. They feed everyone on site – even the gate guards.

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We’ve already established they love their meat in Texas. One of the perks of working with all men is they have a double sized idea of what constitutes a serving! We can always get at least 2 meals out of each one, sometimes 3!

That’s it for Day 1 of the rig move. It was the last quiet night I’ll have for however many weeks this hole takes.

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Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.  ~ Thomas Edison

Contact Color

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.                       ~ John Lubbock

I’m living in the last place on earth this perpetually overheated, 55 yr old, water-loving Yankee ever expected to live.

I work as a security guard which is about as ill-suited to my I hate conflict personality as a job could be.

It's just a BB gun - but it looks fierce!

For 25 years, I traveled all over the US as a trainer and public speaker.

For the last year and a half, I’ve worked in 2 counties in the state of Texas. I haven’t been further than 100 feet from the RV for a month.

I trained mostly healthcare professionals, the majority of whom were women. I taught communication skills.

Now I work with all men, mostly blue-collar. Many don’t understand me any better than I understand them, and most of the time we’re all speaking English. That doesn’t mean we’re speaking the same language. 😀

The amazing thing is, I like this job. It just goes to show you how full of surprises life can be! The folks in Texas have certainly taught me a lot. They’ve been nothing if not colorful!

I read a book a while back where one of the characters was colorful, in ways that go beyond personality. She was a synesthetes. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, you can find the definition here:Wikipedia Definition.

There are different kinds of synethesia. I have color-graphemic synesthesia. I see letters and numbers as inherently colored. Some of the colors I don’t much care for but I’m not able to re-color them.

These aren’t my particular colors but it’s a nice visual.

I’ve always seen all numbers and letters, days of the week and months of the year in specific colors. Although scientific studies show this ‘condition’ has apparently produced some amazing mathematicians and even biologists, all it’s produced for me is a cheerful light-show. 😀

Just as I was surprised to learn not everyone has a rotating stack of 45’s playing in their head, I’d always assumed everyone saw numbers and letters in set colors.

The whole topic started me thinking about some things that fall more in the category of philosophically persistent than neurologically peculiar pathways.

I had less astigmatism when I was younger and could wear contacts without having them blow off.

I always wore green ones. I have green eyes so it didn’t change my appearance but it sure changed the way I saw the things. Those green contacts helped me see more clearly, but they didn’t add any tint, unlike rose-colored glasses.

Since moving to Texas, I’ve had plenty of time to take stock of what colors my view of the world. Preconceptions and a lack of understanding can do that. See: Everything I Needed to Know About Texas Tea, I Learned from the Beverly Hillbillies.

I’ve been asking myself: Am I a black vs white – wrong vs right kind of thinker?

Do I share enough of myself with others to be both true and interesting?

And especially, am I open to being in unexpected places, seeing unexpected things and finding humor and joy and gifts there?

By the way, if you’re wondering  if you may have a form of synesthesia, you can take a quick quiz at this site: Are you synesthete?

I’d love to hear what you come up with! That could lead to a post of a different color!