Making It Up As I Go Along #344

FRIDAY...
— First 12 hour day. I get up with not much trouble this morning and it’s busy enough that I’ve had 8 hour days in the past that felt more dragged out than this 12 hour one. So not too bad overall.
— Go to Paddy’s Pub for a drink after work and grab a sub sandwich for supper on the way home.

SATURDAY...
— Get through the second 12 hour day. I sort of run out of gas by about hour ten... but make it none-the-less.
— Little nap around 7:00 but I’m ready for bed by 11:30. Needing to try to get ready for the night shift tomorrow, I do a little dosing but push myself to stay up. Rain delayed, late night baseball is at least something to keep me up.

SUNDAY...
— Busy day... pick up Sylvia at the airport and go to lunch with her in the Market.
— Drop her at her hotel and head home for a nap.
— Softball at 5:00. We lose bad but I do have some fun in the field so it’s not horrible... not good all the same, I’m not a fan of the losses.
— Straight to work after ball. It’s night shift. I get through it without being too tired and am home by 6:30 Monday morning.

MONDAY...
— Sleep until 11:45. Hope that will get me through tonight... I guess we’ll see, maybe a nap at 2:00 will happen again.
— Had the nap and it did help although I’m still pretty tired by 6:00 AM Tuesday.

TUESDAY...
— Around the house. I sleep until just before noon and then watch the weather get worse. Snow by the evening and it’s just too depressing.

WEDNESDAY...
— Up around 9:00 and pretty much back on regular sleep mode. It’s still white and grey outside... not nice... cold and windy. Laundry and movies today sound like the best way to go.

THURSDAY...
— Meet Kiyomi for lunch today. First time in a while we’ve done that. Then I check out the location of a condo for sale... interesting spot.
— Out with Sylvia for the evening. It’s a pain getting downtown in the early evening. Between traffic and construction I end up taking an hour to get there... about 30 km from home. Blah!
— We do supper and the Imax movies. The Grand Canyon movie is really good.

FRIDAY...
— Condo looking in the morning. See a really good one in the downtown area that’s not too small. May be too good to pass up.
— Pick up Sylvia and go back to Orleans in the afternoon. We have burgers at The Works and I drive her to the airport. So it’s a busy day driving all over the place.


Traveling Through Time and Space
A work cycle is now over. I was off for a while... did the twelve hour days, forty-eight hours in four days, and had the four days off afterwards. Tomorrow I begin all over again and it seems pretty good but very bizarre.

By the end of my previous shift, my internal clock was totally out of wack. Going to work Monday evening... going home Tuesday morning... sleeping the morning away and waking up, ready to start a new day at noon on the day you got home from work... all very mind blowing.

More than once last week I’d tell someone that “yesterday I did this...” when yesterday was actually the morning of the same day. Or to talk to people at shift change at 6:00 AM and talk about “the storm will come tomorrow afternoon” when the afternoon in question is actually this afternoon.

I have felt like I traveled to Australia. Taking off on Tuesday morning and arriving Wednesday afternoon the week before! Perhaps it isn’t quite like that... but there is a time travel feel about it all.

So that’s the new work schedule. Where today is Friday but it feels like Sunday since tomorrow will be my Monday. And Wednesday morning will become my Friday evening leading into a four day long weekend. It takes much getting used to but is kind of fun as well. As long as I sleep enough time before working a twelve hour stretch, it’s all good.

The time off has been excellent. Each “weekend”... I say “weekend” instead of weekend because of the fact that I’m just as likely to be off Tuesday to Friday as I am Friday to Monday. So the actual weekend has little to do with it. But my “weekends” are now like an Easter long weekend every time. Yes, the first day off is like a day of jet lag after a long trip. You’re not really functioning until the afternoon. But even still, it’s a good three and a half days off every four days. Not half bad.

So time has been crazy this past eight days. Another thing that’s crazy... space. More specifically, the space in which I’ve been driving. My aunt, Sylvia, has been in town this past week. She’s stayed in a nice enough hotel right downtown. The problem with that is it’s in the middle of one way streets with virtually no parking and lots of local construction.

Thursday my plan was to meet her between 4:30 and 5:00. I left home at 4:10, figuring I’d get there with no problems. Thirty kilometres in thirty minutes isn’t unreasonable. Except in Ottawa.

Traffic caused detours. Sitting on the highway for twenty minutes, only moving two kilometres in that twenty minutes, seems unreasonable. Then, when I finally got the right route, I run in to construction. I figure I can make my left hand turn a few blocks after I’d like to. That’s no big deal. I soon realize that this is not the case... as I’m driving into Quebec! So through Gatineau I have to go and turn about back onto another bridge. In the end, it takes me almost an hour and a half to go those thirty kilometres and actually meet Sylvia.

Even today, when I go back to pick her up... I drive by the hotel, with noplace to stop the car. It takes me a half an hour to reach her even though I’m already there! If only I could stop the car in the middle of the street, and leave it there for ten minutes.

But alas, that is not to be. And in the end, my week was full of days where it felt like I was time traveling... along with days where it felt like I’d never get to where I was trying to go.

A crazy eight days... and now tomorrow... Saturday... it begins... Again.