>I did nothing this weekend. Well, I did laundry. I did take the dogs out for a nice run on the beach. They misbehaved and chased a stupid little white ugly dog. Its owners were underwhelmed with my existence in the world–I felt bad, but their dog was being a butthead.

But yeah, I didn’t actually take any pictures. I will though, soon!!! I promise.

It is nice and peaceful here. Landlord is off island, neighbor is back but with her dogs gone it is super peaceful.

Anyway, night everyone. I will try to write better this week and give you some photos.

>I’m sitting here. It is silent.
There are no dogs barking, no neighbor noises. Nothing.

My neighbor is not here, her dogs have been taken to the humane society. My landlord is off island–having taken his dog with him (or if he didn’t she is much quieter today).
This right now is my favorite moment on this island ever. Friday night–so in theory the entire weekend is open to me, work and commitment free.
*happy sigh*

This was a long week. I am going out tonight (yes, I will be careful!). And then for the next 2 days I have absolutely nothing planned. Thats right, you heard me! I have the weekend off!!!!!!
wooooo-hoooo. I think I may go swimming. 🙂

Alright everyone…have a great weekend. I will let you know if I do anything fun. And yes, I will take some pictures this weekend. 🙂 🙂 🙂

*****update*****
about 45 seconds after I mentioned how much I was enjoying the peace and quiet my landlord showed up. *sigh* I chatted with him for a few minutes. Apparently the neighbor will be back tonight. oh well, it was a really great 45 seconds of peace.

>So, there are 5 cops in my yard right now. With guns and everything.
Wacky.
No, I didn’t do anything, why does everyone always think it is me? I am really quite tame you know.
Yup, more neighbor drama…she has gone away for a few days. She asked me to feed and water her beasts–yup, I am too stupid to say no.
The landlord has told her that her dogs have to be gone by friday (tomorrow). Since she is not here he has spoken to the humane society as well as the police. They are coming to pick up the dogs. Apparently it doesn’t matter that they have food/water (provided by yours truly) because I am not the owner.
Anyway, they are gone now. I was called to assist because everyone else is afraid of dogs. That’s right, send the idiot in to deal with the untrained dogs…
but, since I deal with their stupid untrained furry butts daily, no big deal.

Life (my dog) was highly irritated with me being outside and her being inside–so she opened the door to let herself out. I had to tell her no as, well, I didn’t want her shot. So she backed her butt back into the house. Teak (other dog) took advantage of the distraction and stole Life’s bone. Good times were had by all.

So, the neighbor is supposed to be home tonight…I think it’s a 50/50 shot as to whether she shows up or not.

Work was good today, almost boringly normal.
Have a good night, I shall write more over the weekend.
-H.

>So, I feel like I have lost an appendage. Maybe this break is good for me, maybe I spend too much time typing on my phone (don’t worry boss, not at the refinery–at home). Anywhichway when I meet people who tell me that they hate text messages, well, I finally understand why. I am currently using a craptastic flip phone which was a grand total of $19.99. I am happy to have it, I would be completely screwed without it. And since I am now an official member of the “Emergency Response Team” (doesn’t that sound way impressive? yeah, it’s not. Just means they can call me in for whatever–I do get a schwanky red badge though) I have to be reachable. However, trying to type words into this little flippy pain in the butt thing is HORRIBLE. To everyone out there who is “text-hostile” for the love of all that is holy–get a qwerty keyboard phone next time. Life gets a LOT more entertaining.

Dumbass Heather Move of the Week: My neighbor is out of town for the week. She caught me off guard and asked me to watch her dogs. I folded, and now my world is a great big pain in the butt of wrangling 2 extra (untrained) dogs.

2nd Dumbass Heathe Move of the Week: Dear Liver…, well, you know the rest. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Happy Wednesday People.

>Dear anyone coming to visit,

I know, I do it too. But just don’t do it. You think to yourself, it might get “chilly” at night. It won’t. You think, I will want to dress up–you won’t.
A this long sleeve t-shirt is painfully hot. Jeans, well, I wore them once. It could have been worse–I was in my truck which I air conditioned.

If any of you come visit bring the following:
1. money. cash and/or credit cards–not travellers checks. The stores here hate them. Most everywhere takes credit cards, but if the power goes out (happens all the time) they can only accept cash. So definately have some cash available.
2. tank tops. Preferably of the non-wife beater variety (they’re just not cute). Any sleeveless type of shirt is fine. I don’t care if you think your arms are fat…trust me you won’t care soon either.
3. shorts. cause well, you should wear something on the bottom.
4. Now, for those of you inclined, dresses and/or skirts are just fine as bottoms as well and can dress you up a bit.
5. Only half fill your suitcase. Your going to end up getting more crap. It just makes life easier if you pack lightly.
6. Allergy meds (or you can have some of mine) this place is full of mold and fifty-thousand other allergens.
7. patience. Nothing happens quickly, customer service is a bit of a sarcastic joke, and I cannot state this more adamantly–nothing happens quickly.

8. thin comfy pjs of the tank top/short variety and a bathing suit. It doesn’t have to be a pretty one. 🙂

Now, do not bring the following:
1. heavy makeup. I have busted out some eyeliner and mascara once or twice. But if you put on a full makeup face you just look weird. And weird sweaty makeup running down your face ain’t pretty.

2. hair dryer. I don’t care if you normally spend hours on your hair. just give up. its the island.

3. jacket. just don’t. you don’t need it. I swear.

4. Polyester. I know, it doesn’t wrinkle–but seriously, you’ll die. It will just melt right onto you.

There are a thousand other things that I am sure I will think of. Remember, this is an island, but it’s not the middle of nowhere. You can buy pretty much anything you need on the island itself. And cell phone service (AT&T and Sprint only–verizon works here but it is approx. $1 per minute) is good everywhere except-well, my house. *sigh*

In case you are wondering what I am wearing at this moment in time: scrub pants and a sports bra. And thats only cause I am doing laundry and I have no shorts left. 🙂

-H.

>Hey folks.
I have internet–it is even wireless.
I do not, however, have my blackberry. I did buy a crappy little phone and swapped sim cards–so I am still reachable.
Thats all, nothing too exciting. It’s raining here in the rain forest.
I have a new appliance–a toaster oven. I have never had one of these things before and I have to tell you I will never be without one again.
The dogs are doing well–still spoiled. They go everywhere with me, Life’s big ol’ head hanging out the side window drool flying. I think I am starting to be known as the dog lady. Oh well, I’ve had worse nicknames–heck, in college I was snake lady.

*hugs*
-H.

>So as we are all aware, I do not have an exciting life–hence the posting I should have titled, “what I ate today” by Heather Wilkes. (LAME!)
But–here is the latest update from my ‘hood.
My landlord calls me this morning to tell me he lost a day. I don’t know how he lost a day but he seemed shocked that it was friday and not thursday. Anyway, that was not the main purpose of the call, I just thought it was kind of an odd thing to be told–he was telling me the update with his other tenant and how he has told her to get rid of her dogs and he will put the pet deposit towards her back rent. I have mixed feelings about this but in all honesty these dogs are not treated correctly anyway. But I could hear her crying in the background of this phone call.
Then, about 20 minutes later, he called again. Yeah, I couldn’t make up this much drama.
So, remember her boyfriend, you know–the one that had a different girlfriend. Well, right after the landlord gave her her second notice (you know, that three step process towards eviction?) the boyfriend called and BROKE UP WITH HER. I know, shocking. A guy, cheating on his girlfriend (wife?), would treat a woman he was cheating with poorly? who knew that could happen. *sigh*
Well, during this phone call I could hear her howling. Yes, howling, in the background.
Methinks I don’t wanna go home tonight.
*gulp*
I feel bad for the lady, I really do. Her life totally sucks right now.
But, since I don’t have cable…
(Dang, I am so cynical!!!)
On the bright side of things–I may be getting internet tonight!!!! In my house. 🙂
AND
if I buy a router, that means I would be able to talk on the phone IN MY HOUSE.
I am quite excited.
Have a great friday, a great weekend, and I shall chat with ya’ll later!!!
*hugs*
-H.

>Because I love ya’ll but I still know ya’ll I have all the comments set to moderated. This means I get to see them before they get published. My family reads this after all! 🙂
I’m just letting ya know so that if you send a comment, it won’t show up right away.

*hugs*
-H.

>This morning I went to the cafeteria and purchased breakfast.
It was 2.00 and a tasty breakfast sandwich it was indeed. I may never cook breakfast again.

Very important sidenote: diet pepsi with spanish writing on it advertising something in 2008 is not good. Don’t try it.

Additionally I feel a certain cell phone company characterized by three letters and an & between the 2nd and last letter may in fact be the devil.
Just fyi.
More on _ _ & _ later.

>Hola folks.
Well I’m home after a long wednesday. I don’t know what it is but the weeks are freakin’ long here. And the weekends are freakishly short.
For those of you picturing me living an exotic lifestyle I want you to know I live a very boring life here on this island. It goes like this pretty much every day:
Wake up-early. Usually by 5.
Make breakfast– including coffee (I’ve developed a serious love of coffee–I don’t know why, but there is just something about Dunkin Donuts artificially flavored vanilla coffee.) Let dogs out. Feed dogs. Let dogs out again. Eat breakfast. Give dogs leftover breakfast.
Get dressed–wardrobe choice is limited to Nomex, or Nomex. I now have 2 colors to chose from, beige or blue. I own 3 old beat up, torn, stained beige colored nomex–but it is super light. I own 6 pairs (thanks Rob!!!) of dark blue “dress” nomex. I’m not going to lie–I look darn good in the blue (well, not like, wear it out to the club good, but you know, professional looking) but they are THICK!!! Thick means warm. But they weren’t as bad as I had feared. They kind of feel like denim.
So then I leave for work. Sometimes I skip breakfast and go straight to work and eat a granola bar. (I know how boring this is–wait, its gets worse)
The sun rises as I drive towards the twinkling lights and towers of the refinery.
I turn off my radio (ipod) and roll down all my windows (so security can search the truck). Smile and make nice with security and hand over badges-one for the car, one for me, one for my laptop.
Then off I go to my office. Which is located conveniently at the top of the fire station. There I either gather equipment to go monitor people, or fiddle with my lab stuff, or a billion or one other things that are all fairly interesting.
Somewhere between 11 and 1 I grab lunch. Either eating in the cafeteria or getting it to go. I sit with a group of fairly smart dudes…they argue philosophy, safety issues, and sometimes like today they chat about different types of soda and food that were available “back in the day”. I usually say nothing (I know, weird huh?) and eat.
Then I either finish up monitoring, go to meetings (there are a lot of meetings), talk asbestos, test asbestos, argue with my co-worker (we have a darn good sarcastic banter between us–that is something that doesn’t go over well on the island. Since James is from New York and me being me–well, a little sarcasm makes the day better. ), and then ship off samples, write reports, etc.
End of day comes and I leave the gate the same way I came in. Then I fight some traffic, stop at my mailbox in the hopes someone has loved me enough to send me somethin, then home.
Where I am greeted by happy well rested dogs. We take a little walk where they relieve themselves and then I make dinner–for them and me.
Then shower and some dvd before bed.
Boring as heck, right?

Probably it will get more exciting eventually. 🙂 but now I must sleep! 🙂