You wake up and your foot is jammed into the corner with the mini tv, your shoulder is lodged achingly between a rock and a hard place. You wade your way out of the blankets, pillows and duvets to turn the heat off. Gawd it's hot in here. Then you come out onto deck under the canopy to discover what real heat is. Summer arrived overnight like a submarine under the radar. The dogs stink; there is dust and hair everywhere. It's time to bathe the dogs. You go back inside the boat and it's freezing. What just happened? Regardless you can tell it's going to be hot as Hades today so you decide whether to keep the boat locked down to keep the cool in or open 'er up and let the heat and breeze out. Today's probably not a good day to boil an egg for breakfast with all this humidity already in the air. And don't boil anything late at night or you'll just be locked inside with the humidity which could turn to damp if it gets cold. So you wait until 9am, knowing the student worker bees clean the main washrooms at 10pm. That gives you an hour when no one's around to sneak past the authoritative "NO PETS ALLOWED" sign and get the dogs washed in the handicapped bathroom. You pray no one handicapped needs a shower. After coralling the dogs one by one under the apparently terrifying showerhead, you sneak back out when the coast is clear. Then you bring the wet dogs back to the boat and tie them to the dock to dry off in the sun. Taking advantage of having no beasts underfoot, you start cleaning. The fridge door falls off its hinges for no apparent reason. You bang your chin on the counter leaving a nice bruise. And you continue cleaning, finding crunchy dead spiders everywhere from the Spider Ban you sprayed all over last night. Don't forget the piles of gnats - collateral damage of the spray. But you vacuum, windex, and get it all done. Time to feed the dogs, eat your breakfast, wash the dishes in cold water from a hand pump in the 10 inch by 10 inch sink. And then it's time to shower yourself. Gather everything you'll need and head over to the main washroom. Put your hair in rollers cause it's pointing in every direction. Pluck stray hairs from the unruly garden you call your eyebrows. Scare the student worker bee who comes into the ladies' to find you wearing only rollers, rubber boots and underwear. Jump in the handicap shower and pray again that no one handicapped presently needs a shower. After you're all clean, eat lunch. Walk the dogs before work. One of them rolls in something dead and smells like hell again. Oh well. The boyfriend brings you lunch and catches you reading during your 10 minutes of free time and says, "Wow, the life of Riley". Eat lunch. Get the dogs settled, close the boat down and head off to work. And then you can't find your sunglasses. Oh, there they are, in the frying pan.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Everything is Harder on a Boat - A Typical Morning
You wake up and your foot is jammed into the corner with the mini tv, your shoulder is lodged achingly between a rock and a hard place. You wade your way out of the blankets, pillows and duvets to turn the heat off. Gawd it's hot in here. Then you come out onto deck under the canopy to discover what real heat is. Summer arrived overnight like a submarine under the radar. The dogs stink; there is dust and hair everywhere. It's time to bathe the dogs. You go back inside the boat and it's freezing. What just happened? Regardless you can tell it's going to be hot as Hades today so you decide whether to keep the boat locked down to keep the cool in or open 'er up and let the heat and breeze out. Today's probably not a good day to boil an egg for breakfast with all this humidity already in the air. And don't boil anything late at night or you'll just be locked inside with the humidity which could turn to damp if it gets cold. So you wait until 9am, knowing the student worker bees clean the main washrooms at 10pm. That gives you an hour when no one's around to sneak past the authoritative "NO PETS ALLOWED" sign and get the dogs washed in the handicapped bathroom. You pray no one handicapped needs a shower. After coralling the dogs one by one under the apparently terrifying showerhead, you sneak back out when the coast is clear. Then you bring the wet dogs back to the boat and tie them to the dock to dry off in the sun. Taking advantage of having no beasts underfoot, you start cleaning. The fridge door falls off its hinges for no apparent reason. You bang your chin on the counter leaving a nice bruise. And you continue cleaning, finding crunchy dead spiders everywhere from the Spider Ban you sprayed all over last night. Don't forget the piles of gnats - collateral damage of the spray. But you vacuum, windex, and get it all done. Time to feed the dogs, eat your breakfast, wash the dishes in cold water from a hand pump in the 10 inch by 10 inch sink. And then it's time to shower yourself. Gather everything you'll need and head over to the main washroom. Put your hair in rollers cause it's pointing in every direction. Pluck stray hairs from the unruly garden you call your eyebrows. Scare the student worker bee who comes into the ladies' to find you wearing only rollers, rubber boots and underwear. Jump in the handicap shower and pray again that no one handicapped presently needs a shower. After you're all clean, eat lunch. Walk the dogs before work. One of them rolls in something dead and smells like hell again. Oh well. The boyfriend brings you lunch and catches you reading during your 10 minutes of free time and says, "Wow, the life of Riley". Eat lunch. Get the dogs settled, close the boat down and head off to work. And then you can't find your sunglasses. Oh, there they are, in the frying pan.
