Stealth Shower

It occurred to me last Sunday one of the things that make this place seem odd to me:

No one understands college football. No one.

The universities, including MSU (and boy, do I have a hard time remembering this is “Minot” State University and not the Sparty kind), have football teams, but people just aren’t fans of the college game.

Or maybe there are, but not like in the South. Football in the South is life, and people here just don’t comprehend it.

Last week, in church, where plenty of people wear Green Bay jerseys, it hit me: no one talks about college football. They don’t really even talk about pro football, either, but it’s really weird, coming from Florida, that the preacher doesn’t reference a single play from the games the day before.

I am wearing a Noles sweatshirt and my supervisor actually asked what it meant. No, really. I can’t keep him straight on why there is a difference between “Florida State” and “Florida,” either.

[Aside here: Thank you, Bulldogs.]

Once in awhile we get a group in that does somewhat appreciate college football. We had one of those in this past weekend, which was cool. But by and large, this area is just devoid of college football.

This past week, we shut off the water to Hope Village, which has made life even more adventuresome here. Now, I have to wake up in the morning and come into the church to use the bathroom, wash my face, eat breakfast, etc.

It’s kind of depressing because that means I pretty much eat three meals a day at my desk.

And I had to change 10 rolls of toilet paper in seven days.

But the most depressing part is now I have to get in a car and drive to the Y to take a shower. This is a PITA, if just because I have to load up everything and drive. It’s only down the block, but still, I have to remember to bring everything. Considering I lug the little basket to two different places to clean up and both require different stuff, it’s not really that easy. I totally forgot my shampoo – something that I normally kept in the other shower permanently and therefore didn’t carry in the basket in the first place.

The Y also closes early on Sunday, so I’m pretty much going to not sweat on Saturday. And Friday was brutal, because I had to go pick up some people at the airport late and therefore couldn’t get to the Y.

That night, I also wound up cooking for the volunteers. They’re staying offsite, so I headed down to one of the local churches to cook. Well, really, “heat up” is a more proper description. Although I can cook, we kind of had short notice that it’d be me cooking – there was a little mixup, but no harm, no foul.

Anyway, the volunteers weren’t staying at this particular church, but last week we had another group there, so the food was still there.

And they had a shower, so I took my little bag of stuff and, once the lasagna was in the oven, ran down to the basement and sneaked in a shower. Shampoo and all!

Felt kind of bad sneaking it in, but it was nice to be clean, especially since I had to skip it on Friday to pick up those folks.

Two more weeks of living like a nomad before I get to move into the house. The evening of Nov. 11 (Happy birthday, Dorothy), I should be good to go.

If the RV is Rocking … Maybe it’s Just Wednesday

Ah, life in the trailerhood has been adventuresome this week. I really need to see if “My Name is Earl” is available on Netflix on demand.

As if my internet signal was strong enough to Netflix from the RV, but that’s really the least of my RV issues right now.

Quite sincerely, my accommodations in my little Copper Canyon are worse than my ceiling-leaking, George-infested, black-mold-growing abode in Morocco.

I lost power about 9:45 p.m. last Friday, and it took until about 2 p.m. this Friday to get it fixed. At that point, I thought I was gold but now the propane-fueled heat isn’t working.

At one point, I thought I had a leak but was blown off. Turns out I do have a leak. I only had one tank, which I was going through in about 10 days. There is some kind of splitter on it and when you only have on tank, instead of two, it leaks out through the open hole.

So we hooked up a dummy tank but for some reason I still can’t get the heat to come on.

Now, I’m perfectly fine at night – when the power was out, I just ran an extension cord to the nearest plug and plugged in the electric blanket.

This works fine for heat, but there is nothing anyone can do about wind in an RV.  Even if it has power.

Wednesday and Thursday, we had 40- to 70-mile an hour winds. I woke up at 2:30 Wednesday morning moving. The little RV was like a Disney ride. Or a vibrator bed.

I could barely nod off, seriously. It was constant motion, and the rain just pounded on the aluminum. I couldn’t believe it was so loud and strong. I am in the very back of the campus, and I really thought the trees behind me had a chance of coming down. Either that or the wind just jolting the whole thing off the little blocks.

Wednesday night was quite a ride.

By Thursday morning, I figured it had to be freezing cold and soaking wet based on what I’d heard and felt, but when I opened the door, it was wet, but not pouring and not really cold at all.

However, the weather that day was my least favorite: low 40s and light rain all day.  Gross.

I haven’t spent barely any time in there in the last week, so really, having no power wasn’t much of a problem. I unloaded my fridge and freezer and put my stuff in the big reefers, so nothing got lost there.

Essentially, I woke up at 7 every morning, fumbled around in the dark to get dressed as quickly as possible, grabbed my spoon, cup and bowl thing and my toiletries and headed off to the rec chapel, which has heat.

There, I’d eat breakfast, brush my teeth and get ready to go to work. After walking my stuff back to the RV I walked right back over to the church to work until lunch.

At that point – and sometimes before, for tea – I’d go back to the reefers and grab something for lunch, or just a bag of chips. Since our volunteers have moved off campus, there are no meals served and no new leftovers (if that makes sense), so sometimes I’d just skip it.

Around 6 p.m., I’d wind down, do the same thing for dinner and then go back into the office to work and watch Netflix a little more. I just finished “Arrested Development” again. Around 8 p.m. or so, I’d go back to the RV (armed with a flashlight), fumble around, grab my shower stuff and a book and then head back to the rec chapel, read, then go take a shower, come back and read until bedtime and then cross back over the RV and curl up and go to bed under the electric blanket.

So really, no harm, no foul. But right now, it’s getting old. I am again without heat, so I have been hanging out in the rec chapel all day today.

I’ve tried everything I know to do with the propane tank and the heat, but I am at a loss.

I did, however, remove all my food items from Cain and Abel – the two reefers – and store them back into my own fridge.

This morning, I went to Walmart to get a little bit of food for the week, since the gravy train is coming to a halt. I splurged on a $5 Key lime pie (not Marie Callendar’s; the other brand was on sale this time). I also got milk, rice – just a little bit of basic stuff. I didn’t even get Junior Mints.

When I went to pour tea, I noticed my refrigerator light was blinking. Not like it was about to go out, but regularly.

So that can’t be good, right?

Of course not. I just went back to get more tea and the fridge is dead for the moment.

The really depressing thing is, today is the last nice day, probably for the entire season. It was 60-something today and, watching the weather forecast, the temperature just drops from here on out.

And there’s still no word on housing, except for the YWCA is off the table. I’m relieved of that – I never wanted to do it; it was my sitemate’s idea for a stopgap – but there’s no funds available for the nice house. I am not sure what will happen. I’ve offered to pay some, but it was in my deal that housing was taken care of, so I hope I don’t have to do that.

This is just not my week.

The Life and Times of RV Living

This past weekend, I added electricity to the list of luxuries that I do not have in the RV. It’s right after “water” but before “space.”

Since we’re trying to test the propane situation – I seem to have some sort of leak and it keeps running out – I am running it more, but have it set even lower than the 65 I normally keep things at in the winter. To offset this, I’m running two small electric heaters to try to keep things warm.

Friday evening, I took a shower and headed back to the RV to do some computer stuff, wind down, and watch TV. “Catch Me If You Can” was on, and Tom Hanks’ character had just captured Frank when, all of a sudden, the lights, electric heaters and TV just snapped off. No loud noise, no burst, just a shutdown.

So I fumbled for a flashlight, found the nice one (I have a nice one and a crappy one. I also have a headlamp somewhere, but that involved opening cabinets) and went to the fuse box.

Finding no issue there, I went outside my little RV world to see if where it was plugged into had exploded or melted or something. No dice. No small animals corpses that might have chewed a cord, either.

So, I knocked on Steve’s door –he was just back from seeing “Argo” – and he came in to look. I hadn’t pulled out fuses or anything because, even though I’ve done that before, we just had a situation on offsite housing where someone made a problem worse by doing that.

Steve got to the fusebox and saw a tripped switch, saying that was the problem. I said no, see, it was the A/C one. And sure enough, it didn’t work.

Neither did anything, but by 10 p.m. it didn’t matter. I told him I’d just go to bed and we could deal with it the next morning.

So I piled on the blankets – the overnight low at freezing – and did OK. Due to some stress at work, I did have weird dreams, but I managed all right.

The next day, it was Steve’s to deal with, and as he went off trying to get someone from the RV place to look at it, I went to volunteer at a small park, where a person I know was heading a team to rip out flood-damaged bushes.

That was a lot of fun. I miss yard work! I had the scissor things for two solid hours, cutting stuff back so it could be dug up completely later that afternoon.

I had one bizarre moment, as I was trimming some juniper bushes and trying to get to the ground and pick up all the trash that was under them.

All of a sudden, I saw a pair of eyes looking back at me. I drew back, but then realized it was a stuffed animal. Too funny.

 

After we wiped out the bushes and loaded the trash bin (similar to the one we had for Gray’s stuff), we went to someone’s house and had Jimmie John’s.

Their house had been flooded, and it was the first house I’d been in that had been flooded (three feet of water on the first flood for three weeks) and restored.

The house was right by the river cutoff and was HIGH up. The water was likely 9-10 feet high but did not do much (comparative) damage to their 1914-built home. The basement was ruined, I think, but they decided to not repair that one.

The home was beautiful, and very creative. Even prior to the flood, they had a faux brick wall I thought was real. I was looking at the before-and-after photos and was surprised to find a brick wall had been replaced by a yellow drywall one. She said oh, no, I’d painted the wall before to make it look like brick. Talent I don’t have.

After that, I headed to the library and got Hunger Games. Got back, washed my sheets and took a nap, then, still without power and finding out the earliest someone could look was Monday, I went to the rec chapel to watch FSU.

Steve strung an extension cord to my RV for heat, but really, it was 55 outside and there was no need. I figured I’d run the electric blankets and night and then plugged in the Direct TV so Steve could watch whatever in his RV – I have the control box ones.

So I read Hunger Games and watched FSU rebound from its horrid last week. Went back to the RV and realized I hadn’t brought a flashlight with me and it was not only pitch dark, but I had an extension cord somewhere. Fumbled around and did OK. No broken bones.

Took a shower and figured I’d go ahead and finish Hunger Games before heading back and to bed. Now I need to find the second book.

Sunday, still without power, I went to an award presentation for someone and then hung out again in the rec chapel and church office. More “Arrested Development,” and I’d also gotten Not Without My Daughter at the library (banned book week!). I’ve read that one before.

Today, it’s back to normal, I guess, though I still don’t have power. Steve is dealing with that, but it was a fabulous weekend to not have electricity. It was 60-something yesterday and is supposed to be 70 today.

So it could have been worse.

Still no word on when/where I am moving, but my supervisor is back for a few days so maybe it will get resolved.

There’s lots that has to be resolved in the next few days. Most people know what I’m talking about but if not and you want to know, email me.

Wild, Wild West

This week, I got out of Dodge for a morning and headed to Williston.

It was for work purposes – I delivered a speech to a minstrel group – but it was fascinating to see the wild, wild West – which is what Williston is.

Minot is a boomtown, but Williston is where the boom really is. It’s Oil Field Central and Man Camp Land.

I’ve heard these words and seen the fringes – much of Minot’s housing crisis stems from oil rig workers who live in Minot and commute – but seeing up close was incredible.

As I’m typing this, I’m sitting in Gramma Sharon’s restaurant and boy, if I wanted an oil man, I’d be in heaven. It’s a nice meal to eat out. I’ve heard the bars at night are unsafe – as in date rape unsafe. But breakfast (I’m starting this on a Thursday at 10:15. I can’t believe I’ve gone five waking hours without breakfast) is a good meal to eat out.

And the bacon is fabulous.

My speech was at the hospital and right at the entry door there was a sign that said “Slipcovers for muddy boots’ with a box of footy things. Now, it did rain last night, but I don’t think that was what it was for – the three guys sitting in the booth next to mine all have mud on their boots.

It’s a blue collar town, and, judging by the morning hour, it’s pretty much what I’d heard.

The drive in – complete darkness, as I left at 6 a.m. – I saw the fire of oil rigs dotting the prairie land around Highway 2. As I neared Williston and the light increased, I saw a real man camp – rows upon rows of trailers split into bedrooms.

I brought my camera and will aim for a couple of photos on the way back. I wish I could have gotten the brightening sky with the oil jack things against it, but it didn’t work out – too dangerous to fumble for a camera, a stick shift and the steering wheel in a construction zone.

[Later…]

Back and it’s Sunday. I spent all day yesterday working. We took down the mess tent, which was a pretty monumental task. It took from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. to get the thing down. (See photos at http://www.facebook.com/HopeVillageND?ref=hl#!/HopeVillageND.)

And it’s cold. Not super, super cold, but in the 20s at night and if we’re lucky in the 50s during the day. Now (I’ve fast-forwarded tot Sunday now) it’s absolutely gorgeous outside, although a bit nippy.

In Williston, I hit their Walmart (hiring at $17 an hour, good luck finding housing, though) and bought a nice warm hoodie. Today I am going to set out to the mall and look for Barry a grandpa gift as well as a scarf and decent hat. I have one, but it’s not all too warm.

My sitemate quit, which was the right decision for her. Now, though, I am a little in limbo after her quitting because the housing was supposed to be two of us in a house and now it’s just me. I’m not sure what will happen.