Make It Make Sense!

Those of you who have followed my blog for any length of time know that this is a bit of a down year year out at work.  We haven't worked a single Saturday, and have barely worked any 9-10 hour shifts.  We've had several shutdowns, including three that were an entire week long -- one of those being just last week. 

Now that December is on us, and we only have two more weeks before another shutdown, this one being two weeks long, what does the plant do?  They make us work a Saturday.  Folks are not happy about that.   Two assembly lines have to work, and some component areas will also be working.  Supervisor came around asking for volunteers, and said if he didn't get enough, he'd have to make Saturday mandatory.  

I don't have to work, being that I have a vacation day already scheduled for tomorrow, but Supervisor came and asked me if I would come in anyway.  I told him no.  I said that if I didn't already have Friday off, I'd be there Saturday with bells on, but not this time. 

The echo of his voice asking people to come in Saturday hadn't even died away when....he sent half of the department home early.  

Those of us who were left were looking at each other in confusion, and one coworker put it perfectly when she said, "Make it make sense!"  But then, when has that place ever made sense?

Oh, and to make matters worse, Group Leader Shark was off today, so they had the one who used to be second shift group leader back when we had a second shift the group leader.  She was driving every one crazy trying to micromanage everything.  The parts stager even told her we don't need a babysitter on this shift, but she wouldn't let up.  By the end of the day, I was left wondering what she was so afraid of that she felt she needed to control everything around her. 

At long last, the day -- and my work week -- finally ended, and I came home hoping beyond hope that the cleared woods had been a figment of my imagination.  Alas, they were not. The land is definitely cleared, but it doesn't look like they've cleared any more since yesterday.  I don't know if it's because of the rain, or if they're done.  I'm hoping it's the latter, and they've stopped before they get to my part of the woods.  Just to be on the safe side, I moved the water trough and bowl inside the fence.  Once I see how far down they're coming, I might move it back, but it won't really matter.  The deer can just jump the fence anyway.  

I'm also hoping that they're expanding the campground across the highway instead of building houses.  Campers are fun;  neighbors not so much.  Campers come and camp and don't bother you, whereas neighbors look over your fence and complain that you're not mowing enough, or that you don't have enough flower beds or whatever.  

The other possibility is that they're expanding the cemetery that's just beside where they've cleared.  Dead people make great neighbors. 

I guess I'll just have to wait and see.  It does look like they're trying to leave a tree line, so that's what leads me to believe they're expanding the campground.  I don't think a neighborhood would care.

Oh, and an abrupt change of subject, remember the box I got Monday?  Well, I opened it after all.  I'd thought it was the gift my sister had ordered her daughter in law.  She'd told me they wouldn't send that gift to Alaska, so asked me if she could send it to me, and I'd mail it on to her.  So, after thinking about it a moment, I thought maybe that's what was in the box, so I opened it to check.  Turns out it wasn't.  It's something else.

The silver lining of having a memory like mine is that I can wrap it and put it under the tree, and by Christmas, I'll have forgotten what it is. 

Speaking of Christmas, all the gifts that need to go to Alaska have been ordered and are on their way.  Or at least in the queue to be shipped.  I was a bit bummed that the set of survival tools I wanted to get my sister's middle son couldn't be shipped to their address, so I had to pick something else from his wish list.  I'm not sure why.  The gift I picked for my oldest nephew's wife couldn't be shipped to a gift registry address, so I had it shipped to my sister's house.  Weird things happen when you try to send stuff to Alaska.  

You're never going to believe what I'm about to tell you.  I'm tired of eating.  Seriously.   Even though Cody and Bren took a lot of leftovers with them, I've been eating Thanksgiving leftovers for a week now, and I'm tired of them!  I still have a big old tub of turkey salad, so I took the rest of the meat and vacuum sealed most of it to put it into the freezer.  

But wait, there's more!  I still have to pick the meat from what I boiled the other day.  

And eat the rest of the cranberry sauce, and the pumpkin pie...

As if that weren't enough, they passed out the birthday cupcakes at work today.  Being as I have a November birthday, I got one.

The pie is going to have to wait.  I'm eating my cupcake. 

And finally, happy last day of Hurricane season!  For the second year in a row, I didn't have to light my Jim Cantore repelling candle not once.