Just don't bother, it's all drivel

January 31, 2008
Thursday afternoon at the office on a very gray day

No time for lunch today, I settled for fast food from the snack machine downstairs, a candy bar, some pepperoni sticks. Eating that junk just made me want some real food. I have some leftover winter vegetable stew in the fridge at home, and hopefully on this dark rainy day that will be hot and satisfying whenever I get there.

Been fairly focused at work this week, going in early and coming home late. Without much in between. Working in NASIS, checking pedons in Pedon PC, writing OSD’s and TUD’s and trying to get a start on the DMU’s. All at once. And the digitizing of the maps is on the back burner again, while I tackle all this other stuff. Also on the back burner is the planning for the new crew coming in March. But that’s another story as well.

Deanna and Steven are blogging about their travels and adventures and Melody has some really great photos up to distract me, but not for long. I have also found a bunch of rv travelogues which just make me want to be anywhere but here going to work day after day. They show photos of Arizona sunsets and California deserts and Texas Big Bend Canyons that are all blustery and sunny on cool winter days, but not gray and rainy and dull. February is the same no matter where you are I guess, unless you are really very far south in this country, or in some tropical place.

Been watching the weather on Kauai as well, in Anahola Bay where we will be staying, and it’s raining there too, almost every day. The difference is that it is warm, and the rain comes every day, but not all day. Sunlight and warmth and tropical rains sound really delightful after all this gray wet cold stuff that has been coming down in the Mother Lode.

I got a call from Matthew today in Salem, saying he had been talking with Chad about the jobs to be advertised in Oregon. Looks as though they won’t get advertised until late February now, and that means the timeline for that possibility has moved up into late May, probably after I teach Basic Soil Survey in Lincoln. If then.

I go back and forth on that possibility, should I apply? Should I just stay here and ride it out? Deanna brought up the one thing that made me stop cold however, and that was the thought that even if I stay here, what if I decided that I needed to work longer anyway, then I would be stuck here for another two years. Two more killer hot summers working in poison oak, being far from my family, no chance to go hang out with Mo in the cool northwest, to kayak the Klamath, to get out of the heat and traffic and smog. Two more whole summers. That one brought me up short.

I have been thinking that if I stayed here I would try to retire in little more than a year, one more field season. Retiring in June of 09. But the reality is that I will probably procrastinate, trying to build up just a little more savings, trying to save a bit after the bills are paid, the debts are gone, the house is sold. How hard WILL it be to give up my salary, to actually do it!!? I don’t have a clue.

My house feels good now. Mo is here visiting, and during the day she works on the remodeling and painting. I go home and fix something for us to eat, since she really doesn’t like to do that. Mo is great at cycling laundry, I keep things clean, she does the wash, I cook. We watch Morning Joe at 530 after the dog is walked and the cats are fed, sharing coffee and laughing at stupid commercials and the antics of both political parties. We read the paper, watch the news, and play some dominoes after supper, and usually go early to bed and get ready for another day. It’s a simple routine, easy, quiet, predictable. The only time we have argued since we have been together daily since last Dec 1 is when I worked too late one night and she got pissy about having to do all the remodeling alone. That went away quickly, though, as soon as we had a 3 day weekend and I had time to do my share at home as well.

It’s all ok for now, but how will I feel when she goes back to her home in Oregon and one more time I am here, feeling lonely, feeling isolated, frustrated because the miles and the money back home to kids and family is more than I can manage? Do I really want to keep living like that for another 2 years?

All that is why I keep thinking about applying for the Redmond job. But that’s not necessarily any better work than I have here. It’s new, it’s a crap shoot, really, with new people to manage, new digs to get adjusted to, new boss, all new again. This job is hard, it sucks up my life, but that one would probably do the same. Any work that I do between now and the time I retire will suck up my life I am afraid. They just want more and more from us, and it gets more and more demanding to get it all done.

Redmond isn’t that great a place to live, either, it’s funky and not too clean, with funky people and snow and ice in the winter. Smith Rock SP is there, and I wouldn’t mind living near that place on the hill facing the western sky, with a view of the Cascades, and open space, but who knows if there is even anything there that would be possible for me to live in, that I could afford. Bend has all sorts of wonderful amenities, shopping, food, water, restaurants, but the traffic is every bit as bad as it is here. It’s more open, not claustrophobic, and of course, there is the 3 hour trip to get back home to Klamath, something I could do quite often if I didn’t have a home that demanded a lot of time.

All these thoughts just go round and round in my head. Do I want to go back to Oregon? Do I want to just finish it out here and deal with what is a known, rather than going back into the unknown again. Really, it’s more about where I would be living and working than anything else. The office in Redmond is crowded, and probably doesn’t have any kind of view, and no privacy, and I would have people around me all the time, no freedom, no space, no way to get away from all of it. Unless of course I was actually mapping on my own. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, mapping in country that actually had access and vegetation correlations and soils that aren’t 100 inches deep everywhere with bullet proof argillics. Maybe that would make it ok.

But the home thing is still out there. I don’t have a clue about that one. If I do sell my house, and there are no guarantees there, but if I did, my debts would be reduced considerably. I would use the dollars to pay most of the debt down, at least the biggest part. And if this place sold and I didn’t have to worry about rent here in California, I could then rent something there in Redmond that might feel ok. Maybe. Maybe. That’s the whole thing, that damn maybe thing. I know it took me 2 years to settle in here, finally, and sometimes I feel as though I am settling, and then of course the hot smoggy days full of cars and traffic and I yell, “I hate it here”. What to do, what to do. Sigh again.