Feast or Famine

The deal was that Combs, another FSA, would take my workday today after I took his Monday. He had a four-day weekend last weekend, and I'd have a four-day weekend this weekend; and combined with my half day yesterday, makes it more like five.

As I noted last, we had a problem with the water tanks... the problem continued all day long on Saturday, even though they promised we'd have it back Friday night. They had it up and running on Sunday though, so that was nice. I had a job again! Weekend duty isn't too bad... there is no quarters in the morning, no stores on-loads, and no berthing inspections... so I don't have to worry about straightening my rack, folding my blankets, locking everything up in my drawers and hiding my nearly-empty-backpack behind my pillow (I don't have enough room)... at 0445. :) So one can relax a little bit. I think I took several naps over the two days, watched a lot of football (Navy/Air Force, Gators/LSU college games on Sat -they let us off for dinner- and a bit of Dolphins/Bengals on Sun), and read quite a bit in The Hobbit.

I was sort of ready for everything to start up again on Monday, and the transition wasn't as bad as coming back from a weekend off, believe it or not. It was kind of hard to go straight into long days of work though. We had stores on-load right away. My self-appointed project of this week was to straighten up the condiments on the mess decks. Separated out the ketchup, mayo and relish packets... and good thing... we had burgers yesterday and we're out of the mayo bottles. Also, no one had bothered to notice that we were out of coffee creamers all weekend, and I even had the CO ask for some Monday morning. That really got my interest spiked in getting the 1st classes to get some for me from stores (only they have the keys). Put them out after lunch, and got several comments in just a few minutes... especially from the wardroom. Also thought we needed ketchup and mustard, and brought up a couple cases of those. Good thing, because people drink ketchup on burger days. :)

Tuesday was the other scullery guy's last day. We got an un-designated seaman as his replacement, and I like this guy a lot better. Takes care to do everything well, and thinks about what's going on. We talk about music too, because he likes classical and singing. I showed him everything and set him up to work that day, and the next day he told me he wished that FSA was a rate! :)

It helped a whole lot to have this long weekend ahead of me through Monday and Tuesday. Even though Wednesday was a half-day, I worked like crazy. We had stores on-load and a milk on-load right after it. Helped CS1 down in the refer (walk-in fridge and freezer next to it), and took the trouble to get the milk and juices loaded up, even though I'm not in charge there. Our new mess decks MA is not a hard charger like FC1 was, and I find myself leading quite a bit. I don't mind though... :) We've had a lot of new people in, and since I celebrated my half-way mark yesterday, I have a bit of seniority.

The five long days in a row are over, the four off are upon me!