Feeling Festive

Sigh...I'll blame it on overwrought emotions, but really I think part of me wanted to get way too drunk.  I went through the motions of eating some breakfast, but you're really stacking the deck against yourself when you wake up at 7am to start celebrating xmas the way this town does best.  I joined a friend for coffee with Bailey's and a room picnic before heading to our department's pre-party "toast."  This conjures the image of a group of classy people clinking champagne glasses, right?  To be fair, there was champagne.  There was also a keg of IPA, and, you know, paper cups are small, so you should fill yours many, many times.  Our revelry only increased when we had to move tables aside and arrange some dunnage for last-minute South Pole cargo to be delivered via forklift.

The main event this weekend is the town xmas party.  They clear out the vehicles and clean the oil and hydraulic fluid from the maintenance garages.  Santa and his sleigh are available for photos (you lap-sitting is strongly encouraged), there's bad dance music, and everyone's devoted to partying.

Suffice to say, I bruised my knees bowing before the toilet, then slept a long long time.  Everything is ok now, and I was able to enjoy my lobster tail and mashed potatoes and chocolate truffles today.  Also suffice to say, many people expressed heartfelt appreciation of each other, including myself and particular friends of mine.  So the dessert and hugs made it a great holiday.

late-night light

-Oh geez, I almost forgot: it was also Solstice Silent Dance Party!  Except because of xmas, we changed everyone's day off, so no one came.  But I had my own private celebration, and let the raw and life-affirming energy of Green Day channel itself through my limbs and out into the Antarctic midnight sun.

Scattershot

The vastness of the landscape neutralizes all urgency.  Our myriad bustling, to-ing and fro-ing -- like frenzied ants picking their way across an endless stretch of desert -- is diminished by massive volcanic mountain ranges, colossal glaciers, towering icebergs, entire frozen seas.

Ivan looms large until one remembers Mt. Erebus is 12,448 ft high.

We had a toga-themed day bar, to which one team lead wore a garment of cargo netting, and another fashioned a more typical bed sheet-type toga with cannabis print.  Awe-struck, I had several questions:
1. Where did someone find bed sheets with pot plants on them?
2. Were they part of a room-wide decor theme, or just a one-off?
3. Why did the owner decide to give said sheets away?
4. How did Tom make the brilliant decision to pair them with a bright yellow fanny pack?

My contribution to the event was determining the ingredients of the signature cocktail: an Alexander the Grape is equal parts red wine and gin.
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Because I'm in a list-making mood...this week, mealtime discussions included the following topics:

- what defines a life well lived
- what is happiness and how long can one sustain a state of happiness
- how to make marshmallows from scratch
- whether or not you need to put on shoes to go to the public dorm bathroom
- that farts are always funny

Industrial skittles, guzzle the rainbow.

Driving Force

It occurs to me that I have not thoroughly described the job of shuttle driver.  So, the Shuttles department is tasked with:

- transporting passengers to and from the airfield
- driving support staff to and from the airfield, including anyone from cargo handlers to ground control workers to the food service staff
- taking crew to, from, and around the airfield (usually divided by role and rank -- it would be tragic for the officers to ride with the enlisted, and the mechanics are busy at different times than the pilots)
- taxi rides around town when people have lots of equipment or heavy/bulky items
- bag drag and bellhop (getting passenger baggage to and from the transport building and dorms)
- driving fancy NASA scientists to the Long Duration Balloon facility to play with giant balloons
- check out vehicles, which boils down to pulling dipsticks, looking for leaks, and noting mileage
- dispatching vehicles while monitoring two radio channels
- in theory, washing vans and windows

Up close to an LC130, waiting for the crew to offload the 

precious urn coffee they require to fly (and survival bags).

Normally things are pretty organized and chill.  I spend a lot of time reading, knitting, applying temporary tattoos reviewing equipment operation manuals in between drives.  But then a flight to, say, South Pole will be delayed by weather.  This triggers a cascade of rescheduling, reassigning drivers and vans, or even driving a Delta -- which achieves maybe 18 mph with the pedal to the floor.  Even when our plans get scrambled, though, it's still pretty chill.

This week we all faced the harsh reality of nature: not one but two adorable baby seals wormed their way to the airfield. That is, the opposite direction of the temporary ice and their mothers (their source of food).  So cute, so meekly confused.  Sorry little guys, we're not allowed to interfere, and could only ogle you on your way to a long cold sleep.  A few of us considered pooling funds to pay the $10,000 fine and scoop you up into the warm van and go joyriding for a day, but you probably would've just been scared and pooped all over.

Maybe he'll reorient himself, or find some abandoned hotdogs to snack on.

Bonus photo: I made it out to the pressure ridges for a record fifth time this season, and I climbed Castle Rock (in the background) earlier the same day.  Loving the two-day-weekend life.

Smoothing Things Out

We've been having some splendid weather -- 30F and sunny and nearly windless, which translates to wearing jeans and a fleece outside.  I like having a sort of work uniform, and so feel a bit exposed without my insulated Carhartts, complete with notebook and pens in my pockets.  But on such balmy days I enjoy strolling around town in my second-hand rainbow-glitter boots. 

This is a social experiment to see if more people click on a post if there's a human in the picture.

I prefer pictures without humans, but I'd guess I'm in the minority.

The warm weather, though, is making parts of the road go to shit.  A crucial half mile section called "the transition" goes from our rocky island onto the permanent ice shelf, and features long cracks, large bumps, and most recently about two-foot-deep sand-like slush.  I first tackled it with some trepidation in (thankfully) a van empty of passengers.  Returning to town, though, I had a crowd of Air National Guard guys, tired after a long shift and full of bro-y banter.  Managing to sound both apologetic and gruff, I told them the ride was going to get rough.  I connected with my deep northwoods roots and powered through this wild stretch of soupy snow and transmission-ravenous ice potholes; we nearly mired down in haphazard ruts and it felt like we were offroading over boulders.  But I sufficiently gunned it and kept pace with the wildly spinning wheel, eliciting cheers from my passengers.

My roomie's fruit hoarding is reaching clinical diagnosis stage: he's squirreled away a dozen apples, a basket of mandarins, several recalcitrant hard pears, and 40 bananas -- "for the winter."  Since ours is already maxed out, he's colonizing a larger warehouse freezer to continue misering his doomsday smoothie ingredients.

Some sort of contraption that supposedly improves the snow road.