October 15, 2008

Ammonia and Tiny Ham Badgers

Posted by Jessie under What, Where, alaska, interesting, sitka, southeast, work, writing | Tags: , , , , , , , |
[3] Comments 

800px-Ammonia-2D-dimensions

So it’s 7:20 this morning, and I have just been briefed on the glamorousness of my day’s work: asessing how many 3′x12′ sections of 8″ thickness wall foam will be needed for freezer construction (minus entrance door spaces - of course). Once asessed, I can call three different foam wall vendors, providing square footage and requesting bids.

Bossman leaves the room, and I’m sitting with my head cocked to one side, hoping if I stare at the AutoCad plot picture that way, some brain matter that remembers how to do geometry will ooze into place, and I will find the brilliant college grad hiding somewhere under the film of understimulation.

People start speedwalking around the office, and I catch the word ‘ammonia’ dropped a couple of times before a stealthy wall of chemical stench smacks me in my geometry-puzzled face. Tears and mucus run scared from their respective facial real estate, and I bust down the stairs and out into the fresh sleety air. Semi-official evacuation roll call says we’re all accounted for. My straightened hair on the other hand, is defeated in seconds by sky water.

D and I spend the morning clearing neighbor business people away from the building and procuring lunch from town for 22 since the galley is inhospitably fumey. At noon, the work area is declared “safe,” but I decline the opportunity to sit in an office where I can’t take a full breath without my eyes and throat stinging. Somehow it seems counterintuitive.

Instead I return home, pull on some sweat pants, burrow under a blanket on the couch (with afore-mentioned sleet kicking the crapbaskets out of the metal roof) and finish the brilliant last chapters of Christopher Moore’s “A Dirty Job .” (Thank you Ms. Megan Mao for the introduction). I love ammonia days! “Dirty Job” is a phenomenal read - go out and buy it now or may the book’s fourteen-inch badgers with ham torsos and renaissance regalia stab you with their tiny cutlasses.

I like reading books and lying on the couch, and I’m questioning my agreement to work at the seafood plant for most of the next year with only a couple weeks off. It’s just not how I do (especially if this business with the noxious gas clouds keeps up). Contrastingly, I’m feeling uncharacteristicly productive and non-broke. I have been working on Sharon’s biography fairly consistently. My goal is 1,000 - 2,000 words a day which would give me a reasonable time frame for finishing the book within 2009.

I have also been working on some sweet art projects/potential Christmas presents, and I hope this agreement to work doesn’t compromise my budding craft skills. Since I’ve pretty much agreed to be here, I suppose the next order of business is establishing Alaska residency, so I can get in on those sweet, sweet permanent fund dividends next year. Everyone just got their checks for over $3,000 per person. That could buy me a lot of reading, couch-lying, non-ammonia time.

 

October 3, 2008

Nucular Mavericks

Posted by Jessie under What, Where, alaska, news, southeast | Tags: , , , , , , , |
1 Comment 

This debate is driving me insane.

I decided to start drinking every time I heard the word “maverick” or the reeeeeally irritating mispronunciation of the word nuclear as “nuke you lar.”

Now my beer is empty.

 

August 15, 2008

T.G.I.August

Posted by Jessie under PDX, What, Where, alaska, fishing, oregon, portland, southeast, work, writing
[4] Comments 

What does a girl even try to write when she spends 12 hours a day (7 days a week) watching 50-lb. blocks of salmon slide past on conveyor belts?

Let’s try for a patchwork streamaconsciousness blog about some things that annoy and amuse me on a daily basis.

Salmon - Humpies, chum, sockeye, coho and kings. One million round pounds pass through this place every day in 24-hour production. That means I ship about 700,000 pounds of headed and gutted salmon carcasses every day. Or 14,000 50-lb. sacks. Or 14 of the 40-foot refrigerated shipping containers picture below.

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(My loading dock!)

Foreign workers - Jamaicans, Dominicans and Micronesians in particular make my days bearable with their accents and their stories. For example - Terron (Jamaica) today was telling me how a group of them went to a local bar twice to sing karaoke. The first time they got free beer for performing so well. He then went into a minute-long rendition of Eminem’s ‘Da-Doing-Doing-Doing’ song to give me an example of his mad rap skillz - sounding perfect as a Jamaican imitating a white guy imitating a Jamaican accent. The second time they went, they got kicked out for being underage.

All the Micronesians consider Portland their second home (the first being whichever island they were born on), so they keep telling me how where I live in Northeast Portland is a dangerous neighborhood (it’s not) and how we’re all going to get good and trashed at some Micro bar they know back home (we will).

More to come, but I have a very tight schedule to keep. It’s LOST time, and I need to know if Jack is going to finish this surgery or not. Sawyer and Kate’s lives are hanging in the balance, and shit is tense. Da-rama!

Then I have to be asleep by ten because 5:15 is a very terrible time of the AM to have to rise.

I miss you all, and I can’t wait to make my traditional fall rounds of visitation and merriment.

 

August 1, 2008

Tomorrow is the beginning of the end!

Posted by Jessie under What, Where, alaska, interesting, sitka, southeast, work, writing
[3] Comments 

The first of August. That means we’re at least halfway through the season. Fortunately slash unfortunately, there aren’t a whole hell of a lot of salmon kicking down our doors. That means less sleep deprivation but also less moneys in my pocket for post-season travel.

The bunkhouse has been a source of nearly non-stop drama. The workers are from the U.S., Micronesia, Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Jamaica, the Phillipines, the Dominican Republic, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Serbia…(I’m sure I’m missing somebody). Anyway - the bunkhouse rooms house 5 people, they have some parties and for some completely predictable reason - conflict ensues.

A recent incident involved police intervention at 3:30 a.m. to interrupt a Micronesian vs. Fillipino fight. At least one of the Micronesians spent the morning in jail, and about 20 people quit or were fired in one dramatic morning. That’s about one sixth of the work force.

I, on the other hand, just moved to a fantastic little cabin house which is almost directly between town and work (2.5 miles in either direction). Compared to the half-duplex that preceded it - across the street from the low-income housing playground - this place is a castle in heaven. It is small but has a hardwood loft and an expansive cedar deck which heighten and widen the lounging space. And…though it’s only probably 50 yards from the main highway, I’d never seen it from the road on my daily drive to and from work. It’s completely surrounded by trees and not by screaming children or chain-smoking parents. Refreshing.

Alas I must away with me. The hour draws late, and the salmon come a knocking early. I wake up at 5:15 a.m. to clock in after breakfast by 6.

I hope you’re all well and far more tan than I. We saw the sun yesterday…I think it had been about 20 days of rain before that.

I’m pasty.

 

July 14, 2008

Dear cousin, please send booze.

Posted by Jessie under What, Where, alaska, fishing, interesting, sitka, southeast, work, writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[3] Comments 

Because I vowed to post once a week and because I used all my brain power to fill out shipping documents, I present to you - a letter I wrote to my cousin.

(For muddled clarification: cousin=casha=cashew=cat shoe=shoe of the cat).

9 July ‘08

Dear Shoe of the Cat that bit me,

That’s what I’m going to start substituting for ‘hair of the dog.’ Hopefully I’ll need a little shoe of the cat tomorrow morning since freezer plant rumor is that we have a day off. Woot. Root.

I haven’t been d-runk in lord knows how long (probably 2 weeks), and my debauchery nerve is starting to tingle. I think we’ll be done with fish today by 3 pm, and since this little shipper has no clean up - just a touch of paperwork, I’m thinking of peelin’ some wheelies out of here, hitting the tavern and either taking a half day (from Army) or a full-on day off!! Yes it’s a pretty exciting day here in Sitka, AK.

[Side Note: Oh ga-rosse. I had to stop writing because one of the van loaders came inside with his hand dripping blood, because it had been smashed between two 50 lb. sacks o' salmon. I had to rush him upstairs to find a strong-stomached first aid giver, then find disposable gloves and someone to clean up the blood trail up the stairs. Then I came back to see I'd dropped my clipboard and my letter page in dirty boot dip chum water trailings.]

12 July ‘08

So…referencing the last time I wrote (excited about being drunk for the first time in sheer days), I told you on the phone about my three-drink surly blackout wherein I was all sweet and cuddles in the morning - not remembering doing everything in my power to be difficult and bratty after the bar. Ah sweet booze.

I guess to be fair, I had one glass of pinot grigio (or as I like to call it - Peanut Greasey-O or Peanut Grow-gee-oh) before I left the house, then had a deliciously dirty martini, then two rather large (and probably double) gin drinks…but still - come on! What a featherweight!

Also the next day (the 10th?), I was good ole Alaska hungover. Trying to crunch numbers and all the while, all I could think was, “If I could only take a 15-min. nap, I’d be just fine.” Luckily I got to go home early (an 8-hour day instead of a 12-14) but only after I’d struggled through a pretty terrible production report.

~

Now it’s after lunch and Keith the Chef made so many delicious, gut-expanding dishes: chicken enchiladas, rice & beans, butter & herb thin-sliced potatoes, GUAC! Actually he forgot to take the guac out of the freezer in time, so he kept referring to it as avocado ice cream. Heh.

Point of the matter being - I can no longer cross my legs, and my calves no longer fit in my Xtra Tuffs because of my quad-scoop avocado ice cream sundae. (Time to go clock back in).

~

It’s been a pretty busy day - especially compared to yesterday when I worked 6 - 7 AM then 4 - 7 PM. Today I have shipped 160,500 lbs. of chum salmon to Quindao, China and 53,040 lbs. of chum salmon roe to Tokyo, Japan. Pretty wicked fish shipping.

~

Heavens. It’s now 4:06 PM, and I have been quite the busy little beavis. I got some uncontrollable IBS right when I was supposed to be sealing and stickering a van and preparing the BL (bill of lading). I had to Scrubs-janitor-boot-scoot upstairs and barely made it, but let me tell you…it was a life-altering, weight loss event that gave me energy for the afternoon. Good thing because I have been running around weighing fish, juggling bay space, fixing label makers and generally pissing excellence.

Just gonna wrap this up, so I can get it mailed off to you. What I’m saying is - please send mental stimulation in return…even if it’s one page at a time. Your last little gem really did it for me. (You know what I mean…In my pants.)

~

Let’s see - it’s now after dinner, and I again ate myself sick. I hate that. This time there wasn’t even a good reason. It was spaghetti and veggies and salad…oh - and pickled beets. Why can’t I quit you, betaveles? So yeah - I’m sick and feel quite chinny. Gross. I’m seriously controlling my portions tomorrow.

Enough about that, let’s talk about food. I got some smoked salmon yesterday and while it was no ‘Father Jerry’ good, it was pretty tasty. Some fisherdudes off a huge tender named The American Lady gave it to Johnny (Juan) who fixed some shit on their boat. He, in turn, shared the wealth. He’s funny. He’s a short, extremely fast-talking Mexican from the Texas border. I can’t understand his English when he gets going fast, and the Dominicans can’t even understand his Spanish. He has “done time at the big house” as the kids say, and he has a bit of a crazy glint in his ojo, but he’s also one of the only people who doesn’t bug the crap out of me on a daily basis. He told me a story about wrestling with his “old lady” last night, and her elbow knocked his tooth out. He wasn’t mad - it was loose to begin with.

13 July ‘08

I got off work at lunch today, and I’m about to head back out to the plant for dinner. I have to say, I’m looking pretty fine (some call it showered), and I look forward to surprising the little Europeans who see me on a daily basis as an ugly, grumpy, disgruntled shipper.

On the other hand, I’m drinking an ice-cold Sierra Nebada and listening to Hank Williams III, and it makes me want to ditch my duties as taxi driver from the plant back to town and ditch dinner (gasp) and go to the bar instead.

I sure love you, cuz sin. I have really relished out recent chats. You are the scrote to my ween.

Slobbery salmon smooches,

J Mo Wizzle

[Author's note: If you didn't read this at http://starboardport.com, you probably read it on the website of a content thief. Click here to support the author by reading the original.]

 

July 5, 2008

Happy Dependence Day!

Posted by Jessie under What, Where, alaska, fishing, interesting, salmon, sitka, southeast, work | Tags: , , , , , , , |
[3] Comments 

Dependence on summer money, dependence on salmon…I have a lot to celebrate.

I’m carving a few minutes out of my day of sealing up and stickering shipping containers, writing production reports and crushing my fingers between blocks of frozen fish to tell you all hello.

Things are hot and heavy on the salmon front. According to my calculations, I’ve already shipped out over a million and a half pounds of chums.

Production switched almost immediately to a 24-hour day and hasn’t stopped for more than a few hours for the last week or so. I’ve worked 96 hours in the last 7 days.

It’s not so bad though. As opposed to last year, my position and duties are better-defined and better-appreciated. I track the fish coming out of the freezer, delineating between Chum, Pink, Sockeye, Coho and King and recording the weights for each species, so we can compare the numbers to our incoming pounds and calculate our recovery rate. Then I keep a master plan of where the product is, what’s staying in the cold storage, what’s shipping out to China or Japan or being shipped domestic (which means it goes in a different type of container).

When a container is at weight capacity with sacks of salmon, I fill out the bill of lading and contact the drivers from the transfer company, who then take the container to the barge landing. When the barge comes, the containers are stacked together and sorted in Seattle onto barges to Asia.

Anyway…that’s the boring details. Now for a good story.

I was trying to bust ass and move a pick up from the loading area, so our driver could pull our full container and replace it with an empty. As I rounded Bay 1, I planted my foot squarely on the giant power cord running the length of the chassis. Without the grip of the gravel under my Adidas, I hit the ground with a phenomenal home base slide-in on the right side of my body, and continued running momentarily, my legs churning air and gravel, until my brain caught up. Then I had to get up, tell the driver I was ok (I wasn’t…that shit hurt) and the god damned pick up was locked, so then I had to run up the stairs to the office - dusty and bleeding - to find the owner of the truck, so he could move it the fuck out of my way.

Nothing annoys me more than someone parking in my loading dock.

So anyway. I’m doing well. A little gravel-burned. Kind of sleepy. Soberer than I care to be but not sui or homi cidal.

Here’s hoping everyone had the 4th of July I dream you people have down there - beer, swimming, weenies, sunburns, weenie sunburns. Here we just had fog and rat bastard children lighting off fire crackers that ate into my 6 hours of scheduled sleep.

I’m old and grouchy.

[Author's note: If you didn't read this at http://starboardport.com, you probably read it on the website of a content thief. Click here to support the author by reading the original.]

 

June 18, 2008

Waiting for salmon in Sitka

Posted by Jessie under What, Where, alaska, fishing, interesting, photography, salmon, sitka, southeast, work, writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |
[4] Comments 

DSC01187logo

You can feel them.

They’re churning the waters of the Pacific Northwest. The tide is spitting and frothing with expectation.

The cadence of hammers, grinders, engines and bellowing skippers becomes more frantic by the day.

“Mend the nets

drain the oil

paint the hull

the reds are coming

the chums are coming!”

Eighteen hours isn’t enough daylight.

The tension is mounting. The cannery isn’t ready to process.

“Sharpen the chink blades

test the belts

fire up the freezer

the humpies are coming

the money fish are coming!”

They’re a herd of tiny aquatic buffalo, and they’re stampeding north by the millions. Put your ear in the water and listen to them surging forward.

You can’t stop them - they’re driven and desperate:

Swim, swim, swim, spawn and die.

Splashing and thrashing - dodging nets, claws, teeth and talons. The only thing that matters is reaching that stream. Jump and leap; Make the tourists clap with delight. They don’t know your desperation. Leap and smack your side against the water over and over and over until your organs give up. Beat your belly until your skein loosens into individual eggs. Pound the surface until your sperm sac relents. Spawn until you die.

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Watch out behind you, beside you. Watch out at the mouth of the creek you were born. Everywhere you go, the fishermen go - driven and desperate:

Fish, fish, fish, spawn and die.

In September, everyone will be in bad shape. The salmon will be rotting alive - still trying to swim farther up stream before all its flesh falls off. The fisherman, smelling of diesel and old fish, will be trying to pull in the last haul of barely-marketable protein. The newly-hatched fry will be cannibalizing its parents. The air will be thick with sun-warmed decay.

But for now it’s June. The pressure is mounting on the coil. Everyone is crouched and eager.

Millions of silver-scaled, single-minded salmon are screaming up the Inside Passage. Can you feel them in the tide? Are you ready for battle?

[Author's note: If you didn't read this at http://starboardport.com, you probably read it on the website of a content thief. Click here to support the author by reading the original.]

 

June 7, 2008

Stealing a writer’s words is criminal. Literally.

Posted by Jessie under What, interesting, work, writing
[4] Comments 

Following some suspicious incoming links to STARBOARDPORT, I found a website that is using a large quantity of my posts without permission and is thus “stealing” my intellectual property. I have sent an email asking for action in the form of:

1. Crediting the material to me and STARBOARDPORT

2. Excerpting the current posts and linking readers to the original content

3. Removing the posts

4. Paying me $XX per post via my PayPal account for the one-time use of content on the website.

It’s difficult territory because I support the share of creativity, ideas and inspiration, but I do gots to get paid, son. Someone could steal a painter’s idea - look at their painting and try to recreate it - but the product of the idea thievery would be slow coming and, depending on the thief’s painting skills, potentially unsuccessful. If they stole the original painting, it would be property theft.

copying-machine

From the brilliant minds at marriedtothesea.com

As a writer, it doesn’t matter how many hours I spend crafting up the perfect combinations of words. If I post them to my website, someone can copy, paste and create a spitting image of my work in seconds. They slap their name on it, post it to their smelly website, and the casual internet surfer is none the wiser. Yes, I have legal protection of my intellectual property but poking around threatening legal action (or taking it) takes up time and funds necessary for creating more perfect word combinations.

Grrrrr.

This post by Lorelle VanFossen (see how easy it is to use #1 and #2 above) is helpful if you find yourself in the same situation.

On the other hand, thank you most sincerely to those of you who do read my original stuff - either on the site or through an RSS feed. You guys don’t suck at all. In fact, I find you all to be quite handsome and intelligent.

That’s enough for now.

Today’s lesson: think (and ask!) before you copy and paste.

*I will be adding the note below to the end of all my posts. I don’t think the half-ape content robber barons really know how to read, so I doubt they’ll think to erase this from the bottom of the robbed material.

[Author's note: If you didn't read this at http://starboardport.com, you probably read it on the website of a content thief. Click here to support the author and read the original.]

 

May 13, 2008

Hot diggity tofu dog

Posted by Jessie under PDX, What, Where, alaska, oregon, portland, work, writing
1 Comment 

Well I have a couple weeks until I again ship North to Alaska for the rutting of the salmon. I have a couple days until the weather in Portland is predicted to hit 80s and 90s summer-style temperature.

Perhaps it’s a sign of the end times to go from 55 to 90 degrees in the span of a day or two, but I am god damn excited. Having spent every summer since I was 17 in Alaska*, I have had very limited recent experience with Northwest summer heat.

With these deadlines in mind, I have thrown myself full-throttle into an organization project to be completed before the onset of the weekend’s pseudo summer. I am not fooling around with this shit either. We’re talking college notes and papers (especially the embarrassing early J-school stories, written with abundant clichés and unfounded confidence) that have been shuffled around in boxes for a few years now - BURNED in the backyard fire pit! One 3-ring binder of especially poignant (later college) papers, super useful Spanish worksheets, digital imaging tip sheets, etc. survived the purge.

Boring correspondence of the, “Hello. How are you? I am fine.” variety (even those written in very attractive cards) - BURNED in the backyard fire pit! Postcards from foreign lands and letters that make me laugh have been spared and shall now share stories in a decorative shoebox.

Photos - underexposed, overexposed, those of dreadfully boring historic buildings from early travel, those taken by a middle school me with no concept of what would interest me 12 years down the road - THROWN into the garbage can! I didn’t think a bonfire of photo chemicals would be a very good idea, but I really hope no one in the landfill has the foresight to pocket any ugly early high school pictures of me, so that in a couple years when I’m the talk of the book author circuit, that person can’t sell them to a newspaper, causing everyone to stop buying my books because I am was dweeby.

Bank statements, credit card terms, Direct Loans billing statements - BURNED extra hard in the backyard fire pit! Tax paperwork made the cut not from fear of the IRS but from an anthropological interest in observing the augmenting number of W-2s and tracking my yearly income through its bipolar swings.

This project is a pretty huge pain in the ass and a test of my ability to punch sentimentality in its weepy, cluttery face, but at this point, the shedding of unnecessary paper layers is feeling pretty cathartic. I’m really glad it’s grey and gross outside. That helps.

Streamlinedly and uneasily** yours,

Jessie

*There was that one summer when I spent August in Moscow. That was amazing. And that other summer I spent June and July in Moscow and August - December in Mexico. Totally beside the point.

**A dime-sized ivory translucenty spider just crawled down my wall, and behind some (very organized) office supplies. I’m not a spider phobic or anything, but I prefer to know an exact whereabouts if it’s within arm’s reach.

 

May 12, 2008

Champagne and eggs

Posted by Jessie under PDX, What, Where, oregon, portland, writing
No Comments 

Sunday progressed as Sundays should. A mid-morning shower to remove the smoke and sweat of Saturday night. A few Ibuprofen washed down with potatoes, eggs and mimosas.

Back in bed with a buzz and a full belly, kamikaze raindrops flutter the leaves outside my window. Inching deeper into a down nest, I keep peripheral tabs on the weather above my book. I will away the ominous sunshine in exchange for greyer skies and fatter raindrops.

Hypnotized by turning pages, soon the book lies open on my chest, and morning champagne eases my eyelids closed.

There will be time to write, to clean, to organize, to pack, to ship fish … but let those thoughts wait their turns. Now is the time to worship the holiness of hedon Sunday with a meditative nap.

 

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