Today is Monday, October 31st. The town celebrated Halloween with a big party last Saturday. I dressed up as a Mermaid. I wore a tight-fitting teal lame skirt with soft runching in the back. The skirt was overlayed with a taupe snakeskin print that easily teased the eye into looking like fish scales. I planned on wearing a gold lame top, but unfortunately it was a size 4 and wearing it made me look more like a 942 pound hippo lost in Studio 54. I made red starfish to fit on my chest out of plastic adhesive, tissues and construction paper. They actually turned out really well. They looked realistic and had nice curves. I wore a long blond wig, huge wooden fish earrings and covered myself in teal and gold glitter.
It seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately the glitter looked more like stubble. And with the shiny lame I ended up looking like a 942 pound hippo in drag! It was terrrible.
Tami didn’t have an easier time, either. The cardboard she got to cut her angel wings out of was so thick she nearly broke her hands in half trying to cut it. I got here an old feather pillow so she would have feathers to cover the angel wings with. Unfortanatly the feathers were brown and soggy and looked like they came from very sick birds. It was very late in the evening before we were even presentable. We met Erik and Nik before the party, neither of which put very much effort into thier costumes. Of course, they looked better than I did! Tami’s cosutme turned out okay, but her party goers kept getting caught on her wings. Nick just wore my blinky devil horns and the gold lame thing that was exempt from my outfit. Erik wore leather pants, black boots and a torn-up white tee shirt. I made up his face in black eyeliner and black lipstick. He was sopposed to be 80’s punk rock, but he looked more goth rock.
We got to the party just as the costumes were being judged. The gym was so packed with people you couldn’t dance, walk, find people, or even see the costumes being judged. It was hot, sticky, and the air reeked of beer. Every time I turned around someone walked in to me, causing my hair to stick to them. I felt pretty awkward. Needless to say, we didn’t stay long. Once we decided to take the party elsewhere, I realized my keys were no longer in the pocket of my coat. That was another thing. When you have 500 people in one building who all have the exact same red parka, bad things happen. We really need a coat check for this party. Since my legs about fell off walking back from the gym, Nik and Erik went back to the gym to search for my keys. Both of them moved every coat looking for my keys. And my keys weren’t small, either. They had a 30 inch woven lanyard on them, 14 keys all big and labled, and a red 1 gig flash drive. The search for my keys started less than an hour after I took my coat off. Whoever got my keys got them quick. When they weren’t recovered, they found my roommate and then I was able to get home and put warmer clothes on. Then I went down there myself and searched again. I told the people in charge of the party, and then re-traced my steps outside incase they fell out of my coast on the way to the party.
I ended up having a fun night, but remained anxious about loosing something so important to me and my job. They keys are still MIA, and tomorrow I will have to send a report to the chalet about the incidence. Whoever has the keys has 2 choices, they can either be good and noble and return them to the name on the keys, or keep them, gaining a new 1 gig flash drive and the ability to do some major damage on station. By now, I can only hope for the best.

Take a look at some of these amazing photos of the main body skies. A lot of these views occured early in the morning, which I wasn’t awake to fully enjoy. Luckily, my recent habit of staying awake late enabled me to see some truely amazing scenes.
I also loaded some new photos from the NASA tour from other folks who were on the tour too.

Things are starting to settle down a little bit. There was a great storm last night. Yesterday was Sunday, my one day off for the week, so a storm was a welcome guest as opposed to a nuisance. Saturday night we had our big Housing Party in Hut 10, but after the party I went bar hopping with some friends and we closed the bars down. Needless to say, I slept in on Sunday till noon. It was great! I haven’t been able to sleep in that late since I got here in August! Then I enjoyed a mellow brunch. I usually get to brunch at 10 and there are people bustling about, eager to hear the news from the night before. But getting to brunch afternoon allowed me a quiet table where I could read the paper and chat quietly. Then Erik and Nik and I watched movies for the rest of the day. Erik shared his homemade smoked King Salmon with me, and Nik shared his bittersweet chocolate. When dinner time came, we braved the battling wind and wet and picked up burgers from burger bar to take back home and eat during the movies. It was a fabulous day off.

Friday I had my teeth cleaned by the resident dentist. What an experience!
There are some trends in McMurdo that permeate through all departments. One really common problem deals with lack of adequate parts to do the job. Last year the electricians didn’t have any 3 phase ballasts, which they needed for the runways. The maintenance people did without several sizes of bolts. You name it, people don’t have it. In our department, we have several vacuum hoses that are not compatible with the vacuums we have. We have steam cleaners that break and there are no replacement parts to fix them. We have about 15 buffers that must have been here from the Navy days that the power switch has been removed from (don’t ask me why). We have plungers that are so soft and small they wouldn’t unclog a Barbie toilet. We have plungers that are so big and hard even our Hercules-like janitors can’t plunge with them. We don’t have any normal plungers that I’ve seen in the states. And if you do want to purchase something, it must be ordered for shipping on the vessel, which is a year behind the fiscal year. Combine that with the fact that the vessel arrives in January and you end up requesting parts you never see. For instance, if I ordered something now for my department, it would arrive on station in 2007 at the earliest.
We all just make do with what we can. Nothing works the way we’d like it to, but pretty much everything can be made to work. I never thought this sort of thing would pass on to the dentist as well. To make a short story long, she used equipment on my teeth that must currently be outlawed in the states. I didn’t have any cavities, I didn’t have any dental problems, but never have I felt so scared at the dentist before.
She cleaned the plaque off my teeth with a machine so high-pitched and horrid-sounding that I had nightmares that night. The toothpaste must have long ago expired because rather than being pasty it was solid and rubbed on to my teeth in chunks.
The best part was the spinning toothpaste applicator attachment. I don’t know the official term for it, but everyone who has their teeth cleaned has seen one. Well, before the dentist put it in my mouth she said this, “Sometimes this little spinning part falls off while it’s in someone’s mouth. If this happens to you, don’t swallow it.”
Gulp.
It came of 23 times before she got the top row of my teeth done. Every time it fell off, the dentist had to fish it out of my mouth, take the device out of my mouth, re-attach it, re-apply the rock-solid toothpaste, and then start over again. It was slow going. By the time that poor woman finished cleaning my teeth the receptionist already sent me another post card saying it’s time to get my teeth cleaned.
How she managed to finish cleaning my teeth without screaming in frustration is beyond me. I guess that’s why she’s a professional.
Oh, did I mention that the chair is really old and built for people back in the day before Americans drank ‘fortified’ milk and were about 6 inches smaller? I barely fit in the thing. And the head pillow fell off with my head in it. I nearly lost my head. The dentist had to re-attach it with my head dangling there. The chair was so weird I think my ear was her elbow rest. Top that off with the fast that the rinsing machine didn’t work very accurately, which means by the end of the cleaning my face, hair, neck, shoulders, arms, and chest were sopping wet with water. I kid you not. I am serious.
But what can I say? I just got my teeth cleaned by a professional for free. I didn’t pay one cent. It was scary, oh boy was it, but yeah, I’d do it again.

Yes, I do realize I haven’t written in quite a while. I don’t even have very much time right now to write, but I can’t help myself. The great mainbody rush has begun!
At first, I admit it, I was scared. So many people came to invade the perfection that is Winfly. It took me about a week to adjust to the increased the workload, the new names to learn, the lines to wait in, and the difficulty of finding seats during mealtimes. But after about a week, something happened. I just fell into sync. Suddenly, I started working like a new person. My mind became diligent and task oriented, not the fun-loving lax mind of before. But boy, did it make me tired.
I would work, work, then work some more. Occasionally I would eat, and once in a while I would sleep. It’s not so much that I couldn’t sleep, it’s more like I couldn’t bear the thought of falling asleep for fear that the day would end and I would never get to enjoy that day again. As scared as I was in the first week, all in all, it’s been really fun. Yes, I had to work a few Sundays. Yes, I am working past my 5:30 stop time almost everyday. The problem is, when you work so much, you get tired, then you feel like you are so tired and working so much that you deserve extra breaks during the day. So, yeah, I’ve been working late, but I’ve also enjoyed a few long lunches and so forth. It’s all self-induced.
Am I rambling? Why haven’t I blogged in so long? From reading the above-you may think it’s because I am too busy to blog. But that’s the point I am trying not to make. See, I could be working right now. If I was working right now, I’d probably finish on time today. But I am justifying a little break for myself. And now I know I will work late. Mostly I haven’t blogged because there just isn’t that much to say.
I could go on and on about my work. But, it would probably go like this entry has been going, and who wants to read that?
I work. I eat. I chat. I sleep. I go to the coffee house. I have some wine. I drink lots of water. It’s just not exciting. I do have a package in the mail. That’s exciting. I’ll wait until the post office opens up, and then I’ll get my package, and then I can write about that! I hope it’s my yogurt!