Smell-o-vision (My Fun Jobs)

My hiking boots were covered with fish entrails, sudsy water, iodine, and fish scales. I smelled of salmon guts and sweat. My fellow co-workers and I reeked and none of us were very popular as we crammed ourselves onto the bus. No one wanted to let us sit next to them and I can't say I blamed them. We were a weary, stinky crew. Too tired to joke or talk, I stared out the bus windows, not really seeing anything as the bus rolled past the factories and foundries of the industrial section of South Seattle. This was my third week working at this particular seafood processing plant. I was making  great wages! Ha! Yeah, right! After the temp. agency took their cut, we got $6.00 per hour. For the back-breaking work that the seafood company was making us do, we should've been getting at least $7.25 an hour. We griped about this every day during our measly 30 minute lunch break. A bunch of us were talking to the rest of the crew about asking the temp. agency for higher wages. We ran into lots of resistance from the Asian women, though. For them, $6.00 an hour was a king's ransom. They had moved to Seattle from China or Taiwan or some other Asian country; it was hard to understand them as their English wasn't very good. They refused to rock the boat, though. Where they had come from, $6.00 was a weeks' wages! They were living high on the hog in Seattle and couldn't understand why the rest of us were so unhappy with this job. Times were tough in Seattle in the early 1990's. The big internet boom was several years away. Working for a temporary staffing company was supposed to be much better than having a job in the fast food industry.

The woman who owned the seafood processing plant with her husband and family worked us very hard. She was always barking orders like a drill sergeant. "Hurry up with those hot cans! They have to be stacked on those trays before they can be cooled! Step it up! C'mon! Time is money!", she would yell at us first thing in the morning as we stumbled in from the street. Sometimes there wouldn't be enough oven-mitt things for everyone and she'd give the unlucky few old t-shirts to wrap around their hands as we grabbed the burning hot metal cans off the stacks coming from the sterilizer or the oven or whatever it was that sanitized them. After an hour of rushing around, crashing into other co-workers and burning our fingers, elbows, and various other upper body parts, Sheila the drill sergeant, would pull some of us off to help with the beheading of the salmon, or canning the chopped seafood. The smell of raw fish was overpowering and the concrete floor of the processing room was a slippery hazard of cold running water, suds, fish guts, and all sorts of other unsavory detritus. It was loud in there and boiling hot. There was a big conveyer belt that brought in the seafood that the men would grab and commence to gutting. They would fling the guts onto the floor and the cold rushing water would carry everything to huge drains in the center of the floor. It was easy to stumble or slip and fall on discarded fish guts. There wasn't anything to grab onto if this happened. I nearly fell every time I shifted position at the canning machine. It was impossible to hear Sheila or her husband, Dave when they were yelling at us to get us to do something. I just kept my head down and slammed the lids on the filled cans as they trundled down the line of the canning machine. I got a rhythm going after a while. Grab a can, slam the lid onto it, press the handle down, eject the can and repeat. Slam, press, eject. Slam, press, eject. I was a robot, mindlessly slamming, pressing, and ejecting.

Somebody figured out a way to discreetly throw a can lid in the canning contraption in such a way as to make the machine jam. When this occurred, the entire line ground to a dead stop so that the machine could be shut off and fixed. You couldn't throw a can lid in the machine too many times without Sheila and Dave becoming suspicious so we sort of timed our rebellions. It was wonderful to get a break from the noise and soul-crushing labor. We'd all stumble outside and have a smoke or a quick cat nap. The Asian ladies always clucked their tongues at us in disapproval. They loved to work! They couldn't get enough of the seafood plant and had to forced out the door at 5 p.m. They probably would have stayed all night if allowed to. God, no. Sheila and Dave were extremely careful never to have anyone work more than forty hours a week. No overtime for us peons!

One day I was rushing around helping this tiny Asian girl who looked like she was twelve years old. We were on can cleaning duty. We were washing out all the recycled cans that were going to be re-sterilized. Sheila and Dave were yelling at us but as usual it was too noisy in the main processing room to hear anything so I was nodding and smiling and ignoring them as usual. The young Asian girl did something with a can I didn't see because I was busy with my own can, and then she dropped it on my hand and it cut me. It must've been very sharp because then my hand started to gush blood, dramatically. I freaked out and Sheila sloshed over to see what had happened. She made me soak my hand in a vat of iodine which stung like hell. I had to stand there for twenty minutes with my hand submerged to the wrist, feeling foolish. The little Asian girl was nearly in tears as she repeated something over and over to me. It was probably an apology. Either that or she was telling me about a great recipe for canned salmon. Anyway, Sheila grudgingly gave me a bandage to put on my wound and sent me home. 

I decided  that weekend that the fish processing plant would get along fine without me and asked for another assignment. I got a new job... at a certain Seattle coffee company's warehouse, a few blocks north of the seafood plant. Oh, what fun I had there, working on the production line, bagging coffee beans for all the major airlines and some hoity-toity  hotels. It was interesting to see what some of the disgruntled employees did to those bags of coffee! I'll "spill the beans" in my next scintillating blog! Until then, my dears, goodnight!

Interesting Neighbors

Sleeping peacefully after a long day of doing practically nothing (as usual), I was shocked out of bed by the blaring of the visual/audio fire alarm that blasted through my apartment and through the entire Lake City House apartment building. 

   "Attention! Attention! An emergency has been reported in the building! All occupants are advised to vacate the building immediately! Do not use the elevators, use the stairs! Repeat! Do not use the elevators, use the stairs! Calmly wait in the lobby of the building for the fire department! Attention! Attention! An emergency has been reported in the building...". This was accompanied by a very loud wailing siren and flashing white lights. The lights were for the hearing impaired, the blast of noise was for the visually impaired. The emergencies were almost always the result of the intelligently-impaired. Almost every week some idiot burned some food on/in their stove and instead of opening the sliding glass doors to their balconies, they would open their front doors that lead to the halls. The halls all had very sensitive smoke detectors installed in the ceilings and when the smoke from the burned food was detected, the fire system for the entire building was activated, the flashing/strobe lights would start, the loud recorded voice would begin intoning its message of impending doom and one would be violently jarred out of bed or the shower or whatever calm activity one had been engaged in before the excitement began. 

We had many immigrants living there and far too numerous mentally ill folks. All the Russian immigrants on my floor were very sweet even though they didn't speak a word of English. They smiled at me as their visiting grandchildren gamboled around them like a litter of enthusiastic puppies. The Russian immigrants cooked some very ... umm... "interesting" food. I'm sure that to them, the food was wonderfully delicious but to some of the rest of us it was a trial to walk down the hall to our apartments sometimes. Smells reminiscent of boiled socks in brine or fried god-knows-what in hot oil would waft from their apartments and hit you full in the face as you got off the elevator. I would cover my face with my t-shirt only if the sweet little Russian folks weren't standing around in the hall. I didn't want to hurt their feelings. They probably thought our food smelled terrible, as well! I usually took a deep breath as the elevator approached my floor and only let it out after I had scurried to my apartment and shut the door behind me.

The Russians never set off the fire alarm. At least not on my floor. No, it was usually this perpetually drunk guy three doors down from my apartment. He was an old hippy and spent his days trying to sell people worthless junk he had been seen pulling out of the dumpsters behind our building and the nearby Value Village. He was nice enough but he got on my nerves because he was always trying to sell me stuff that had been mine, before I put it in the community room for anyone else who might want it! He must've dropped too much acid back in the day because he always saw me taking things out of my apartment and setting them on the tables in the community room. He'd come knocking on my door several hours later with the items in his arms and ask me if I wanted to buy anything. After a while I got tired of telling him that the stuff he was trying to sell was stuff I'd just given away. When he rang my doorbell, I'd peer through the peephole and if I saw that it was him, I'd ignore him until he gave up and shuffled away to someone else's apartment. As far as I know, no one ever bought any of his "treasures", as he called them. When he wasn't digging through dumpsters or trying to sell me my discarded stuff, he was attempting to cook food and then falling asleep. The fire department had to be dispatched to Lake City House seven times in one week! Finally, the Seattle Housing Authority decided that tenants who were responsible for the repeat offenses of being stupid and setting off the system for the entire building would need to pay a hefty fine for each incident. This was the best policy they ever implemented and many of us wished that it had been established sooner. The repeat offenders were outraged, of course. They couldn't afford the $75 fine for each fire department visit! It wasn't fair! Everyone in public housing was there because they couldn't afford to live anywhere else! How awful! How cruel! Someone should march down to City Hall and demand an audience with the mayor! Those of us who didn't repeatedly burn something and open the door to the hallway were not sympathetic to these whiners. The Seattle Fire Department wasn't sympathetic either. Eventually, the whining died down and the worst offenders either learned how to respond to a burned dinner or had to find another place to live. Those fines could really add up.

Be Careful What You Disclose

I have a big mouth. I have gotten into trouble concerning my big mouth. One would think I'd have learned my lesson... but no, apparently I haven't. Damn!

In the rush of enthusiasm I had last week when signing up with "facebook", I disclosed some personal information to someone with whom I attended high school and now she is lecturing me in regard to things with which she has no business! I let slip that I was taking medication for depression and insomnia and she trotted out the old "if you exercised regularly you wouldn't have any need for nasty prescription medication!" line. I was not good friends with this person in high school. In fact, I barely knew her and maybe had one conversation with her the entire three years I went to that school. Not only should I not be telling her everything in my life, I'm wondering why I even reconnected with her. Well, I reconnected with her because one of her pictures on her facebook profile was intriguing. She looked "dykey" and I wondered if she was a lesbian. I had wondered that in high school, as well. I think she is because she mentions a woman in her emails to me and I've seen pictures of her and this woman that make me suspect they are more than friends. 

Why do I think that just because someone is gay/lesbian I would be instant pals with them? This person never even mentions these words and I'm wondering if she's more or less in the closet? That might be from necessity as she does live in a part of West Virginia that isn't exactly a hotbed of liberal thought! So, perhaps she can't really say anything for fear of losing her job or something. I've been there and can completely understand. 

Anyway, aside from all that, I wish I hadn't been so quick to divulge a lot of the things about my life. I'm so tired of people judging me for the choices I make concerning my health. Somebody always thinks that they know better than I what is best for me! You don't like doctors? Fine! Avoid going to any doctor. My mother did that and she wound up dead at age fifty-six from lung cancer. Think taking prescription medication is wrong or a sign of failure? Fine! Avoid taking any diabetes medications and let's see how long you last! I'm a diabetic and I watch what I eat, exercise, and check my blood sugar twice a day. I also take medications and visit my doctors regularly. I also suffer from a variety of other things. Exercise helps a lot but when one is in so much pain that exercise is too much, then what? Dear Tom Cruise, I know medications are evil but what can I do?! I'm sure this woman meant well but I'm rather hacked off and am venting my spleen here instead of telling her. Truth be told, I don't have much in common with her. We are both women. We both went to the same high school in Virginia. Both of us might be lesbians, but one of us definitely is. Big deal. 

I tried to reconnect with another person from this same high school. Someone who was actually my friend back then. I helped him "come out" after he graduated high school. Unfortunately, he is the same as he was in high school: Completely into himself. I tried, vainly, to get him interested in my life but he was only interested in talking about himself, his man, his wonderful family, his job, etc. He was rather arrogant and self-absorbed in high school and apparently never grew out of that. I was saddened but I let him go. This woman, on the other hand, was someone I passed in the hallways and saw in my math class. We had one conversation about college and that was the extent of our contact. I wish I hadn't re-established contact with her. There's nothing to say to her, really. We don't even have other friends in common. I don't want to just ignore her but I don't know how to say what I've said here. Damn.

Me and my big mouth!

Loud Neighbors, Part 1.

Everywhere I live there is at least one really loud, obnoxious neighbor. I'm sure I'm not the only one who experiences this. At the moment, a downstairs neighbor is talking very loudly on her cellphone... ooops! No, she's arguing loudly with a neighbor, live and in person. The two women are sitting on wooden stools and arguing with each other. I wonder if they'll come to blows? That's happened before. The woman and her husband/boyfriend/lover/etc. have had some nice loud arguments before. They once had a furious argument at 2:00 a.m. that spilled into the parking lot and only ended when the woman jumped into her car and sped away. They also ran our doorbell at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday to slip some Jehovah's Witnesses tracts under our door. We were none too happy to be woken up that early on a Saturday! Even God usually doesn't wake us that early.

As I lean over and look out the window, I can see the two women. And hear them. They are no longer arguing and no weapons have been drawn. They are laughing and hugging. Well, I'm glad no weapons have been drawn but do they really need to scream with laughter and slam the apartment building's front door? Yes, I suppose they do. They're clueless about the other people living here.

Oh, I'm such a sour puss! It's 12:05 p.m.! I should be up and about, ready and raring to go. I am, sort of. I'm coming down from a few days on some serious medication: Mirtazapine. My new doctor prescribed it for my insomnia and depression. She told me to take two of the 15 mg. pills every bedtime for a week and then to bump it up to 45 mg. every bedtime. Ooooh, I don't think so! I took 30 mg. on Tuesday night and couldn't get my act together enough until yesterday! (Friday). Wow! That stuff really threw me for a loop. It knocked me ass over teakettle as the old saying goes. I awoke from my deep slumber long enough to eat a bit, use the bathroom, and take my diabetes medicine. When I was awake, I felt so weird, like I was wrapped in several layers of cotton and was stumbling along in maple syrup. I felt the way one does after surgery. The doctor did warn me that the first time I took the medicine it would knock me on my big ass but I wasn't prepared for the "aftermath". One pill suits me just fine, thanks.

This 'zine/blog/whatever the hell I'm calling it, is getting off the ground s-l-o-w-l-y. I apologize for that. I want it to be as cool as some of the stuff I read in "Creative Loafing", or "The Stranger". I used to despise Hollis Gillespie and her stream of consciousness crap that she writes about and publishes in "C.L." but in the last year or so I've noticed that she's tightened her writing up quite a bit and no longer just goes off on some weird tangent. Also, she doesn't just assume that everyone who reads her stuff knows who she's talking about. She does a bit better explaining who everyone is. That's what I want for this blog. I want to write about all my strange experiences that I've been torturing my friends with for the last twenty years. I want to write in that loose, hipster kind of way that Hollis G. has but not copy her, of course.

Coming soon... "Loud Neighbors, Part 2". I write about neighbors I've had in Seattle, WA.

New to this whole blogging thing

Well, well, well. Here I am, pretending to all the world that I actually have something noteworthy to share with the teeming masses. I'm always making fun of people who feel the need to blog. I mean, David Lasky has a blog and so does David Lee Ingersoll but both of them are artists and I'm not much of anything. I could be an artist but I'm usually suffering from some medical malady and can't stay out of the bathroom long enough to put pencil to paper or fingers to mouse in Adobe Photoshop. 

Oh, but, yippee! I'm well enough to write this, right now. I hope David Lee Ingersoll and David Lasky don't sue me for mentioning their names here. They are friends of mine. And brilliant artists. Look them up if you don't believe me.

So, the name of this blog is "One-Eyed Gott". I got the name of it from the misheard lyrics book by Gavin Edwards, "Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy". Somebody thought that old song by The Four Tops was called "Ain't No Woman Like The One-Eyed Gott", which I still find hilarious, every single time I say it. What in hell is a one-eyed Gott? Actually, isn't "Gott" German for God? Maybe it's about someone worshipping a Cyclops? At any rate, I have been considering and planning and scheming about having a 'zine with this great title that would have my pictures, poetry, book/cd reviews, musings on life, etc., but I never actually put it all together. It's been YEARS since I was in school (shout out to Shoreline Community College, Seattle, WA! WoooHooo!) and most of my layout knowledge wasn't all that great to begin with. Page layout used to bore me so much. Anyway, today I had just told my sweetie, Jennifer that I was going to do the 'zine by hand. We have a nice Macintosh but no printer or scanner. We are poor! We spent all her money on remodeling our condo. 

I think I will start on the paper version of the 'zine sometime this week. I gotta go halfway across town to my doctor and get some blood work done sometime in the next few days. Now that I'm living with Type 2 diabetes I'm finding that I have to schedule a lot of different doctor appointments, which is a drag. Just when I'm excited about getting some help for my adult A.D.D., I get slowed down by busy doctors with whom I must book months in advance for one lousy consultation! 

Ah, well. Such is life. Okay, I gotta go check my blood sugar and eat dinner. I'll write more about myself and my life soon.