A Celebrity Returns Home

Well I’m back and for some reason for the first time since I left I’m wearing my glasses again.  It’s really weird but I don’t seem to need to wear my glasses in the outside world.  Here I seem to need to, maybe it has something to do with the dry air or the fluorescent lighting.

Leaving home today I had a mix of emotions going on.  On one hand I was relatively pleased that this last week off had gone so well and that my time at home was pleasant and relaxing.  On the other hand, likely as a result of the aforementioned reasons, I was quite despondent at the thought of leaving.  Emotionally I was quite sad at the thought that I would be missing out on things at home.  Now logically I know there’s really nothing that I’m missing that’s all that exciting but… those pesky emotions are quite hard to ignore.

While waiting in the Kelowna airport I spotted a tag on another traveller’s luggage that indicated he was coming here to camp as well.  Naturally curious I asked him if he was indeed coming to camp and he said that yes he was.  We chatted a bit and he’s a rather pleasant fellow but of course he couldn’t help but ask a number of questions about things happening here at the lodge.  Now I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it en-blog before but I’ve laughingly been referring to myself and the other people that work in our office as ‘Local Celebrities’.  Everyone in this place knows us and they all want and need us to help them CONSTANTLY!  There are times when the whole situation gets absolutely outrageous.  When I am off work I generally cloister myself in my room because anytime I go out into the hall someone invariably wants me to do something for them.  One night before I went on turnaround I was standing in our bathroom, in my pyjamas, brushing my teeth and a Gentleman, that doesn’t even work for my company, was happily asking me if I knew any information about his upcoming turnaround.  This is the type of harassment, only magnified 1,000 times, that I believe makes real celebrities act like horrible people (or as refugee’s in other countries).  It’s absolutely draining to be on the job all the time.  Usually my response to most requests while I’m obviously not working is “sure after you go dig me a ditch / weld me something / do whatever the hell it is while your on the job I’ll be more than happy to do that for you”.  Generally that works but sometimes you just have to acquiesce to their demand / query and do what they want because some of these guys are just that much of a pain.  So with that said I’m back in the public light so “what’s your question?”