I’m ridiculously annoyed these days, and it’s pretty much all directed at the kid that Cowboy’s got working for him that’s living in my old camping trailer.

The kid is the grandson of a friend of the family, and he works hard enough although he’s got a lazy streak.

But he’s a filthy pig with no sense of polite houseguest behavior, and I’ve had quite enough.

What kind of houseguest uses his host’s towels? No, not a clean towel from under the sink; that would be quite appropriate. No, this kid grabs the closest towel to the shower, which happens to be Cowboy’s, and leaves it all crumpled up and stinky when he’s done with it.

Why stinky, when he’s just come out of the shower? Well, apparently this kid thinks two showers a week are excessive. He’s a complete slob, especially since these guys work hard and get stinky every day. I used the shower this morning, and he must have been the last one to use it last night, as the soap was dirty. Who leaves the soap all brown?

Cowboy took me out to lunch one day when he was working with that kid, so of course, we all went. Cowboy went and washed his hands; I went and washed my hands. Pig Pen? Oh, no. He preferred to eat his sandwich with the delicate seasoning of diesel and dirt all over it. It wasn’t too long after that that he joined us for dinner, again with the no hand washing. I have NOT encouraged that since; I don’t even mention dinner if he’s in the house.

This kid is getting free housing, such as it is, from his employer, and yet thinks it’s perfectly OK to use up the last of the shaving cream, use up shampoo that I bought (although granted, he doesn’t use much of it), and leave track marks on the toilet seat. I’m horrified every time he comes in the house.

Last night he came in and zoomed into the shower right in front of his host, who was watching the last five minutes of The Amazing Race with his clean clothes sitting right there in front of him. Honestly, I couldn’t have stood another five minutes of him standing in the room, he smelled so bad. He smokes like a chimney, and between that and the BO, I got an instant headache just from being in the same room with him.

My last straw last night was when he asked me if his overalls were dry. Look, asshole, I’m your boss’ spouse. I’m NOT going to do your fucking laundry for you. Cowboy must have thrown them in there so he could use his very own washer and dryer himself, or else he couldn’t stand the smell of driving in with him any more. Or, possibly, the overalls surrendered and dove into the washer themselves. That is more plausible than Pig Pen actually washing them, and I’m sure they were sentient by then.

I don’t know why he can’t go rent an apartment with his very own bathroom—Cowboy pays the boys enough to do that, and the other ones live on their own just fine. He doesn’t even drive his own vehicle to town, since it’s almost always broken. He takes one of the company vehicles, and last night he got stopped in it.

I don’t know why Cowboy is keeping him, except that it’s been really hard to find good workers. So hard that apparently he’ll settle for a barely adequate and thoroughly creepy one. Cowboy’s sometimes too nice to people.

I’m ready for that one to get fired. Or pressure-washed. That would do too. It’s going to take that.

Wow, I’ve really got the jitters. It seems that I’m on the cusp of either doing something very right or blowing it spectacularly, and it all has to fit together in a fairly tight timeline. I’ll get it done, no fear, but it’s going to be such a huge part of my business that the potential for failure has me a little spooked.

Yesterday I found out that our main client, the one we’ve been nagging to get his ducks in a row regarding the backflow program, has actually decided to get them lined up. He called Jeff on Sunday and let him know that he was going to have an official survey done before doing any work. Then he left for two weeks of vacation.

Trouble is, getting that survey done requires another license, one that neither of us have. My first reaction to Jeff was, “Well I’ll get it then. Do I have time?”

So today I went in and talked to the higher-ups (good thing he’s on vacation, because these people are better about getting stuff taken care of, but I couldn’t go over his head before.) I found a wonderfully nice manager that I hadn’t met before who showed me how to start the process for getting on the proposal list for the county. I’ve got some licenses to track down tomorrow, but I should be on their list by the afternoon.

And the engineers are working up the bid package now, so the big gamble is if I can get this license in time. The class is only offered by two places, and only twice a year by each of them. I called the more local guy because I should get a discount from him due to being a repeat customer, but if he doesn’t get back to me by tomorrow, I’m signing up at the other place. Then the race is really on, because that class is at the end of January and it takes 30 days for my paperwork to arrive, which puts me eligible for the work at the end of February. I hope they’ll accept an “in progress” if the bid packages are due before then. It’s a huge job though, and those engineers aren’t as familiar with the place as I am, so I think it will take more than two months to come out.

I’m not a gambler; this leap is probably the biggest yet I’ve taken with this business. I won’t have enough vacation time saved up from my day job by then, so I’ll have to take it unpaid. And there will be no mooching off of grandparents if the class is in Southern California, so there’s that much more money. But if I don’t do this, there’s no chance of getting the work to do the survey, and if someone else does the survey, they’ll probably wind up getting the repair work too. That repair work is really important to making this business a success, so I really need to go for it.

I have a slight advantage in the bidding process—I’m a woman-owned small business, which gets preferential points, and I live entirely in the District, which is also good for something. My main partner won’t be able to get that certificate in time, but will be able to work with me. If they count intangibles, I know more about this place than someone coming in off the street would, but that might not matter in a bid. I’ve done too much government work to count on that. All I can do is push on and cross my fingers about the timing.

So please excuse me while I go tear my hair out. Hats are in, right?

So we missed our cowboy party on Friday night, but for once it wasn’t due to us being party poopers. Well, we are, but the zero visibility fog was the excuse this time. I really wanted to go—we’ve been invited for the last three years, and the hostess keeps threatening to not invite us any more. The first time we skipped was for a good reason though; that was the year that I broke my leg spectacularly the day before the party. Yeah, we could have gone, but I was just out of the hospital that morning and totally drugged up. But sure! That would be fun! Not.

And on Saturday, Macri and I got together without kids or husbands for once, and drank too much wine and generally acted like teenagers again. Only, you know, with more alcohol and better cars and our own houses and stuff.

I swear, she’s got the memory of a freaking elephant. We were going through the yearbooks, wine in hand, and she had to remind me of who half the people were and why I knew them. I’m an idiot when it comes to those things. An idiot with swiss cheese memory.

I do remember our core circles, mostly, but I’ve only kept track of one of them besides Marci. She’s the one who updates me on what everyone’s doing, since she still lived in our hometown until last year. I damn near dropped off the face of the earth, and while there are a few people that I’d like to get back in touch with, apparently they don’t feel the same way about me.

And the reminiscing was a little ridiculous. I think that’s all we did for five hours straight. Well, that and eat Chinese food, and I did make another batch of candy. But I’m hoping I’ve got over the 80s kick. The music and movies are all very nice, but my god! The hair! The clothes! What were we thinking?!

Seriously, I’ll have to scan it, because I had horrible ugly feathered hair. I remember that I never could get it to go right and it was always too flat. Too flat?! Damn, it looked like the mullet of the 80s, and everyone had them!

Fortunately, you couldn’t see much of my clothes in the pictures, because I wasn’t the most stylish teenager. I remember wearing a lot of button-down oxford shirts, but I don’t remember if they were in vogue or not. Marci was always the fashion plate of the two of us, as she still is. But being in then meant some pretty extreme things. I seem to recall my sister shaving one side of her head and spiking the other, and it was hot and daring.

And the friends! Most of them are completely off the radar, having gone on to live their own lives. A reunion is all very good, but only some people show up, and it’s only for one particular class. Our friends spanned three or four classes, and there’s just no way to hear from these people. (Yes, we tried Google.)

But it sure was fun to try; we’ve really got to do this more often then every ten years.

And on Sunday, I got to play with the big toys. That’s one of the things I love about that Cowboy; he lets me play with his toys. No, not those toys! Get your mind out of the gutter!

He worked all weekend, so on Sunday afternoon, I went out to keep him company, and to try to entice him back in before dark so we could ride the horses. He knew I’d wanted to try the excavator, so when I pulled up, he climbed out and showed me what everything did. He went to working on the grader while I tried to scoop dirt out of a hole and put it somewhere else. That was when a video camera would have come in handy.

He makes it look so easy, I told him that I bet he could peel an orange with it. He laughed, and said he could damn sure chop one in half, but he didn’t know about peeling it. He makes the bucket look like an extension of his arm; his control so smooth and precise. I guess that’s what happens when you have 35 years worth of equipment experience. Yes, he was running a backhoe at 12 for his Dad.

Now when I got on it, it was funny. It looked like some giant praying mantis having an epileptic seizure. I have a hard time remembering my left from my right anyway, and it was taking me a while to get the hang of those joysticks. Up, down, in, out, etc.

So I was kind of getting the hang of it and actually moving some dirt, except where it had taken Cowboy two smooth movements to put it where he wanted it, it was taking me 47 fits and starts while I tried to remember what did what. Fortunately, everything stops when you let go in a panic, because I was humming along swinging the bucket, and suddenly it was TOO CLOSE! TOO CLOSE! Coming right at me! ACK!

But I let go of the handles and it stopped and I started to breathe again. Damn thing. I did enjoy myself immensely—playing in the sandbox on that scale is ten times the fun it was when I was a kid. Cowboy says the fun wears off after a ten-hour shift, but I don’t know. An hour went by without even nodding.

But then he needed to actually make some progress for a while, so he kicked me off the excavator’s cozy warm cab and let me play with the paddlewheel scraper. Now, this one was way higher on the scary scale because of the whole moving factor. The excavator is big, yes, but I didn’t feel like it was going to FALL OVER. Cowboy wanted me to run the scraper back and forth along the pad he’d already rough-graded so the weight of the tires would compact the dirt. Shit, and I haven’t driven a stick shift in years, and you’re going to trust me with this monstrous thing?

The shifting thing came back to me though, and the only really hairy part was driving along the sides of the pad at an angle. I was OK if the heavy part of the scraper was below me, but if it was on the uphill side, I kept feeling like it was going to roll over. Cowboy said not to worry, that I couldn’t roll it. Except over there, he said. Oh, good, that made me feel much better.

After he’d built up the pad with the excavator, he got back on the grader to flatten it out. I was supposed to go along and compact behind him. So when I got to the end, I turned around and dove right in.

Ahem.

He failed to mention that the scraper is much heavier than the grader, and that you compact from the outside in. So first I got it stuck, and then I killed it, and I didn’t know how to get it started again. I just sat there feeling silly until he came and rescued me. I wasn’t too worried about looking dumb, because I know how far some of the boys have got equipment stuck. There’s no way I could get in more trouble than any of them. He explained it a little more, because I have odd gaps in my earth-moving education that he didn’t know about, and on we went. I ended up working on the scraper for about three hours, and didn’t freeze my ass off until I stopped. Turns out that the exhaust runs up through the driver’s area, but I was glad for my heavy jacket and fluffy hat. Cowboy wished he had a fluffy hat!

I don’t think I actually helped all that much; I think the scraper work was just semi-useful busywork to keep me entertained. But he did finish that section of pad in one day, and he didn’t think he was going to when he started. I just liked the novelty of it, and also getting to see what exactly he does a little closer. The trenching and the pouring of the ditches is the most minor part of what he does; what takes weeks is building up dirt pads for miles to get ready to trench. Although I can see how monotonous it can get; Cowboy says his best thinking time is on the equipment, because his hands know what to do and it takes minimal brainwork. At least the excavator has a radio—the scraper and grader are much too loud even for a walkman.

He hasn’t tired me of wanting to play with the toys yet though. He says I need to just put in the hours digging holes and filling them back up on the backhoe to get proficient at it. I feel a little silly doing that, but he says you can’t expect to do actual work until you have a clue, so I guess when the backhoe comes home and it’s not bone-chilling cold out, I’ll be out playing.