And then Monday came.....

No pictures today, just some quiet reflection at 2 AM as I try to simultaneously stay awake and somehow rest my body for tomorrow (which means repair my body by means of a predetermined 3 digit number of the Ibuprofen tablets I will have taken by morning).  Today we learned that the humble occupation of an Oilfield gate guard, a job that is most often preferred by senior citizens to make a few bucks to supplement their snowbird fun, whatever that is, is not a job for wussies.  It is a job for MEN.  Or, manly WOMEN.  Today, frankly we had our butts kicked with non stop  semi trucks coming through our gates starting at about 7AM and continuing a good twelve hours before starting to slow down around 7 PM. Nearly 400 in all and very little time to have a break let alone go to the bathroom.  This was reportedly gravel for a base for a new oil rig.  Despite the best efforts of the water truck,  the dust continued to fly until it was caked on our clothes, face, everything.  A Gates ranch hand who arrived on the scene cheerfully let us know that the temp about 40 miles away was 112, but that we should be fine at 104. What his exterior temp dash gauge was currently showing.   That was roughly 6PM.  In the midst of this while trying to do our jobs we, or more accurately, Lisa found that most of the driver's though polite and willing to please, when asked, were unable to communicate their respective names through the noise of the Diesels. Many of them had hispanic names.  Why? Because  this is South Texas and many folks around here have hispanic origins duh.  Again, why do I mention this? because frankly hispanic names are, well, tougher to spell and tougher to communicate around noisy diesel trucks.   This was my experience,   "What?  "Goo Arrrow" he'd say.  First name I asked?   "That is my first name"  "How do you spell it?" "HERNANDEZ," " What?"  Or,  "my name is "HORE HAY".  How do you spell that ?  "JORGE"  "That spells "George", I thought you said your name was  "HORE HAY" .  You get the drift and these guys to their credit were polite and never once rolled their eyes as I would have once done.  This is however, a very simplified explanation of the problem.  So, like I said, by the time I got out into the melee, Lisa had them all trained to immediately produce Drivers Licenses.  Did I say I got my butt kicked, I did, working the last five hours of it.  Lisa on the other hand stood in the middle of the road very nearly a full twelve hours with long lines of vehicles both in front of her and behind.  She was directing traffic, cussing drivers and dodging semi's long before I rolled out of bed at about 3ish. This was after a tough graveyard shift wherein I signed in 2 trucks and basically surfed the Internet all night.  Alright I also killed a few spiders and shared a lot of my opinions with the security guy.   But that's the thing about my wife.  She walks into any situation and the cogs in her head start spinning and she just figures the most efficient means to accomplish the task at hand and has little patience for anybody not part of the plan.  She is amazing at this and in her previous careers, she has been quite intimidating to co workers.  Really, you would have to see this wonderful talent in action.  And that is why when I entered the melee this afternoon, normally ornery oilfield truck drivers were politely producing a drivers license, I mean over a hundred of them, over and over again every time they came through the gate in order to help me spell their names correctly.  Fat chance that happened with me at the clip board and my near perfectly bad hearing..  "jorge" is probably still "Hore Hay" but hey.  I can still admire the process.  She had them in lock step and what can I say, it was awesome. Thank God she was there and we got through the day.  I can only imagine what today would have looked like had she not been here.  Really quite scary.  Or more like me screaming like a little girl, shaking my fist at drivers, dropping papers everywhere, suffering a full on mental breakdown and finally hooking up the travel trailer and peeling gravel leaving. Full on humiliation.  And because that did not happen folks, is one of the thousands of reasons  why I love and can't live without her.  Hope it is back to a more normal controlled chaos tomorrow.  Time for more Ibuprofen.  Maybe tomorrow I will get a pic of the roadrunner that comes right up to the door to see what is going on.  They really are the coolest critters.....