Days 5, 6, 7, & 8: Yo Trabajo

These last several days became a blur as I bounced between the landscaping job, internet troubles, schoolwork, and friends.

Working the landscaping job reminded me how much I missed using my muscles, and at the end of every night, my body throbbed with pain. But it was a good kind of pain, a reminder that I could still toss and lift heavy bags of soil and landscaping debris. In addition, it was the mark of having fought with roots all day as I pulled and yanked out small Aspen trees, Russian sage, and various bushes.

I'm trying to save a few stalks of the Russian sage by sticking the roots into soil. I selected a few ends of the pulled plant. I selected those with a good root system and hope they will spring forth again. Right now, they're sitting inside the RV in a large bucket filled with moist soil. We'll see what happens!

Diane came out one day, and we worked together to finish the front yard. She worked on thinning out two bushes that had been planted too close to each other. As they aged, their boundaries overlapped into a tangled mess. Meanwhile, I worked over some type of thorny rose bush, thick and hiding lots of dead branches.

On Friday, I took the RV down to Salida to work on papers by the river. I arrived early enough and was awarded a prime parking space beneath a shade tree on the east bank of the Arkansas River. The way the tree was positioned ensured the RV would remain in the shade until around dinner time...and I hoped to be done grading by then.

A little after noon, I walked across the river and into town for a bite to eat and to do some thrift-store shopping. I scored two new skirts to wear at the desk job back in Utah and a used clothing rack for my shop. Now I would have a place to store and hang the Escalante sweatshirts. Just in time for autumn!

In the evening as I stepped from the RV, observing how to back out of the now-crowded lot, a young rafter looked over at me from where he loaded two paddleboards onto a trailer behind a painted bus. "Hey! Is that your rig?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Sure is beautiful," he said, looping the rope around one of the boards.

"Thanks," I said, grateful someone else could see the beauty in this old motorhome. Equally, it was an honor to be recognized for my paint job and the long hours (years!) of deliberating over color and style. The painting itself had been the easy part. It's not 100% done yet. There are still a few finishing touches I'd like to put on it.

Later, much later, I rode the rig out to National Forest land and parked as close to the main road as possible. I'd be back up early to work the landscaping job at 8.

In between the working, I saw a few friends: Ruby and Albert, Lynette and the kids, Captain, Jerry, AJ, and Vicki. I worked for Diane and Jim, so I saw them each time I went to get the landscaping vehicle.

Internet trouble.

I don't know if it's the hazy smoke from the California wildfires or the huge amount of tourist traffic eating up bandwidth, but accessing the internet became challenging. Pages would time out and the ticker on the loading-page bar would never reach the end.

On Sunday morning, Diane asked if I'd be coming up to Cottonwood Lake for the church picnic. "I'd love to hear you play your ukulele," she hinted.

"I can't," I said, reaching for the excuse that had become my life's anthem: "I still have papers to grade."

"Well, come up when you get done," she insisted.

How do I explain grading seven 15-page papers will take all day? How do I explain critically reading the paper, reviewing 10 different fiction-writing criteria, and assessing each criteria with rationale and specific examples from the text? While I enjoyed reading the student work, it was the analysis that drained my will to live. After reading and analyzing just one paper, my mind often felt like razors had been scrapped across the thin encasing that held my brain together. "Each paper takes me about 50 minutes," I said, settling for something she would understand.

"Okay, just make it up when you can."

I determined to try, so by 9:30 I was at the laundromat with a load of clothes. They had strong wifi, and so I parked the Godspeed in a spot where Buena could sit outside. I'd already flipped on my computer so it would be ready to go when I returned from adding the clothes to the washer.

Returning to the RV, I found Buena stretched to the end of her line, having discovered a prairie dog hole behind a rock.

Back inside the RV, I worked while doing laundry. I had to switch between the laundry's wifi and my Hotspot, but moving between the two, I somehow managed to finish one paper. At almost 11 o'clock, I hit "save" on the rubric. And....the system timed out. The rubric disappeared. In its place sat a red bar, warning me the system timed out.

Suddenly thrown into a technological hell, I cussed.

Yes, I cussed.

How could this be? I'd spent time eloquently analyzing the student's paper, explaining nuances of plot and underlying tension in the piece and the careful consideration she'd given to characterization. In addition, I made sure all my criticisms were soundly backed with rationale and examples from her work. Was all of that really lost?

I couldn't get internet (wifi or hotspot) at the laundry, so I moved closer to town and parked beneath a shade tree by the ball park. I put Buena outside, opened all the windows again, and flipped on the computer. While it started, I grabbed a seltzer water. Counting the cans, I noted it was already the 4th one of the day.

Sitting down to work, I felt a cool breeze blowing into the RV from the west. When I opened the computer and tried to access the internet, I couldn't.

It was then I realized what I must do: pay for a camping space with dedicated wifi. So I rolled over to Snowy Peaks. It was already around 1:30, and I recognized I would miss the picnic and be trapped inside, grading papers for the rest of the day.

Sadly, that one paper I'd graded at the laundromat was gone. I'd have to start over.

In the end, I finished all my grading by 11:30.