October 23, 2005

Sunday. 5 working days left. I’m so anticipating getting home. The little world here is making me claustrophobic. I just finished telling J. about my plans for my day off, Friday. Going to the French Quarter, doing a walking tour, hitting the Café du Monde for beignets & café au lait, trying a real NOLA Hurricane, maybe seeing a cemetery, and on the way home, getting a drive-through daiquiri. I realized I was getting better when I noticed myself laughing and getting animated. It’s the first time I found myself excited about anything for a long time---since before I was sick.
I may take a couple sick days when I get home, using the strep throat diagnosis from the clinic and just telling them I hadn’t had a chance to recover. Which is probably closer to the truth than I want to admit, anyway.
Today I admit I dread who I’ll be assigned with. I still don’t know why everything was so hard yesterday. When a driver is off, it makes everything difficult.

9:18 p.m.---So tired. Went out on 2 ERVs today. AM was great! Back with L. and 2 new folks: older woman, B., and young Americorps number, M. It went like a dream.
We got back to the yard about 2:00, and L. didn’t need to go out again. She put us on another ERV driven by N., who I didn’t know, with 2 crew members: T., and some guy who introduced himself as “P., the apostle”. Okay... There was some problem between them and the driver, (many snarky comments that seemed out of line), but we did all right. I felt bad for N., who seemed a little out of her depth, stuck with a couple crew people not at all inclined to make her life easier. We didn’t get back until 7:20. I didn’t really eat all day till after I got my shower.
So tired. Finish this tomorrow.