I wish Every Day were like Sunday

A quick blog before bed. Don't you find the weekends go far too quickly? I feel like I never have any time for myself to even sit and think anymore.
Anyways, Anthrax Central was finished by noon on Friday, however, I am still going to be very vigilant for the next two weeks for symptoms. We have a sheet of symptoms to watch for, unfortunately it is the usual ambiguous stuff like: red bug bite-esque bump which later forms into a vesicle and then gets a black spot in the middle, cold like symptoms, breathing problems (HELLO? I live in Smog Central, I always have trouble breathing in July), etc. Unfortunately when you work outside, you get bug bites all the time, and dust and smog get kicked up and it's very pleasant all around. I could have anthrax and chalk it up to heat stroke or kidney problems. *Sigh*

The burials we had turned out to be rather bizarre -- mostly moms and tots, meaning we had two cow burials where there were babies in utero (babies basically were smushed under the ribs of the mother), I had an adult and baby sheep buried face to face, there was another baby sheep elsewhere which Steve had excavated pre-Anthrax protocol, and then there were three horses. It was just a bit bizarre to find so many mothers and babies buried together. There were also a few burials that had a nasty kind of death-like, fleshy smell to them when you got to the deepest level of bones. Something just wasn't right with that place and we are all glad to never be going back.

Tomorrow we are back at Trull, by Darlington (the Nuke Plant) off of Courtice Road. The Trull family were United Empire Loyalists who settled in Ontario in 1793 and owned a sweet lakefront property where we have previously excavated two homestead sites. Tomorrow we are one field further than we were last year (so we have to walk over 4 fields carrying all our stuff *ugh*) where the original house is supposed to be located, and apparently there is a woodlot where a barn is still extant, although I hear it's pretty well on the ground or part of it is tilted at a crazy angle. Unfortunately, we are doing test pits in the woodlot tomorrow, so we are moving from Anthrax risk to West Nile risk. I really miss the Ontario of my childhood when there was no smog and West Nile virus. The Ontario government really has to try and figure out a way to cut down on those coal-burning factories. We're dying here! If only those government suits had to work outside for a summer -- then they might realize that action has to be taken ASAP rather then sitting on their bloody laurels and debating it. Spend the time and money for god's sakes. It makes me want to rip my hair out. Anyways, back to happy thoughts... I'll let you know what goodies we find in the 1x1's. We're heading directly into excavation right after Stage 3 is done anyhow, so I'll be at J.C. Trull for a few weeks. If we find any good artifacts, I'll take some photos. My personal favourites are keys, bottles, and beads, which I seem to have a knack for finding.
Anyways, this is longer than necessary... I'll post again soon.

~D.~

Grumpy Rant

Clairol discontinued my favourite shampoo (Daily Defense) and advised me to try their Aussie line, which costs $5 more than DD ever did. Fuckers!

I updated iTunes last night and it FUCKED me hard! I lost all the music files I had downloaded or bought from the iTunes store and only have the 700 or so songs I copied from cd's I own. I AM FUCKING PISSED! I had like 2700 songs on iTunes so now I am trying to figure out how to transfer songs from my iPod back to iTunes without having to pay for a program or lose anything else.

My parents went away yesterday and now the cats howl outside my freaking bedroom door all night. I swear to god Stanley better shut the hell up or I am locking him up in some room. It's bad enough that I don't get that much sleep because I usually wake up before 6am even though I don't intend to.

Work is also rocking this week. We got sent back to Riddle to excavate the ten animal burials and we have to wear protective clothing over our regular clothes, two pairs of latex gloves and then our regular work gloves, a face mask, use hand sanitizer all the freaking time, and wash our boots, tools, and clothes EVERY day after using them. This stupid anthrax thing better be for real because it's not exactly cold outside so we are all sweating our asses off in the get-ups we have to wear. Not to mention, the construction has basically begun all around us so earth movers drive by beeping and annoying the fuck out of us all day. The workmen driving them are also having a good laugh at our costumes. Talk about Freaks of the Week. UGH.

TUESDAY BLOWS!

Burleigh Falls

I finally have a moment to sit down and think about writing about last week's adventures, so here goes.
Last Monday I went up to Burleigh Falls, about a half hour north of Peterborough, to join another crew finish up Stage 3* assessment on an Iroquoian site on Chemong Lake. The couple of archaeologists that hosted myself and another staff member in their home were extremely nice and definitely showed us a good time. The highlight of the week was probably the fact that a movie crew for Cheaper by the Dozen 2 had taken up residence in town and all the locals were extremely excited. On Tuesday after work, Kris took us down to an island that was directly opposite one of the movie sets and we were able to watch some of the filming for a while. We sat on someone's dock with some binoculars and another girl (Jen) and I decided that we were going to jump in the lake because it was a brutally hot day. It was the first day this year that I had to break down and unzip my pants into shorts.
On Wednesday after dinner, Kris had his daughter Jenna drive us into town so we could play pool and drink at the Burleigh Falls lodge where some of the crew were staying. A lot of the trailers were set up across the road and since Burleigh Falls is so small, there is really nowhere else to socialize unless you want to hit a bigger town. Anyways, the Lodge is beautiful and after a while Bonnie Hunt, Tom Welling, and some of the other kids from the movie came in to eat dinner. Tom Welling and some of his buddies ended up drinking and playing pool at the table next to us all night, and let me tell you, he is quite attractive in person! I still marvel that I lived in Vancouver for two years and saw the Smallville sets around town a lot, but it took a random 4 day assignment in a small town in Ontario for me to actually see him. The most amusing part of the evening was probably watching the three local women (definitely cougars) who had tarted themselves up and kept following them all around the bar and even back and forth onto the patio as the guys were going out for cigarette breaks. It was all kind of sad and pathetic, but at the same time I guess it's not like we weren't kind of starstruck. However, I flat out refused to approach them, even though he and his buddies were blatantly watching our table all night and they even followed us out of the bar at the end of the evening. We basically shut the place down, so I guess there wasn't much else for them to do but see where the hell we were going, which unfortunately for them, was away to our beds for that early morning wake up call. I can tell you that I was definitely hurting the next morning -- very hungover and I had only a few hours of sleep. To top Thursday off, when our boss came to pick us up and take us back to TO in the afternoon, he rolled his ankle when his foot went through a plough furrow. There was much administering of ice, and talk of me perhaps having to drive the car back because I was the only one who could drive a standard, but in the end he was too stubborn to admit that he needed to let anyone do that for him and he drove us back himself. There was a lot of reassuring us that driving was the one thing that didn't hurt his foot and that he would never endanger us or himself. And I have to give him credit, he did drive in the slower lanes of the 401 and I never once felt unsafe; I just felt that it was foolish to even try and operate the gas and brake pedals with a fucked up foot. But whatever... today I am back with HC1 and we were sent out to Milton for the most useless surface collection ever. The field was hardly ploughed so there was like 10% visibility. Let's just say we got it done pretty quickly and then ate a leisurely lunch in an Irish pub where we were able to watch July 4th hot dog eating contests from the USA. It was pretty hardcore -- the world champion is this little Japanese guy who managed to pack away 49 hot dogs & buns in 10 minutes. Second place went to a young woman, who was also pretty small, and she ate 36 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. Craziness, I tell you. I have no idea where these eating contests got their start, but there were some downright disgusting moments. On the other hand, I was enjoying my Irish curry while watching the contest.
Anyways, I guess my last piece of news that came out of last week was that I got some good news from Newcastle about the program I applied for, but now it is a matter of when I can afford to go and if I can persuade them to let me defer. We shall see what happens. I am scared that it's a one time deal, but you never know. I am just excited that the one school I actually wanted to go to has accepted me.





*Stage 3 consists of digging 1m test units