Karla Noyes' Captain's Log Series

 At 4:30 the other morning a frightful sore throat woke me up. "Oh no, here we go." Should I get up and gargle warm salt water? Since I know the problem with covid is the body's overreaction, I took my temp (no fever), a Tylenol and went back to bed. When we were up and about I told Kevin about my throat, and to keep his distance. He said, "You were snoring so loud last night I had to sleep in the other room!"  Thus the sore throat. When I began working at the Vet's Home last year one of the men in my office had an unusual hair cut. He was Puerto Rican with golden-brown skin, black eyes and thick, black hair. He said he spent over $100 on his haircut which was shaved 3/8 inches long on the sides and back with a patch of longer hair on top, carefully trimmed to a glossy, mounded pelt. I admired his commitment to the style (all it needed was glass eyes and a tail.) Then covid hit and salons were shut down, everybody's hair grew. I was jealous that I didn...

This is getting old. We had a fire in Sonoma County a couple of weeks ago and now this one which is still burning. Fortunately, both have avoided our stretch of Sonoma Valley (for now.) It’s never pleasant to monitor social media for hours waiting to be told to evacuate. I was up to 3am keeping tabs on the fire’s progress. It’s foolish for us not to have ‘go bags’ packed but I ran through my mind over and over where to find everything. I should have just packed and relaxed. Our county supervisor says it took 40 minutes for the fire to roar down the ridge from the Sonoma-Napa county line to Highway 12 on the Sonoma Valley floor. The speed was due to the wind, which has stopped blowing a gale. Now, thankfully, the wind is coming from the south off the ocean and bringing the fog. We are breathing easier. Good lord, the wind has shifted again and is pushing west to east toward Napa which will slow/stop the spread in Sonoma County. The fire is still burning, and they are currently calling f...

  Some of you know everything; most of you know little about me losing my job. I’ll try to be brief. We all knew it was a possibility that I’ve been contemplating for months, still, it was a surprise. At the end of Tuesday, August 25, 15-minutes before quitting time, my supervisor shows up at my cubby and says, ‘so-and-so in HR wants to see you.’ He had the expression of a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar “not me, I wouldn’t steal a cookie.”   I was presented with a 1-inch thick stack of paper that was my rejection-of-employment-at-the-end-of-probation-report with 37 exhibits! I was stunned, which I’m sure he enjoyed. The HR woman said I could read it right now. At 5 minutes to 4pm? I don’t think so. We walked back to my cubby; everyone had left as per usual. I insisted that I show him the stacks of the project I was in the middle of, “It can wait until tomorrow.” “No, I’ll show you now.” I showed him. He left. I began to pack up my personal stuff and though...

 In Sonoma Valley we are between two large fires: to the east, in Napa County on their eastern Vaca hills, the LNU Lightning Complex fires; to the west, The Walbridge fire threatening Healdsburg, Windsor and Guerneville. The wind is favorable for us, at this time, blowing, in general, parallel with our valley, northwest to southeast. Wind is a crucial factor because a big wind can hurl glowing embers a mile.  At work, in Napa Valley, we saw the LNU fire begin and grow, see photo below. This photo was taken Thursday, from the top of the western Mayacamas range which is on the Sonoma/Napa county line. The Vets Home, in Yountville, is on the valley floor below and is in no immediate danger. One employee in our office had to dash out due to an evacuation order; she and her family live in those hills. We know she is safe but don't know about her house. Other employees in my office who live in Napa Valley were on the phone calling their friends, "come to my house if you ne...

We have our first 2 positive coronavirus tests on campus, both employees, one works with home members and, of course, they both got it from people they interact with off campus. We had to sign a document that we had received a letter stating these facts, apparently this is a requirement of the health department (thank you, health department.) This event has triggered a cascade of processes and procedures. I’m not aware of all of them, yet, but one of the residential units is locked down while they test their residents, and everyone is negative. If any of them come down with the bug it will be all over the campus because some of these guys flaunt authority; they’re the types who would’ve ended up in the brig, multiple times. The Post Exchange (PX), our convenience store, was shut down for the day but will reopen. The entrance and exit gates will be more heavily staffed, again. (Hmm, it might be harder to get a Notary on campus to sign the Power of Attorney (POA) forms that members des...

A little background: Months ago, when we were still allowing members to wander into our office, I had two experiences of feeling compelled to ask members to back away from an employee’s cubicle and have a seat in the waiting area until she was off the phone. She was speaking to the family member of a recently deceased resident and those conversations can last 20 to 45 minutes. In both instances, when I politely asked them to take a seat, and explained that we have a duty to respect privacy laws, they were so incensed, no one had ever spoken to them so rudely before in their entire lives!  In both cases they reported their upset to my supervisor. My boss was alarmed, and I got a long, stern lecture about the importance of customer service, with a strong rebuke that this absolutely must not happen again. Well, until yesterday.  The office is open to residents by appointment only, until recently none of us in the room were wearing masks. I should say no one but me w...

Do you have a favorite Captain’s Log? Let me know. I will be submitting one, or more, to HuffPost.com. They are looking for “original, authentic, compelling, first-person stories” and will pay. (I know some of you are writers so please consider submitting.) My favorites are the two catering pieces, the Mickey Mouse and the Arranged Marriage, and the Bicycle Boyfriend. What is yours? I’m going to be brief today because I want to spend my three-day weekend learning SharePoint, the new flavor-of-the-month software at work because I’m committed to making myself indispensable. What with the governor promising to cut state employee’s salaries by 10%, it would be just as easy for my supervisor to ‘let me go.’ I’d like to avoid that. Still no virus at the Vet’s Home (because it would go through that place like a scythe though a hot summer grain field.) It is unclear if I am going to get paid for the days I was required to be away from work due to my cold and their anti-virus rules. They a...