We have a hard time coping with how fast the week goes. We sit at breakfast on Monday and ask each other if we are ready for one more week? Ready? Who is ever ready for this? We pack up our stuff and head for the Archives. We greet Anthony, who is usually sitting at the reception computer, and then we look for Anne who sits at the research computer (but sometimes she is down on the second floor looking stuff up for the State Bureau of Investigations, SBI for short). Most of the time Bill has the key to the elevator ready but if not, then Anthony or even Art if he is around opens the door for us. This is a security measure put in place since 9/11. We press the 3R button to open the back door of the elevator to let us into the digitizing area. Jeff calls this the shortest hallway in the building - the elevator with front and back doors.
Someone has preceded us to our room and turned on the lights - they have to be on at least 15 minutes before we can adequately use them.
The first thing we do is click on the camera and then the computer and put our hats, coats and stuff on the table. Christina is usually at her digitizing machine and we are happy to see her. She is a temporary person here and works for another company that is doing the BDM for the state. I sit at the computer and start the dCamX and we then retrieve a book from the pile, look at the dates in the front and the back and then enter those in the Metadata sheet on the computer, do the routine of focus, whiteboard, greyscale, LSI and then the fun begins. One of us sits at the computer and clicks the image while the other runs the cradle and turns the pages etc.
Lunch time is a party of sorts. We eat lunch with Anthony (he stays a very short time) and Anne and Bill and I sit for an hour - glad to do something else than what we do while at our stations. When Nine was still on the staff she ate with us as well. She had such a thick Maine accent that I rarely understood what she said, but we figured that if she laughed, then we should laugh and that is how it went.
At 3.30-3.45pm we call it a day - otherwise they throw us out at 4pm which is when the office closes and the 9/11 rules say no one from anywhere can be in the building after 4pm or the security police will come by and search you out (too bad they did not search out the flying squirrel before this past week - not too swift are they?) The Bat has never been captured either so I do not know what they do about it either. There are motion sensors throughout the building - happy batting Bat.........keep them guessing who is in the rooms?
We go home by way of the YMCA for exercise (just to keep us alive) and then at home we make dinner (read that, Bill relaxes while I cook dinner) and then we eat. Not much time left of the day after this so we go to bed and get up the next day and start all over again.
However, on Thursday, it is a shock to see that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are all done and put to bed and it is Thursday............again. How in the world does this happen? Perhaps they should cancel Thursday? On Friday we stop digitizing about 2pm while Bill struggles with the book-keeping and the reports and I keep digitizing. We disconnect the shuttle, put it to bed in the little suitcase that they have for the shuttle carrier, stuff it into a snug little box, slap a prepaid mailing sticker on it and take it to the Fed Ex office. Drop it off and then make a beeline for home to be there by 4.30pm for the Ward Mission Leader meeting with the ward mission leader and the missionaries and the Relief Society President. After about an hour of reports etc. they all leave and we are exhausted - I make dinner and then we go to bed and try to get up early on Saturday - sometimes we succeed. Bill goes off to the YMCA, and I go walking and after the morning is completely used up, we go out for Lunch and then prepare Sunday School lessons for Sunday and go to bed - again - only to get up early on Sunday morning for meetings.
In the event that we have a little spare time, we do laundry, read scriptures together, prepare Sunday Lessons, call Sara and David, answer and write emails, and try to hook into something normal like take a shower or read the daily paper. Not good to be totally cut off - we have to live in this society as well as coast through with our missionary badges hanging on our lapels.
I guess I had forgotten how regimented the mission life can become. But it is ok. that we go through this. It is just that Thursday seems to creep up on us and jump out of the bushes so to speak and we are completely surprised at its appearance. Thursday is just that kind of a day.
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