This week at Casey: 20 September 2013

With the end of our winter season approaching, the need for me to move all my stuff out of my three rooms and my hallway has become dire. The favoured method used to implement this cull of wasted space is to simply find the nearest trashcan and fill it. However, after about 80 minutes of procrastination (two episodes of Breaking Bad), I managed to find myself staring down the shallow barrels of no less than three different trashcans, which like some sort of trio of wild poisonous animals each exhibit different colours as a warning to approaching predators. As most staff should know by now, these colours are no aposematic display*, they are in fact the first step in a simple labeling system designed to insure you feed these trash cans in accordance to their very specific dietary needs.

So to burn a few more hours before having to remediate my winter living space, I decided to visit one of our resident plumbers for a tour of the station incinerator to better understand why we need to abide by our waste management plan.

Ben

* being conspicuous and serving to warn, e.g. aposematic coloration in butterflies (Yes, I had to look it up. Ed.)

Well, another week has gone, and a quiet one at that. The weather has been all over the place, one day blizzards then positive one degree the next day which is quite warm for this time of year. It is very unusual to see people walking around outside in work shirts and no jackets, although this makes trying to get a Cape Poinsett trip up and running difficult as it’s already been cancelled three times due to weather. We also experienced some rain, which is an unusual phenomenon here at Casey.

Friday the 13^th proved all too much for some people. I don’t think I will ever get up to the toilet through a scary film again; I scared Michael S so much that we were all quite sure it was a squeal and not a scream. It had everyone looking for the owner of the strange female noise.

Saturday night was the Casey pub night, with great fare once again from Scotty. After dinner, a good movie and then some stayed around to watch that strange game they call rugby… don’t these people know about AFL yet?

A pretty good week.

Michael W.

The Spring Leopard

Well spring is here,
‘tis September now,

it rained yesterday,
not quite sure how,

it rains in a place,
drier than the desert,

we did also see,
a seal that was a leopard,

on the edge of the sea ice,
he did lay and roll,

near the water so flat,
it looked like a great hole,

thirty feet straight down,
we could see the sea bed,

of the leopard variety was he,
he had a flip-top head,

probably waiting for dinner,
the Adélies I mean,

there’s been none here since March,
that we have seen,

end this poem I must,
it’s been the lengthiest yet,

the most asked question here on Station,
“When’s Cape Poinsett?”

Matt Whittington