Death, Family, and Amazon from A to Z

November 17, 2016

This post is going up on Thanksgiving. We will celebrate in our little camper with my brother Brian, and be grateful for our rolling homes, food on the table, and families and friends who love us enough to let us live our nomadic life.

I fully intended to get the last post up within a reasonable time of writing it, but other priorities slipped in. My brother, Brian, showed up here to work with us at Amazon. He is hitting the road for a year in his van after selling his condo and leaving Baltimore. We were spending time with him, enjoying family time and introducing him to friends and the full-timing life, when we received word that my 91 year-old father was on Hospice care back in Maryland. He passed away on November 3^rd. Brian had only been working here a week, but the three of us needed to get back to Maryland. Amazon granted us three days of bereavement leave and we took penalty points for missing our fourth work day. After working our four-day shift, we all piled into our Toyota Yaris with our luggage and drove the 11 hour trip back to Maryland.


There was no question that we would go back home. Thankfully we could do it without giving up our jobs or our campsites, so we were able to be there to support our 87-year-old mother and help our other brother, Steve, who was left to help organize the visitation, burial, and memorial service. Our week was filled with family and friends, and the gift of seeing our daughter, son-in-law and our precious grand-daughter who we had not expected to see again until Christmas.

Keeping Grandpa busy

High-Five!

Grandma at the receiving end of the big slide.

Monday morning we piled back into the silver “sardine tin”, (three tall people in a sub-compact!), and made the drive back to Kentucky. Tomorrow we go back into Amazon to pick up our jobs after our missed week of work. I have been in a funk and feeling as if I haven't quite grieved. Greg managed to catch a cold and break a tooth since we got back. The day after we returned we were told that his 96 year-old Dad who lives in Florida, has taken a turn for the worse. The election occurred five days after my Dad's death and the disappointment of the results has been hanging over our thoughts and compounding our grieving.


Our four-year nomadic anniversary was on November 12^th, the same day as my Dad's memorial service. The last three years, we toasted the day and discussed the future. This time, the significance of the day barely crossed our minds. For the first time since we started this journey I have begun to feel the need to settle. Coping with everything at once in a state of Amazon fatigue, I longed for my old recliner to sit in front of our woodstove wrapped in a Mrs. Rosemeyer afghan. I am tired of supermarket veggies and miss plucking our own homegrown ones from the earth. I don't do well as a nomad sitting too long in one place and this has been a year of sitting. Not the reason I longed for this life to begin with.


Our three days back have been a time of planning for next year, while we are still adjusting to the changes this year has brought. Greg has been plowing through health insurance and car and RV insurance, navigating the changing insurance marketplace on-line. Being fulltimers, but Florida residents, creates complications, and questions about coverage. Trying to make sure that we have the insurance coverage we need no matter where we travel, gets complicated.


I am also beginning to come to terms with the legacy my father left me as our nation moves forward after a contentious election. When I eulogized him at his service I realized that the most important lesson he taught me was of the power of the individual to create change. His life was a testament to public service in education and non-profits and his vision and actions changed thousands of people's lives for the better. If he were still alive, he would be encouraging me to work for change, and not let depression and a feeling of powerlessness get the better of me. My own theological studies taught me that “Without a vision, the people perish”. My father was a visionary, one who could see the needs, envision a solution and inspire others to own that vision with him and work to see it to fruition. His blood runs through my veins. His voice and eloquence gave rise to my own ability to speak and empower.

Dad touring New Zealand

For now our nomadic life continues. We'll do our best to finish our time at Amazon, spend the Christmas holidays with family and friends, and then head to Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park in Florida, where we volunteered last winter. It's quiet there. Surrounded by peace and nature's solace I hope to sort it all out. What comes next? Where do we go from here? For now, I am tired and there are “smiles” to be picked and co-workers to enjoy at Amazon. For a little while longer, the bigger questions can wait.

Gettin' in the Rhythm

October 26, 2016
This post is going up way late due to changing circumstances in our lives. I'll update on the next post.

Amazon work days are all consuming. The four 10-hour days require discipline which my creative nature always fights. Up at 5 am, wash up, dress, load prepared lunch into lunchbag, eat breakfast, and out the door into the dark by 6 am. Thankfully the Amazon Fullfillment Center is just a short 7-10 minute commute from our campground. That gets us inside by about 6:15 am with time to visit our lockers, short talk with friends in the breakroom, and then a quick bathroom break before clocking in between 6:25 and 6:30 am. Then we have a five minute walk to the Stand-Up gathering area. We find a hand scanner for the day, load in a fresh battery and join the big crowd there.

We live in this box much of the week.

The big screen illustrates stretching exercises which we all do in unison, while the manager makes announcements and motivates us to work hard picking “smiles” for our Amazon customers. After that, we consult our scanners for our first assignment and walk off to our designated “mod” and begin picking items from bins and throwing them into our yellow totes on our rolling carts. Full totes get dropped onto the closest conveyor belt to be transported across the huge building to be packed and shipped out.

The big box is quite warm so we dress appropriately for work.

The rest of the day consists of more of the same. Walking 10-15 miles up and down the long aisles and often up and down stairs as we are transferred by a notice on our scanners to report to a new mod. We have a fifteen minute paid break mid-morning and another one mid-afternoon. The priority on our breaks is sitting down and eating! We clock out and back in again for lunch, and visit stand-up again after lunch to repeat stretches and get an update on the morning's progress.

Just before 5 pm we leave the mods, turn in our scanners and work our way to the front of the building to join the crowds waiting to clock out. A quick trip to our lockers and we make the short commute home. Bedtime is supposed to be 9 pm. The four hours go quickly. First, sit and recover for a while. Then make dinner, shower, lay out clothes for the next day, pack lunches, and try to have a few minutes to “relax”. Being a night person, my body refuses to shut down at 9 pm, so I read for awhile, sometimes a long while, and finally try to go to sleep. I am somewhat sleep deprived on work days!


Currently we have three days off. That will change sometime around Thanksgiving when we will go to mandatory overtime and work five 10-hour days. Having only 2 days off makes it hard to recover physically and be sure to get laundry and groceries done. With three days off we tend to “veg out” the first day and get our chores done on the other two days. At least we get paid time and a half for the overtime day, and the main reason we are here is for the money, so we keep the December 23^rd contract deadline in sight. What makes the Amazon job bearable is knowing that there is an end in sight.


My other challenge is meal planning. As a creative, if I have no other creative outlet during the day, which I don't working at Amazon, I can create a good tasting healthy meal for dinner. That helps keep me sane. The problem is that I am too tired to do much cooking and fall back on leftovers and super simple meals. But, even super simple is too much some days. Monday, at the end of our work week we joined our friends Lyle and Lynda at the only restaurant in this dry county that serves alcohol. It was nice to sip a beer and eat a huge burger, which I would not normally order, but my body was screaming for fat and calories after a day with more walking than usual. We are at the time of the season when the hiring is ramping up so everyone is trained by the time Amazon Peak arrives with Black Friday, but the orders haven't ramped up yet. That requires a lot more moving around the warehouse to find items to pick, hence more than the usual walking and stair climbing. But, hey, not only are we here to make money, but to participate in the Amazon Fitness Plan!!! (Will I have “Buns of Steel”? Maybe...maybe not...)

Happy hour with our next-door neighbors.

Campfires are mandatory for happy hour.

We have two more days off. Friday morning will come way too early and after sleeping in for three days, I will have a short night. I treasure my alone time late at night and can't always give it up. Got to balance sanity and sleep! Greg is humming along, but seems to require an impromptu nap in the comfy chair on the afternoon of his days off. As if he isn't getting enough exercise already, he goes off on his bike on our days off and explores the nearby state park. He needs his nature solitude to cope with our long busy days.



Not many photos to share. I'll be back up when I get a chance and have something to write about!