o. hai.

We moved to Big Pine, & i got a different (much, much better) job on Bird Island, i even had a truck for a couple of weeks. These are things that happened while i was away. They would have been great to blog about (if by great i mean fun for me & likely boring for you,) but i did not have a computer, & i was just too damned lazy to type anything up on my mobile browser.
Big Pine was great, & my new job was great. But, all great things must come to an end, & now i am living back in Kansas. If you must know (which i guess everyone must, since it is all i am ever asked,) it is freezing. Duh. No joke. Holy cow it is effing freezing. Aside from that, it is really wierd to be back. There is a nice young man who lives in the part of the apartment that was formerly our office, & all of my furniture is still at my parent's house, so it's strange to be both in my own house, & also kind of in someone else's house.
I have been home for about a week now, but haven't actually done anything. I've left the house a couple of times, but haven't looked for a job yet, & haven't unpacked at all. Except for my kitchen.
I suppose it makes me a little old lady, but it was amazing to cook with my own appliances & accoutrement. Who knew how much you would miss a knife? Or vegetable peeler? Oh! To have pots & pans again!! Yep. Nerd.
So overjoyed was i, that last night, i made (what is hopefully) all my dinners for this week. Maybe even a couple of lunches! After prepping five heads of garlic, six onions, four carrots, four potatoes, & six beets, i compiled a pot roast & a beet-pear casserole while making a pot of chicken stock (which also results in a whole cooked chicken!)
Tonight is yoga, so i started the pot roast a couple of hours ago, to be enjoyed in a few more. Hooray!

pretty girl on the side of the highway

I am tired, sunburnt, & completely discouraged.

Yesterday morning, I went for an interview at a swanky resort.  It was really encouraging.  Not only does this place have an HR department, but at my interview (which took place at it's scheduled time,) i was asked questions regarding my qualifications, interests, favorite & least favorite jobs, you know, interview questions!  The polite, professional HR recruiter told me that there were two guest-services positions he had in mind for me, & scheduled an interview with the department heads for this morning.

Still without a car, & having reached the bottom of my shallow bank account (leaving me zero dollars for cab fare,) Roomie dropped me off a few hours early as she drove to work.  This is fine, i still had the Kerouac to finish, & it gave me some solitude in which to conduct a private conversation with the Beau i left back home.  What i didn't realize, was that the terribly weak cellular signal on the island was sucking the battery from my phone 4x faster than usual.  So, a short, frustrating conversation later, my phone is already dead.

The interview its self was fine.  I spent about 45 minutes talking with the resort manager in a very professional, interviewy fashion.  Unfortunately, the department heads aren't able to make it to the meeting, so he'd like me to come back tomorrow & meet with them.  Fine.  A third interview is practically a sure thing, so.  Fine.

Let's recap:

1. Phone is dead.

2. Money is zero.

3. I am stranded on an island 10 miles from the one i live on.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Keys, let me point out what makes this last bullet an issue.  The major keys are connected by the Overseas Highway (or US HWY 1.)  This means that you take cars (not boats) everywhere you go.  Not having a car severely limits one's ability to get from one place to another.  There is no bike lane, there is no sidewalk, in most places, there's barely a shoulder.  It's a two-lane highway spanning across the ocean. 

There's no one in the HR office for me to ask about the bus schedule, so i think i'll be a tough girl, & just walk the five miles to the next island where Roomie works.  The beginning of the walk is fine, the first channel still has the original bridge intact, so i have a nice stroll far away from the highway.  Unfortunately, after the bridge there is elaborate road-work that i am not tough enough to try & wheedle my way through.  

Turning around, i walk back to the resort, where i find someone who knows very little about the bus schedule, but assures me that at 2:45 it stops on the highway in front of the resort.  I kill the next two hours reading in a giant banyan tree, which helped make this day seem more like an adventure, & less like a disappointment.  Sadly, it was by far the highlight of my day.

Not wanting to miss the bus, i walked back to US1, crossing the busy highway right at 2:35.  Not wanting to risk standing on the roadway, & being too afraid to perch on the guard-rail, I took a seat on the coral boulders between the ocean & the traffic.  Almost immediately, a man in a BMW with a thick middle-eastern accent pulls over & offers me a ride, which i obviously declined.  Surprisingly, no one else pulled over while i waited.  Instead, there was a steady stream of whistles, honks, & catcalls during the two hours i sat waiting for a bus that never came.  It was horrifically humiliating.  It was everything our mothers warn us not to do.  It was awful.

Finally, at 4:30, i decided that i oughtn't risk my only chance to catch a ride home with roomie, & start walking.  Thankfully, the construction had ended for the day, so i was able to walk along the side of a major highway with little impediment.  Five miles later, the best thing that could have possibly happened, did.  Parked in the lot of a keyzee general store, was my cab driver from yesterday.  He recognized me as i walked by, & insisted on giving me a ride home.

So now i'm exhausted.  Sunburnt. And entirely discouraged.

jobless

It has become immediately apparent that my planning wasn't as thorough as it ought to have been before moving across the country.  Mostly my financial planning.  Not only did i just plain not save as much as i had initially intended, but i spent a lotmore getting down here than i had expected. 

Additionally, i'm starting to worry about my employment prospects.  Never in my life have i worked to get a job.  I'm young, good looking, & smart, on the rare occasion i have to actually look for a job, i have no problem landing one that i want.

Before i left home, I had applied for a job taking pictures at the Dolphin Research Center.  Having never had a 'resumé' before, i got over-intimidated & spent weeks perfecting it, editing it, sending it off for proofreading, re-editing it.  So, by the time i sent it in, they had already started interviewing for the position & i didn't make the cut.  Lesson learned.

I had been keeping an eye on the local classified ads, scanning the employment & cars sections daily for new additions.  I was not surprised to see that most of the jobs said 'no phone calls' or 'please apply in person'.  My parents taught me that how you apply for a job is just as important as how you interview:  always look nice, speak with a manager when possible, fill out your application in house (don't take it home & wrinkle it all up,) so i always did, & when i started to be responsible for hiring, i would always take those things into account.  So, I decided that i'd rather follow proper procedure & charm the pants off of these employers my first week in the Keys.

Wrong.

Firstly, there aren't a lot of jobs.  Of any kind, not to mention those that i am actually capable of doing (although that ad for 'able bodied workers needed for lobster boat, NO DRUNKS!' keeps catching my eye, i don't think it's for me.)  Plus, not having a car really limits my options.  So, in addition to the gallery job in Islamorada that i never heard back from, my roommate drove me around Saturday to get applications of places that are within reasonable walking/biking distance: two of them.  One of them, not receptive at all.  Definitely not hiring.  The other, a keyzee restaurant (where the waitstaff has to wear hawiian shirts,) seemed super receptive, the manager handing me an application saying, 'Why don't you bring this by tomorrow around 3 or 4 & we can have a chat, I'm sure we can find someplace for you.'  Hooray!  Exciting!  No.  Sunday, i pay a $10 cab fare to be driven to a place i can see from my balcony (which sounds super lazy, but it's on the next island over, so even though i can see it, & it's maybe a half mile from our apartment, it's a two mile walk to get off my island, across the canal, & down that island to the interview... & i didn't want to be sweaty!)  I arrive, on time & adorably hirable, only to have him take my application & say, 'Thanks, we'll be in touch.' as he walked away.  I tried not to act disappointed, instead, i saved all my self-pity for the 45 minute walk home.

Luckily, the walk turned my self-pity into self-motivation & i spent the next day & a half working out a complete (ten year) job history, as well as perfecting two different resumés, one for management, & one for service.  Also lucky, a restaurant on the island where my roommate works had put out an ad for servers!  I called the number & arranged (what i hoped was) an interview for this morning.

I rode to work with my roommate & walked to the resort [sidenote: Amazing walk.  This island has a bike/walking trail separated from the highway by a wooded area, so it was like walking through a jungle!  It made my day.] Intentionally, i arrived about 15 minutes early, only to find the restaurant locked.  Undeterred, i sat & read, assuming that the guy would show up closer to interview time.  When he did not, i decided to call his mobile after the girl at the front desk said he would be out of town for a week.  He was on his way in, if i didn't mind waiting, so i sat back down to read.  Moments later, i hear some lady with a thirty-year whiskey-voice calling the same guy, with the same concern.  Discreetly, i looked at the balcony entrance to see a keyzee lady (too tanned, fake blonde hair) in a tee-shirt, shorts, & sneakers saying that she was scheduled to meet him at 11:00 or 11:30 (it was 10:35.)  Moments later, she shouts at me from the balcony, "Who's the author of your book?" Politely, i replied, "Kerouac, i'm reading On the Road." Her reply, "Oh.  Is that like, a mystery book, or a romance novel?" And then proceeds to ramble about how much she likes to read & where am i from because i am obviously not from around here because the color that my legs are & oh she's from iowa but hasn't been back there for twenty years, multiple times apologizing that she didn't mean to interrupt me, but then just continuing to talk until the manager arrived.  Needless to say, she was a bit confused, & maybe disappointed to realize that this young woman in a nice sundress was interviewing for the same position as she was.  It was an awkward 15 minutes.

But, to end on an upnote, while i was on the beach today (trying to adjust my leg color to a more 'local' tone,) i got a call from the keyzee restaurant on the next island, setting up an actual interview.  Let's hope it goes just as well.