Bountiful Luck

I am madly in love with Humboldt County.   Arcata is  a wonderful town full of fantastic people, beautiful old victorians, bi-weekly farmer’s market’s, gorgeous views of the bay, open farmland and pastures in almost every neighborhood, and tons of mom and pop shops all within walking distance.   The whole county is a cluster of fantastic small towns, each with it’s own charms and offerings.

one of the awesome veggie stands at the plaza farmer’s market where Pat and I went to buy peaches, kale, eggs, tomatoes, and eggplant today. Mmmm…!

Since we’ve arrived this place has treated us to endless luck:

(1) As I mentioned in the last blog, Kari and Brent have been incredible hosts, excellent friends, and great resources.   We also managed to land a to-die-for apartment in an old victorian house for well under market value.

The Arcata marsh, a beautiful running/birdwatching/walking/relaxing spot almost in Brent and Kari’s backyard.

(2) Our first weekend here, we hit the garage sales for furniture.   We had nothing, save for Pat’s roll-top desk and a lazy boy recliner.   What do we need?   Anything.   Everything.   Tables, chairs, bed, couches, lamps, desk, plants, pots, pans, plates, cups, bookshelves… you name it.   Unexpected events turned our route around backwards, and we ended up at our first ever estate-sale just as it was starting.   We really clicked with the women hosting the sale, and for $105 we got an almost-new bed for two, floor lamp, dresser, full-length mirror, kitchen supplies, coffee table, five-foot-tall corn plant,  political maps of every continent, great posters, towels, linens, and gorgeous wine glasses.

The beach near a house out in one of the tiny country towns where we went to buy a bookshelf. This adorable retired couple gave us a tour of their entire place complete with barns, stables, indoor pond, and a century plant blooming for it’s first and only time in it’s life.

(3) What’s more: when we went to pick up the stuff days later, they also gave us a vacuum cleaner, a bag of cleaning supplies, and an old movie poster.   Off-hand, one of the women asked if we knew anyone interested in coaching children’s gymnastics.   Now, ten days and one interview  later, I am employed by the city of Arcata as a gymnastics instructor!   I’m so excited.   The kids are all under seven, and I get the idea it’s more obstacle courses than cartwheels.   I start on Wednesday. I can’t wait!

(4) We attended our first-ever auction, complete with chili-dogs, nachos, and yummy chocolate milk shakes.   The crowd was definitely the country-music blasting type, and Pat and I felt right at home.   Over a period of four hours, we managed to accumulate $100 worth of stuff (bidding is so exciting!).   We ended up with three stackable tables, an extremely comfortable couch and matching chair, a bookshelf, a desk for me ($5!!!), tiled coffee table, a box of books, and a desk chair for Pat.

(5) Finally, last weekend, I cracked the garage sales bright and early – we managed to get a matching oak table (with leaves) and gorgeous chairs for $80!   I can’t believe our luck.   We were also given a free case of wine and a wine rack.   Today, a woman sold us a beautiful set of dinner plates, tea plates, and bowls (9 each) from an old catering business for $8!

All in all, we’ve furnished our entire beautiful apartment with mostly high-quailty furniture for under $300.   I’m eternally grateful.

Other great news: we are starting a garden, and I am so excited.   It’s my second gardening experience, and the first time I’ll have my very own vegetables growing right outside my front door.   I’m thrilled to be able to grow things through the winter.   We’ve got our starts going indoors, and our project for the rest of the day is to get the garden soil prepped.   We are going to plant carrots, snow peas, snap peas, red onions, walla walla onions, chives (green onions), kohlrabi, cilantro, Italian kale, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, and  dwarf blue kale.   We’ve also got some oregano and basil going on the window-sill.   Mmm, mmm, good!

Pat is taking 18 credits this term in the hopes that he can hammer out his last requirements as quickly as possible and be done with it.   Iraq and a change of major have set him back a little farther than we’d hoped.   On the brighter side, he’s got a job in the Veteran’s Affairs office on campus, and is applying to be a building supervisor for the city.   He’s got a pretty good shot at the latter, so we should be set between our jobs, savings, tuition assistance, and G.I. bill.   After our month of travelling at Christmas, I will get serious about getting a full-time job and/or researching Master’s programs.   I thought about getting my MBA, but the program here isn’t quite what I’m looking for.   I’m looking into grant writing, event planning, outdoor leadership positions, and nutritionist possibilities, among other things.   Who knows?!

Homeless in Humboldt County

We rolled into Arcata mid-afternoon on Monday.   I hated it almost immediately.   I was expecting a Eugene-like town full of wonderful old trees, pretty flower gardens, and streets buzzing with energy.   This place had the feel of an tiny town in Iowa where people sit around and watch paint dry.   Trees exist, but they weren’t the towering wonders we had in mind.   The streets were dead, save for random pedestrians, and I immediately craved the energy I had been expecting.   Disappointment started to seep in, and I wondered if maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew.   Three years in this place?   Oh god.

Downtown Arcata (where you form your first impression) is in the flatlands between the hills and the ocean, which explains why downtown isn’t a forest (to my dismay).

I had been making cell-phone calls to rental ad phone numbers the whole way, so we swung by city hall to pick up a map to lead us on our immediate house-hunting expedition.   We had exactly 48 hours to find a house, apply, and unload the Uhaul before Pat started orientation on Thursday.   After spending the day driving or walking by dump after dump, my heart sunk lower and lower as we peered in each dirty window at ten-year-old carpet, teeny-tiny kitchens with peeling laminated cupboards and yellowed cracking linoleum.   After a depressing day, we headed for Kari and Brent’s place.

(Tangent {copied from another blog, so I apologize to those who read both}):   Back at the coal mine there is an awesome day-shift mechanic from Gillette, Luther.   We are both bus riders, and chat all the time.   Luther gets wind that I’m quitting and asks me about future plans, so I spew out my most recent passion which is to get into nutrition while in Arcata and earn a degree that will give me the credentials to teach Americans what their government won’t about food.   Luther’s says his niece lives in California and is a nutritionist for a school district out there, so I get her number.   I am expecting a pleasant, mid-thirties with children, average person, but instead I get the amazing, incredibly enthusiastic, high-spirited, friendly Kari on the other end of the line.   Not only does she live and work in California in the field that I am interested in going into, not only does she have tons of great advice and connections, but she also live in ARCATA with her boyfriend Brent and is going to let us shower and cook at her house for the time we are homeless in Humboldt County.   They are really fun, amazing people, and we spent all Wednesday night having some excellent chow at a local brewery and checking out the downtown Arcata scene, complete with a bar that makes me feel very much at home with 80% country music for offer on the jukebox located directly beneath their largest trophy, an elk mount…)

Anyway… Tuesday we tried a new angle and went to the university for help.   After messing around with Pat’s laptop for an hour while I thumbed through the paper ads, Drew, the res-net genius, let us into a password-free computer lab.   Unfortunately, we found similar slim pickin’s online, including one lady who used her email instead of phone number in the add.   I emailed her with my number and let her know that telephone was our only real means of contact.   Twenty minutes later, when we were trying to convince Melissa and Maya to let us be their 3rd bedroom roommates, the email woman, Carolyn,  called.   She wanted to set up a showing for her 2bd. Victorian apartment.   I was less enthusiastic.   So far, we had cancelled all showings once we drove by for a preview.   I told her we’d drive by today, and if we liked it, we’d set up the showing like she wanted on the following day.   Meanwhile Melissa and Maya were hinting that they weren’t that interested in getting two roommates for the price of one, but Maya needed a ride downtown.   We had planned to go uptown first, but rearranged our schedule for her.   Miracle of miracles!   When we drove by to assess whether or not we’d want a showing, Carolyn was there checking in with the tenants who were on their way out!   She showed us around our dream apartment; an incredibly spacious two bedroom with a cute living room, large bedrooms, a huge kitchen complete with hardwood floors, beautiful new wooden cupboards, and new appliances, washer/dryer, huge bathroom, new carpet, an amazing landscaped yard full of blackberries, raspberries, apple trees and more, all for $300 under market value!   I offered her our references on the spot, she wrote out a make-shift application, and we dropped them off later that night.   She called us in the morning to offer us tenency!!

When we went to sign papers Wednesday morning, the only hiccup was that instead of getting to move in over the weekend before school started, we’d have to wait until the following Wednesday.   Eeek!   We were really hoping to be out of Kari and Brent’s hair before Kari’s five person family rolled into town on Thursday, but no luck.   Fortunately, we could off-load the Uhaul in the house’s storage space.   We packed it all in the room  and then  spent three nights sleeping in the Uhaul and three more nights in our tent pitched in Brent and Kari’s backyard, bless their hearts.

Friday was a riot.   After orientation, we met the fam (Kari’s) and headed to the deserted, amazing, Samoa beach where the ocean raged against the sandy beach while we huddled around our mini bon-fire, shared beers, and toasted marshmellows.   We got to meet two of Kari’s good friends, Michelle and Vicki, and Michelle’s dog.   We  told stories until the first round of sleepiness set in, and then headed home!

Where There’s a Will…

Most people would plan, in advance, not to tax themselves in the ways we have upon return from Brazil.   However, we’re not most people.

Friday morning at 9:00 a.m. Mountain Time, we touched down at DIA and dialed up my Grandmother waiting in the traffic queue to come pick us up (thank you, thank you, thank you!).   We’ve been so jet lagged and travel worn these past few months that it’s more a permanent state of being for us rather than something to recover from.   So, in the highest spirits possible, we grabbed breakfast at the most American breakfast spot we can find and finally had some familiar chow.   After gathering all our belongings and spending a last-minute-hour on the internet making sure there wasn’t a to-die-for four-door on the Denver market that should be immediately purchased by yours-truly (I’m in the market for a car for those of you who didn’t know.   Long story.), we began our six-hour zombie drive up to Gillette in time to arrive early enough to shower and still get dinner at Humphrey’s.   Mmmm!!

For some reason, I guess it’s that we grew up with most of these people and also that Patch and I are outgoing individuals, we know a bartender at almost all the main haunts in Gillette.   Nice when you look 17 and forget your I.D., which of course, I did.   So, we plopped down at the bar to order the first round, and before we know it, our man Preston is serving up the celebration shots and we’ve committed to hanging around the bar after dinner with the fam.   As is common for Gillette, mecca of energy production and construction, we meet a few traveling businessmen at the bar and start waxing poetic about the nostalgia that accompanies a Gillette-upbringing.   We’re telling them about the fantastic Karaoke when we realize, “Oh. my. god.   Tonight is Friday Karaoke at Eastside!”   Of course we’re going, so we invite them along with us, and they do the cool thing and come!   Other high-school pals home for the summer join in, and before we know it, too many rounds are coming our way.   C’est la vie!

We danced the night away, sang our hearts out, and returned home to crash.   This was our first night in a completely dark room (usually there are city lights or yard lights or hallway lights sneaking in the windows) and the heat from the day had settled in the room.   We woke up in the middle of the night sweating, frantic, and confused in a room full of towers of half-packed boxes and stuff waiting to be packed.

Me (somewhat upset): “Pat!   Where are we!?”

Pat:   “I don’t know.   I’m trying to find the light, but I keep bumping into stuff.”

Me:   “Where are we?!   Turn the light on right now!”

Pat:   “I’m trying.   I can’t find it.”

Me: (almost crying and confused by my raging fever):   “It’s so hot.   I have to get out of here!”

Pat: (turns on the light)

Jema: (stumbles to door and bursts into the living room welcoming the cool air)

Unfortunately, we greeted the next morning with hangovers and big plans full of the necessary banking errands, etc.   By afternoon we’d done everything except load the Uhaul, so when the family started showing up for the goodbye-barbecue, we enlisted their help.   Many hands make light work, so we had the Uhaul loaded and locked about fifteen minutes before one of the typical, raging, Wyoming afternoon thunderstorms rolled through and soaked everything.

We did the smart thing that night.   We stayed home and let our friends drink most the beer, so getting up at seven to finish loading bits and pieces wasn’t as much of a challenge as the previous day.   Thanks only to Paul (Pat’s dad), we were ready to leave in time to make our lunch date in Casper with my sister, nephew, and grandparents.   We said sad goodbyes and set out across the prairie.

Goodbye little hometown! I will miss you when I’m gone. See you at Christmas!

Lunch at a Mexican restaurant (a ethnic food that, sadly, is virtually non-existent in Brazil) was heaven with great company and good conversation.   We made Salt Lake by 9:00, and Reno shortly after sun-up.   The mountains we had to cross in Northern California are gorgeous, and a real pain-in-the-rear with a huge, long-bed pick-up and Uhaul combo.   We rolled into Arcata in the mid-afternoon glad to be well on our way to consistent, and somewhat predictable daily lives!