Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Barrow Bound

I've tried to leave Alaska 3 times. This time I know it's time to give up that idea, relax, and go with the plan that seems to be my own destiny.

I've lived on (mostly on) and off in Alaska for the past 19 years. I moved once to Portland for a year. It was okay, I didn't love it. I moved back. Then I moved to Arizona for 18 months. That I loved...golf everywhere, warm sunny weather. The sun was out nearly every day and I was in hog heaven. A really good job in Alaska was put in my path and I moved back to Alaska. It was the right thing to do. Plus, I missed Husband. We had done the two state shuffle for way too long.

Most of my Alaska time has been in Juneau, where it rains cats and dogs. I always wondered what that meant until I lived in Juneau for awhile. It means it starts to rain, then it starts to pour. Most of the time it doesn't let up, not even for a minute. And it does this for days on end. I remember, with soggy memories, a stint of 40+ days without respite. We had our Ark halfway built at that point.  I'm currently living just north of Seattle. I moved here to get out of the rain. That makes folks here laugh, but I'm serious for obvious reasons. It's beautiful. Yes, it rains, but then the sun comes out. Or it rains for one or two days, then the sun comes out. Makes for great gardens and lovely trees. But we're still doing the two state shuttle. Not to mention the sorry state of the budget here.

That brings me to the title of my blog. My job was drastically reduced; I was notified just 3 weeks ago, right before one of my trips to Juneau to visit with my man. Actually, I spent the week tiling the master bathroom in our house up there. It took all week because it's not just a matter of laying down the tile. You've got to deal with all of those gotcha moments too, like when you discover there's rot in the subfloor, or a corner of the wall needs to be rebuilt because it's melted. Gotta love an older house. But I digress...

So, Husband lets me know there's a job posted for Barrow with the same description as the one I'm doing here in Washington. Really, you'd go there? I'm thinking he's joking, but he wasn't. Periodically, we've talked about going really rural as a last hurrah, you know? So I applied. Why not? You can't get a job if you don't apply for it.

Seven days later I had an interview on the phone. If you've looked up Barrow on a map, you can be pretty certain they don't expect job applicants to fly up for a face to face. The next night (yes the next night!) they offered me the job. I said Yes without hesitation. And so begins the journey...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

We have enjoyed the many stories so far. We actually open up email every morning now to see what new has happened in your lives.

How are the girls doing?

Crystal said...

Hi Cathy, Chris and I almost made it to Alaska on our road trip. We loved the Yukon but ran out of time so we turned around and headed for home. Beautiful country!

Are you settled in? :)