On May 9th I flew from Maui to Kauai, one of the Hawaiian islands I had never seen. It was beautiful, especially the north side where I stayed. It is very rural and I'm positive the wild chickens outnumber the people. No matter what time I would wake up in the morning, I could hear a chorus of roosters that seemed to echo down the valley. This would go on for hours. Every beach we went to had numerous chicken families out pecking and scratching in the sand and hoping for handouts from the scattered human population on the beach.
I spent 4 relaxing days on Kauai enjoying numerous beaches and fabulous vistas. My friends are renting a house since they are there for about a year. I was able to stay with them and benefit from their knowledge and exploration of the island. The pictures are nice but they cannot capture the true essence of the place. The smells, air quality, and sounds are missing, as well as the perpetual feeling of salty, sweaty stickiness that seems to linger on the body. These items add depth and heart to the experience. Perhaps it was the joy of sharing with friends after an absence of friends that added to the beauty of the place. Kauai is the oldest, northernmost, and wettest of the Hawaiian Islands. Here are numerous photos to try to give you a sense of it.
Early on Tuesday 5/13, I flew over to Oahu. It felt like a different planet. I landed in Honolulu about 8:00 AM and after waiting for the bus and riding through busy city streets, I finally arrived at my hotel at 10:00 AM. My friend and her daughter were waiting for me. I checked in and then we wandered the Waikiki strip and chatted, shopped, chatted, chatted, ducked into stores to shelter from the rain and chatted some more. My friend's husband was in Honolulu to teach a class so they were there for a week's vacation. I had not been to Oahu since 1982 and Honolulu has certainly grown since then. The purpose of this visit was simply to spend time with my friend and we made the most of it. We were all heading home on Wednesday about the same time so we had a little more time to share in the morning and were able to ride to the airport together. Here are a couple shots of Honolulu but I didn't take many pictures there.
When I returned home I had one day before I started work. This week begins my 50 hour work weeks. I'll let you know in the next blog how that's going.
I finally quit procrastinating and finished most of the deep cleaning that needed to be done AND I got my resume done! I finished my resume on Tuesday and within half an hour after finishing it, the manager from my local library branch called and asked if I could come in on Wednesday and talk with her about a position they have opening on May 16. It's almost like she was waiting for me to be ready. One of the other librarians had actually mentioned the job to me and got my name and number to give to the manager. Because of that I was motivated to finish my resume before tomorrow when I was going to volunteer again. I thought I'd just leave it with the manager to look at but she got to me first. So I did go in on Wednesday to talk with her and was hired on the spot. They are thrilled to have someone available who has library experience and can fill the position immediately. It is actually a temporary position while they go through the process to hire a permanent person (which could end up being me). I'm told this can take at least a year! Talk about island time.
The position is full time which will be a shock to my system. I'm so used to having so much flexibility with my part time jobs and am still doing the bookkeeping. My position is a 'Library Technician V'. My main job will be to process all the library materials that come into the branch. I'll also be used as back up for checking in when the books drops are overfull, like after a 3 day weekend, and with checking out items to patrons when they are short staffed. This is good because I'd hate for those valuable skills to get too rusty!
I'm very grateful to have been given this opportunity to work at the library and even more grateful that I was saved from having to pound the pavement looking for work. As with so many jobs in my life, this one fell into my lap. The location is ideal as well since it is a short 10-15 minute bicycle ride or a 25 minute walk away from my home. Gas prices today were at $4.21 so no driving is great! I'll have every Sunday and Monday off (the library is closed those days) and Tuesday is the only evening the library is open so I'll work 11-8 that day and 8-5 the other four days. Not too bad of a schedule. I can still do my Monday morning trail volunteering but maybe not every week now.
Before I start work I'm going to take a little mini-vacation. I have a couple of friends who are living on Kauai for a short while and have invited me to come and visit. I'll head over there for a long weekend next weekend. On my way back to Maui I'll make an overnight visit to Honolulu, Oahu to meet up with a girlfriend who will be just finishing a visit there. It will be great to see some familiar faces.
Check back periodically for updates!
