Where I'm At

The morning commute

I got a job! For the past month I've been working in a small bike shop in Friday Harbor, on San Juan Island. The shop has been in business year-round for more than thirty years, although most of their business is during the summer tourist season, when they offer rental bikes to tourists and summer people, in addition to serving locals. It's a bit grubby, but the owner is a thorough and meticulous mechanic who has an amazing ability to fix, find, or patch together parts on older and new bikes.

This isn't an easy career change for a middle-aged woman to pull off so I'm very happy to have this opportunity. In the almost six months since I completed the mechanic training course at UBI, I got a little vague about a lot of the material I haven't had a chance to practice and I've been fumbling about a bit. While classroom training is valuable, there is no substitute for hands-on experience. But I'm confident about the things I do practice regularly, like cleaning and tuning drive trains, adjusting the brakes, fixing flats and so on.

(Parenthetic note: I'm amazed at the filth and grime on some bikes that come in: CLEAN YOUR BIKES, PEOPLE! THEY WILL BE SO MUCH EASIER TO RIDE! AND FIX!)

Waiting to board the early ferry back to Anacortes

I actually started work in April, after arranging to rent a room in a house three or four miles from the town of Friday Harbor. I had been thinking of giving notice at my place in Ferndale, putting all my stuff in storage for the summer, and taking my chances on finding a new place come autumn. Good thing I didn't, because after one week the manager of the Mobile Estates Park informed me I had failed their background check: the landlord from my previous apartment had reported that there was still an unpaid judgement against me after the eviction drama of 2010 (refer back to the early posts at the beginning of this blog).

I didn't want to make trouble for the lady I was renting from, and needed to check my legal docs back home to clear things up, so I headed back to Ferndale, thinking I would have to leave the job if I couldn't resolve the housing problem. Luckily I had court records showing there was no unpaid judgment, the managers and my landlady changed their minds, and the bike shop owner emailed to say he really wanted me back, to be ready for tourist season. So at the beginning of May I returned.

Nice place to free-load on wifi while waiting for the ferry

Friday Harbor is a pretty, quaint little town that suddenly comes to life whenever a ferry comes in. The rainy days of early spring have been a bit slow and dull, but with the sun returning and Memorial Day weekend coming up, things will be lively again until fall. There does seem to be a strong and close-knit year-round local community, but I haven't been around long enough to get to know it well yet. On my days off I've been out on some lovely rides around the island, developing my hill-climbing legs on the rolling roads and steep descents down to beaches (and climbs back up . . . )

Now I'm back at my place in Ferndale for a few days, after a month away. I decided to keep my apartment here over the summer, despite the double rent, so I'll be sure of having an affordable place to return to. It was most upsetting to have that old legal trouble come back on me after more than five years, and to almost lose my job because of it. Both times I've returned to Ferndale, when I rolled in to the parking lot, I was half afraid I'd see an eviction notice on my door, or find the place had been burgled, or squatters had moved in and trashed it. I can always think up new things to worry about.

I'm still deciding whether, or how, to follow up on that bad background check report. At this point I'm not sure who is at fault, whether my former landlord gave false information, or the screening agency did a sloppy job. At least I should make sure to get things cleared up before I apply for rental again.