Frog Kissing

So no, not all fairy tales have happy endings and sometimes a frog is just a frog or the parties Prince Charming's Mum puts on to marry her son off breaks the Kingdom's bank and since all the money's spent, the search for Cinderella cannot take place.  It could also be that Sleeping Beauty didn't like waking up to some strange man sticking his tongue down her throat.  Turns out she wasn't eighteen anyways, but a wee bit older and more experienced than Charming realized.  Who knows.


My adventures have always started off rocky.  Once there was the time my brother, I'll call him Moe, picked me up from college to take me on a five-hour motorcycle ride home.  It was my first  "Born to be Wild" adventure.  The spectacular event was highlighted by a wipe-out making a tight curve.  We hit gravel, the bike slid out beneath us going sideways.  I remember tucking into ball as I flew over my brother's head.  I landed like a snow angel in the middle of soft green grass looking up at a blue, cloudless sky.  I'd missed the road stake by 3 feet.


After I graduated with my first degree, one in East Asian Studies, my brother Larry and I (I'm Curly, ya see) rented a U-Haul and drove from Georgia to San Francisco.  I had an acquaintance who was willing to let me stay with her while I got my feet under me.  Larry and I arrived with pennies, quarters, and nickles rolling around in one of my empty stationery boxes.  I woke up the next morning knowing I had to abandon that dream and let my grandma bail me out and ship me, my record collection, and sheet wrapped dirty clothes up to Alaska.  Where I met my future husband seven months later.

We later left Alaska to attend engineering school in Arizona.  See, neither of us had lived in the desert and so being tired of Alaskan winters thought living in the desert would be cool.  Dave went first, I kept my job in Fairbanks and planned to follow when he was settled.  The car broke down on Dave when he was at the highest peak along the AlCan highway.  It was the water pump or something, and luckily he had a spare - but it was the wrong size.  Now this was late September, so there was already snow.  He had to hitch rides to get to a motel, to pick up the ordered parts, to get back to the car.  I don't remember all the mechanical details, but I do know he ended up having to drive without the engine cooling system, so could never really just pull over or idle the car or it would overheat.  I arrived in Phoenix a week after he did, having sold all of my books and knitting supplies, but having packed all my shoes for shipping that same day.  All I had were the snow boots I'd worn on the plane.  I walked barefoot into the shoe store in Phoenix to buy a pair of summer shoes to last me until mine

My first job in Phoenix lasted five weeks.  It was at a newspaper.  The job was advertised as writing for a small neighborhood paper.  Turned out - it was cold-call sales and the owner was a screamer.  Walked away from that one.

I wish I could say that arriving in Seattle had some epic moment, but the moment itself was epic.  Dave and I drove 24 hours straight from Phoenix in our Hyundai as it lost pieces along the way.  Still, the moon roof worked and I remember lying back that night as we were driving and watching the stars in the dark sky of a traffic-less I-5 somewhere in California.

Neither Dave nor I had jobs waiting for us with either of these moves, yet we had some of the best times of our lives after the shit hit the fan.  But to cut this long story short - yes, I'm looking for a job again.  The project was cancelled.  I was laid off. I learned a lot in a short period of time, so that was cool.  I now have experience with those data sets and metrics, so that satisfied that bit of curiosity.  Now I have to try marketing data.  Definitely not worth doing a three hour commute for though and this also reinforces that I shoulda stuck to smaller companies.  Those were my two big "No"s and I gave into them.  Ahhh well... curiosity and cats 'n all.

So my luck usually gets better after...