The day after I returned from Puerto Rico, I moved into a new apartment. I had been camping out with Michelle until I had my ducks in a row. Well, the ducks are kind of in a row.
As you know, I am working part-time for the only dentist on St. John at the aptly named St. John Dental office. He already has a hygienist working part-time and a less than enthusiastic staff who is supposed to be making appointments for me. According to the dentist, there were many overdue patients who needed to be seen. The front desk person is supposedly the person to contact these patients to let them know of greater time availability to see a hygienist. When I saw this person spending more time on her personal phone than working, I made a complaint to the dentist. (Mind you, I only get paid per patient, not an hourly fee) He told me it was hard to find good staff and if I only come to the office my “energy will bring the patients”. 🤪 My what??? I said, “No, I’m not going to sit here waiting on my “energy” while you don’t instruct her to do her job.” So I took the business cards he had made up for me and I went around town into different businesses and offered a discount (which he authorized) and got to introduce myself and meet a lot of people! But while this was fun and interesting, it wasn’t very fruitful.
Plus, I was still waiting on the board at St. Thomas East End Medical and Dental ( the federally funded health center) to approve my hiring so I could work in community health which is more my passion . Island time……patience, Rose, patience.
I was also still helping Michelle vend her sandals in the park but I needed more income. I decided to try taking the sea glass , leather and silver jewelry I made as a hobby to an exclusive little shop called ‘Nest’ . They sell unique items and they agreed to sell my jewelry on consignment! A friend who used to sell jewelry said to price my jewelry on the higher end than what I was planning. She was right! People seem to place more value on higher priced items than cheaper ones. My higher priced pieces sold quicker than the less expensive ones! I learned some consumer economics!
One bedroom apartments/ studio apartments are pretty rare here so I moved into a small 2bedroom apartment with a couple, Zach and Emily, who work in the restaurant business. They are gone all afternoon until late night which is perfect because I am gone during the day.
So now with this additional income, I moved into this apartment much closer to Cruz Bay so I am within walking distance to the grocery store, restaurants, laundry and hiking trail to my favorite beach , Solomon. All good, right?
Welllllll……moving ‘downtown’ is much louder than I expected. Our apartment is right off the main road that the water trucks, gravel trucks, garbage trucks use and there is a speed bump right there in front of the apartment. BOOM! BOOM! each time they go over it. Okay, just crank up the A/C in my room and it’s not so bad. I’m not usually an A/C girl but Problem solved😀
Yet, there was something else brewing……literally brewing. What is that SMELL?? 🤢 Zach and Emily decided to brew their own kombucha so that they could start a little side business bottling and selling to the community. This takes many containers which are all lined up on our kitchen counter. The smell is extremely acidic vinegar-like smell.
Kombucha tea it’s made by fermenting sugar tea using a culture of bacteria and yeast called a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) which makes a “mother”—this floating mushroom shaped mat that floats in the tea.
The living bacteria is supposedly a probiotic and the tea is a popular drink. The sugar in the tea is what helps the SCOBY to produce bacteria and it needs a breathable fabric placed on top. It ferments for about 10-14 days so a new mother starts to float on the surface. This, then, can be transferred for a new batch of tea.
When the tea is ready, you can add natural flavors such as ginger or hibiscus. I tried it and let’s just say it wasn’t my ‘cup of tea’ (pun intended) 😂
When entering the apartment each time, the smell was overwhelming! But like most smells, you get used to it and I do have my A/C in my room to escape to.
But my favorite escape is being able to hike to Solomon to escape EVERYTHING!
Traveling Rose in St. John 