Saturday, May 29, 2010

Live & Let Live???


The pretty photo is our creek and back yard at dusk last night.  The less attractive pictures are of sea life some of my guests (2 parents and a 14 year old girl)  murdered and left in the kitchen sink in their room.  The oil spill must not be doing enough damage for these folks.  I have no argument with people who scavange already dead flotsam and jetsam, but to take living creatures out of their environment to kill them is just wrong.  Leaving them in the kitchen sink to die & stink just compounds the sin.

Most people don't envision sand dollars as living things because they only see them dried and bleached.  This photo is of a dying sand dollar.  The hermit crabs are already dead.  How fun was it to take them out of their habitat and leave them to die?  Then again, these people left a hair iron turned on and laying on the carpet when they left the room today.  I'm guessing they left their thinking caps in....oh yes, Alabama. 

Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Circus Has Begun

The Memorial Day Weekend kicks off  our 10 room circus for the summer season.  It started yesterday with a gaggle of geezers who checked in to 2 of our standard rooms.  They showed up with an extra man, which tips me off that they're probably  going to treat my motel as a fish camp.  Turns out that I wasn't wrong in my first impression.  " Hey, there's no kitchen in here," one of them yells, "how am I going to cook my chowder.?"  (Note:  they were too cheap to book a kitchen when the reservation was made.) # 1 moved the furniture around to accomodate an air mattress.  They stacked their own toaster oven and coffee maker on top of my microwave, thereby compromising the fire safety, electrical capacity and insurance issues in that room.  Their compadres in #4 put bags of dead fish in my little in-room fridge.  I double bagged it and put it in a plastic container so the fish juice wouldn't leak out onto the carpet.  That's happened too many times before and closing the room for 2 days in order to get rid of the fish stink costs us money.

I almost never go around to the fish cleaning station, because I can't take the stink of dead fish. This morning I did and was appalled and disgusted at what I found. My DH, who is supposed to take care of that area apparently hadn't cleaned it in weeks. I had to dispose of fermenting fish rags, empty a large can of ,(jeez, I'm not sure how to describe this without barfing) fish garbage? I hosed off all the surfaces and cans, sprayed with bleach, put ODOBAN in each can and added a bug candle and a supply of clean rags.

Also ran to the Pig (our little supermarket) because I had to stock up for the weekend before the holiday crowds clogged the aisles. Needed to lock up the office because the DH was still in bed.  I was going to make potato salad today and this evening I put the potatos on to boil then totally forgot them when I had to run out to make up #8. My potato salad has turned into mashies.
The boys in #8 forgot to check out this morning.  Their room was booked for tonight, but they didn't leave this morning.  They were workers and after calling their supervisor found out that they thought they had to leave tomorrow.  I'll admit to freaking out on the lady, but it worked, because at 6PM they returned and cleaned out their stuff.  I ran out there praying that I could turn the room over before my reserved guests arrived.  As luck would have it, 15 minutes after I finished, they showed.  Thank you jeezus........... The circus has begun.  All 10 rings.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Are You Questioning My Integrity???

I just had a call from a woman looking for Memorial Weekend reservations.  We are essentially booked, but the bookings are staggered so there are a few holes. She wanted Fri, Sat , Sun & I only have Sat, Sun, Mon available and only in two rooms.  When I quoted her the price, she claimed my website was misleading and the rates quoted there were lower.  If she had read further, under "Policies" I state, "Call for Memorial Day and July 4th Holiday prices."  Anyway, she tells me she intends to check out other places.  I thank her for calling.

Not surprising, 20 minutes later she calls and tells me," I can't find anything else so I guess I'll take what you've got."  "Sorry," I say, "I don't think you'd be happy here."  "What do you mean?" she asks.  "You questioned my integrity and I just don't think this is the place for you, but thank you so much for considering the Dixie Belle," I reply.  I feel so good.

Monday, May 17, 2010

I Guess You Had to Be There

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a big fan of beauty pageants and will be one of the first to defend them and the integrity involved in selection of the winners. 


Last night, after watching the Miss USA pageant, I had serious doubts. 

The winner is a  pretty girl, but by far, not the prettiest.  She has a bizarre, annoying personality and is so bow-legged she walks like Popeye. 

When the entire 51 were introduced, I was amazed that there were only 3 semi dogs in the group.  They were New Hampshire (no surprise there), New Jersey (from Atco no less) and Miss Virginia (who made it to the top 5.)

OK, the top 15 were announced.  For the most part, a good group, but a few oddballs, like  Virginia.  I was thrilled to see Maine in there.  I'm very partial to the typically homely New England girls and  Maine was a classy beauty. I was blown away by the exquisite face of Miss Colorado.  She, however, seemed young and inexperienced, plus she didn't  carry off swimsuit.  Too pale and not as buff as some of the others.  If she ever gets motivated, look out.  With that face and more pageant experience, she will dominate.  I can't remember everyone, but my top 5 did not include Michigan or Virginia.  Michigan tripped in her evening gown and my guess is because of the  bowed legs, she tripped over her own feet. 

Of the top 5, Miss Oklahoma was outstanding is all respects. Perhaps what nixed her was her not so politically correct  support of state's rights, i.e. Arizona's new immigration law. 

I can't get over the feeling that Mr. Trump, owner of the franchise influenced this one.  Take his judges panel for instance.  Paula Deen, the ultimate people pleaser: Melania Trump, the wife:  a former Miss USA, on the payroll:  some guy who's only claim to fame was his introduction as Mr. Trump's dear friend:  an olympic ice skater, the requisite hispanic male and black athelete and one seemingly real deal, an editor at Glamour mag. 

I'm a good loser, but this finish had a stink to it.  But then again, maybe you had to be there.

Enough Said



    NO PETS
        NO SMOKING
        NO INCONTINENT  
              OLD  MEN

Thursday, May 13, 2010

I Don't Do Dead Fish



This is the-well used fish cleaning station at the Dixie Belle Motel.  This time of year, the fishing is great and every day the buckets have been full of stinking fish guts.  Now the job of disposing of said stinking fish guts falls to the DH, because the whole fish cleaning station was his idea and as stated above, I don't do dead fish.

As the DH is currently in Pennsylvania, to his credit, he did arrange for a friend to stop by and take care of the dreaded empty the stinking fish guts task.  I saw said friend this morning in the parking lot and he assured me that the fish cleaning station was AOK.  I thanked him profusely for his help and off he goes.

It's not my habit to do so, but I decided to go back there and give the whole stinking thing a girly clorox cleaning.  I changed to my worst work clothes and put my feet into a pair of wellies, so I wouldn't get any dead fish juice on my person, or if I did I would be wearing something disposable.

To my dismay, I found two large stinking buckets full of large stinking fish guts.  The buckets were so heavy, I couldn't even pick them up.  Why did I thank the "helpful" friend?  Apparently, he just took a look around and did nothing.  Anyway,  I decided to spray everything down with clorox and just leave the stinking buckets for the DH when he returns. Ooh boy, I'm thinking.  They'll be pretty darn ripe by then, but I really didn't have much choice.

Just as I finshed hosing down & bleaching up, 4 fishermen who checked out this morning returned with yet another load of dead fish to clean.  While they were back there making more buckets of stinking guts, I had to come up with a plan. 

My first decision was whether to play my "woe is me" martyr role or my "helpless female" role.  To help me decide, I went back to where the "boys" (my age and better) were making their newest stinking mess and kindly asked themm in my sweetest Scarlett O"Hara manner, to only fill the buckets half way so they'd be light enough for me to pick up and tote to the creek for disposal, all the while having no intention of doing so.  I was just throwing out my line to see what I'd reel in.  I pushed the wheelbarrow over to them  and left it there.

As I was making beds in the room the boys had occupied, the one gentleman in the crowd came in to ask if I wanted him to dump the buckets and where to dump them.  "Oh Bill, if you would do that for me, I would be eternally grateful," I cooed.

He came back to tell me he not only dumped the stinking fish guts, but washed out the buckets and the wheelbarrow.  "Oh, Bill you are my hero," I gushed.  He didn't exactally say "Aw shucks, ma'am," but almost as good.  He told me I treated them well, they had a good time, they made a mess in their room and I didn't complain...much.