Life on the road

Last week, Phil played for 3 nights at the Silver Reef Casino in lovely Ferndale, WA.

Wait, lemme back up.

My husband Phil is a jazz bassist. In addition to working full time at Microsoft, he plays a lot of nights/weekends. Some of these gigs are paid, some are not. So, when one comes along that pays reasonably well, he considers it.

Phil plays with a number of different groups. The one that played at Silver Reef is Trish, Hans, and Phil, which, you guessed it, consists of him, the vocalist Trish, and the pianist Hans. They've played together for about 10 years. Phil and Hans both write arrangements, as well as sing and play, and Trish is the lead vocalist. They also have great chemistry on stage and make the crowd laugh quite a bit. If you want to read more about Phil's music, see: Phil's Music.

So, anyway, Trish, who usually plays these casino gigs with other groups, arranged for 4 gigs in a row, 1 Tuesday afternoon at the Northern Lights Casino, and then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday nights at Silver Reef.

OK, so now you know what the hell I'm talking about...

Phil took the 3 days off, and while in Ferndale, we stayed at the Super 8. When Trish was describing where it was she said "It's near the Denny's and the McDonalds." Phil's response was "When I was on the road, I'd dream for a place like that."

So, I had high hopes

When we got to the Super 8, Phil tried to give them a credit card to pay for any incidentals. The response? "Um, well, we don't really have any incidentals."

OK, so this isn't the Plaza.

Next stop, our room. It was, well, bare. I have never before been in a room where there was NO ALARM CLOCK!!! I mean, seriously, is an alarm clock an amenity? Forget hair dryers or shower caps or shoe mitts or shampoo and conditioner, but NO ALARM CLOCK????

Well, I got over that. But then, Phil tried to take a bath. There was no stopper in the bathtub. So, the next morning, in addition for asking for two more pillows (aside: why do they only put two pillows on king sized beds? this seems to happen in every hotel, and we always have to ask for more) we said "there's no stopper in our bathtub."

No lie, the droid at the counter says "uh huh," and just looks at us, like 'of course, there's no stopper in your bathtub - next?' So, Phil follows it up with "well, I'd like to take a bath." She made a note.

Nothing ever happened with that note. We never got a stopper for the tub.

Phil resorted to shoving one of their (2) washcloths in the drain.

I haven't even mentioned the fact that for some reason we were given a room for people with disabilities. So, if our phone rang, so did a light on the wall, and the bathroom had about 16 different bars to grab.

Phil says "so, how do you like life on the road?"

Even with all of that, I have to say I liked being able to read, watch TV, and play computer solitaire without worrying about what chores I was missing.

Forget Super 8 - how pathetic am I?

 

Last day with guests

I will be so glad to get my house back. In general, my guests are low maintenance, but it doesn't matter how low maintenance someone is, after 5 weeks, it's enough.

I try really hard to keep things in order around here. In general, it's hard for me to stay organized. It doesn't come easily. So, when I have others about mucking things up it makes it even harder. The kitchen is a prime example. They say they want to "help," that I've done too much. Fine. So, when they try to cook, they spend the next hour or so asking me questions every 5 minutes. They don't know where things are, they don't know how they work (our entire house is a technological mystery), and they can't reach things in the cabinets.

Oh, and then they want to "clean." Well, we have the Fisher & Paykel Dish Drawers. These are not your typcial dishwashers. They require some understanding to use correctly. My MIL will "load" them, and then leave them. She won't start them, and then forget to tell me. And, she loads them incorrectly. You can fit about twice as much in each one than she does. So, I've basically told her that if she wants to "help," she needs to watch the video for the dishwasher (which she won't do). Ok, so then she tries to handwash stuff. Well, she doesn't see very well, and so the stuff doesn't get clean, so I have to do it again anyway.

Oh, and these two have tremendous life experience. They've done wonderful things. Just because I understand how to search for and buy things on the Internet and run all the techie stuff in my house does not mean that I am better, smarter, or more together. I just means that I understand my house.

Right now I'm sitting upstairs hiding as they're preparing dinner. I've left my husband in charge of answering all questions. I'm tired of the confusion. I want my quiet house back.