Leap Year

I find leap year kind of creepy.  But that's another story.  I will simply tell you this:  we awoke to our 6am alarm this morning (February 29th) and lay there listening to the wrong radio program.  It was the BBC World Service with the wonderfully bad tempered and witty Dan Damon who usually is off the air by 6.  Then we noticed it was dark.  Very dark.  My husband reached for his flashlight, an enormous and heavy thing that would do nicely to bash an intruder after first blinding him with its laser like beam, and shone it at the radio.  The little electronic numbers (turned to low because their "glow" lights up our bedroom like Wembley stadium) said 6:04.  Now.  We didn't change the clock.  We know we didn't because WE DON'T KNOW HOW.  It has been set at 6am since we bought it ten years ago.  I confess to driving all summer on standard time because I can't set the clock in my car.  But I digress.  The fact it is, it was 5am.  The darkness told us that and Dan Damon was talking. But our clock said 6.  Peter says we are now in a parallel universe.  Suits me. 

An idea for Governor LePage

Today's Groupon offer is for a 'revolutionary UV self-sanitizing toothbrush for just  $28.'   I 'm glad now that I didn't go for the 2 Justin Bieber singing toothbrushes offered last week.  The sanitary or otherwise condition of my toothbrush is something I confess to giving less than full attention to heretofore.  But now I can't look at the thing without imagining all manner of unspeakable threats to my wellbeing.  I'm going to write to the governor. He's very concerned that poor sick people are costing the state too much money (isn't it annoying how unwell poor people tend to be?) and is proposing cuts to Medicaid.   If he took toothbrushes away from poor people, maybe they wouldn't get so sick in the first place.  Meanwhile, I'm going to boil mine. Twenty eight bucks? You must be kidding.

Fat Tuesday

I'm waiting for my guests to come to the table.  Tired of waiting and unable to find the new bag of brown sugar which I KNOW I bought last week, I've been killing a couple of birds with one stone with some satisfying payback thrown in, by bashing an old bag of brown sugar turned to rock with an iron meat cleaver.   Each bash of the cleaver is sweet revenge for the number of smoke alarm bleeps which emanated from their room through the night and will, I'm thinking, rouse them from their beds in short order.  I predict their arrival in the dining room any minute.  I'm confident that the sticky french toast will make things right. 
Blue Skye French Toast:  dip slabs of wholemeal bread into usual f.t. mixture.  As first side browns in melted butter (an iron skillet works best) spoon brown sugar and a bit of cinnamon on top.  Flip and repeat.  Top with finely chopped walnuts.  As this is Fat Tuesday, eat and enjoy.  We can diet through Lent together.

Jack Russell training tips

For those of you who live outside the US, it is a mystifying fact of American life that we are offered over 150 television stations with close to nothing of interest on any of them.  We have shows called, "Improve your Bust", "Say the Rosary with Sister Angelica", "Foot Health", and, my personal favourite, "Turkey Shoot".  We clicked on "Turkey Shoot" once when we first came here.  We'd just settled with a pizza and a glass of wine, turned on the telly and saw this big old turkey waddling through a forest, clucking and humming a happy turkey tune when suddenly BLAM he was SHOT. Blown up.  Exploded.   "Did you see that?" I shouted at my husband who was staring at the screen goggle eyed , mozzerella dripping onto his shoes.  SOMEBODY SHOT THAT TURKEY.What kind of a nature show is that?"

We therefore depend upon Netflix (order up dvds on your computer and they are delivered in the order you request to your postbox) for our winter viewing pleasures. I’ve just yaktraked up drive and across the road to reach our postbox  to post off 2 episodes of MI5, a British tv show to which we have lately become addicted . It concerns a team of 5 good looking  people who we are meant to believe work for the British Secret Service and who each week save the oblivious population from unspeakable perils using fabulous high tech equipment.  Bearing in mind that to us an ipod is high tech and the only perils we face involve ordering from the local Chinese Takeaway, we are enthralled.  Also, they keep knocking off lead characters which adds a certain exciting edge to the episodes.  "What?" I shriek.  "They've shot Adam?" And the screen went blank. “ SURELY they wouldn’t kill Adam.  Would they?  He’s the star!!!”   "Tell that to the turkey" said my husband.

Coping with a Maine Winter

The best way to cope with a Maine winter is to go to Florida.  If you can't do that then get a good hat.  My favorite one is a really nasty bright green with things embroidered on it in red and blue and a big green bobble on the top.  Its label says it is made from Turtle Fur.  That's why I bought it.  A little more wit and a little less truth would go a long way to making life better, in my view.  Then you need YakTrax on your shoes.  These are rubber strappy things with spikes for gripping the ice.  These are what I didn't have on yesterday when I hit a mean patch on the driveway and landed on my head.  I lay there for a while thinking about life in general and wondering if mine was over and then noticed some birds flying overhead.  Ok, I thought.  I can see.  I wonder if I can move.  Somehow it seemed too much trouble to check so I just laid there for a little while longer.  I shouted "Help" but it wasn't a very loud shout because there wasn't anyone around to hear me but it did prove that I could speak.  Ok.  I can hear and I can speak.  Things are looking up.  I turned my head back and forth.  Neck not broken.  Excellent. Nonetheless I am now faced with achieving an upright status from a prone position on an icy hill.  There is not much passing traffic on Friendship Road in the middle of winter but I found myself concerned that someone would drive by just as I flopped about trying to get up.  What would they think?  What if a guest drove in?  What if I were caught on satellite and beamed out on Google Earth for the entire planet to see?  I casually rolled to the side of the drive, off the ice and into the snow and under the cover of a shrub managed to get onto my hands and knees and thence to my feet. 
I saw a nature program on tv that said that not 10 miles outside of Miami there are snakes the size of school buses.

The Cardinal's Wife

I don't know how it happened, but somehow I am signed up to receive emails from Groupon telling me of local "deals for the day".  No doubt there's a button I can push somewhere that will get me off this list, but it has its amusements.  Today's was the best ever:  a Justin Bieber singing toothbrush!!!  I am offered TWO for just $14! 

It's finally snowing.  A cardinal has been flying about all morning, the only flash of colour in my monochrome landscape.  His drab Mrs follows along, careful to avoid the spotlight like a presidential candidate's wife, eyes glazed over in fake adoration, her little beak set in a bored birdy smile, while her dashing husband struts his stuff.

Mrs Romney confided in an interview that when she and her husband were discussing his possible run for office she said to him, "Mitt. I have one question.  Can you save America?"   Well, now.  I was struck by this. This took wifely admiration into truly heady realms.  But more important, I wondered what it was America needed saving from.  And then I remembered the Justin Bieber singing toothbrush.  Go Mitt! 

How to train a Jack Russell

 Several readers have pointed out that my “So You Want to be an Innkeeper” blog has little or nothing to do with innkeeping.  Hang on.  I hear murmuring. Did you think you were the only reader?  I have quite a few, as it happens, and not all of them relatives. 

But to the point:  well, look,  it’s not as if I entitled it “How to Fit Your Own Pacemaker in 4 Easy Steps” and then didn’t deliver the goods.    Innkeeping isn’t specific.  Innkeeping is loose.  Once you figure out how to live a life under a pile of laundry bigger than a Wall Street bonus it’s pretty easy, really.  People come.  People go.  You stay.    If this sounds appealing, why then, innkeeping is for you.  Early on in your new career you will learn how to deter those guests who will louse up the karma of your particular establishment.  Here at Blue Skye we don’t sing folk songs with our guests, we don’t have mystery weekends and chocolate tastings, and there is no television.  By not offering those things we manage to avoid hundreds of boring, needy and unimaginative guests.  It has been pointed out to me by more successful innkeepers that this translates into a lot of money I haven’t earned.  And truthfully, around the middle of February when the thought of paying for the heating oil just delivered brings me out in hives, I do sometimes wonder if perhaps I put off rather more people than necessary. But these thoughts are fleeting. I like to think that those few oddballs who find Blue Skye and enjoy it are grateful it exists in all its plainness. (I admit to an element of British understatement here.  Blue Skye is in fact wonderful if it’s the sort of wonderful you like.) And I in turn enjoy the conversation and opinions my guests bring to my breakfast table.  There.  Innkeeping 101. 

What's this got to do with Jack Russells, you may ask.  Absolutely nothing.  But I'm told that if you mention your dog in your blog that lots of people read it.  I'll let you know how that works out.