Sorry, we don't serve lunch

I'm working at my telecommuting job this morning, when the bell on the front desk dings. The dinger is one of the guests still in the breakfast room. (They technically arrived ten minutes after we stopped serving breakfast, but we went ahead and cooked something for them anyway.) These guests, like most of our guests this weekend, are up for a bike race.

Guest: I have a favor to ask you. We need to eat something light before the race. Like chicken soup. Could you cook it for us? We'll pay you.

I'm sure he thought I wasn't very accommodating when I explained that we only serve breakfast and that I don't have any chicken soup on hand.

Here's the kicker--these guests are staying in the apartment with a full kitchen. They have nicer countertops and appliances than I do!

Maybe it's a cultural thing. They have the same native language as a set of guests last year (also staying in the apartment) who came in one evening and asked if I could make them some hamburgers.

Breakfast, folks. We serve breakfast.

First day of school

Gotta love the nonchalant sixth-grader pose.

Growing like a weed

Michael measured EM today. He has grown 2 and 3/8 inches since the middle of April. I guess it's nice to know all the food he's been eating hasn't gone to waste. Three more inches and he'll be as tall as I am.

Fall Reading List

As I've been wrapping up my summer reading, I've been thinking of what I want to read this fall. I'm currently looking at reading the following between now and the beginning of Advent:

• Finn: A Novel by Jon Clinch. Michael read it this summer and had nothing but good things to say about it. I believe he knows the author slightly through an online community and met him at a book signing in our area. (But I might be confusing this author with someone else.)
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I've been meaning to read this book for years. It comes highly recommended from many sources and I finally bought a copy with some Christmas money this year. Now is finally the time to read it. I started it today, in fact.
• Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross. Michael's parents gave me this book when they were visiting last week. I'm intrigued.
• The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. Another book that, like The Sparrow, has been sitting on my shelves for quite a while. I see from my bookmark that I read the first half at one point, but I will need to start over. This will be my Sunday reading. I noticed that Amazon's book has more pages than mine and a different copyright, so I'm wondering if I have the latest version . . .
• Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande. This was recommended by someone on a message board I frequent when I asked for good nonfiction suggestions.
• Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence. I saw the movie with Michael's parents and I'm intrigued about the evidence behind the story.
• The Rebels of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd. A continuation of the Dublin Saga.

I'd also really like to read these:

• Austenland: A Novel by Shannon Hale.
• How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill.

But I'm worried that eight books is too many to commit to reading. How sad is that?

A Tale of Two Cities

EM and I finished reading A Tale of Two Cities today. Yes, finally. You'd never guess, from how long it took us to make our way to the end, how much I enjoyed reading it. I'm actually thinking of picking up another Dickens book just for my own enjoyment. I don't think I'll read this one aloud, though.

A Darkness More Than Night

I spent almost the entire day* reading A Darkness More Than Night by Michael Connelly. I started reading it on the plane home from France, but in the chaos of unpacking and getting back to normal life, I misplaced the book. By the time I found it, I had lost my place and forgotten so much that I had to start at the beginning again.

I enjoyed it. It's not every police thriller that ties in a Northern Renaissance painter. I wasn't so interested that I will search out another book by Connelly, but next time I'm looking for a book in an airport, I'll definitely pick up a book by him over most other authors.

* This is why I don't read as much fiction as I used to. If the book is good, I have a really hard time putting it down, and if I spend a day or two doing nothing but reading, I end up feeling slightly sick. It will do me good to get back to work tomorrow.

At least he asks...

LW, like his brothers, has a very large head.* A very large, hard head. And he likes to bonk heads. You'll be sitting on the couch, talking to him or singing a song with him, and next thing you know, he's pulled back and smashed his forehead into yours. Not my favorite sign of affection.

Today, while sitting on the couch, we had the following conversation.

LW (pointing to my head): Mommy head?
Me: Yes, that's Mommy's head.
LW (pointing to his head): Me, head?
Me: Yes, that's your head.
LW (hopefully): Bonk?

* IM, in contrast, has a normal-size head. When she and NB were babies, she looked almost microcephalic in comparison. I was relieved when I saw her with other children and realized that yes, her head is normal. Her brothers just have really big heads.

The Princes of Ireland

Yesterday, I finished The Princes of Ireland, the first book in the Dublin Saga by Edward Rutherfurd. I enjoyed this book even more than Sarum, the first of his books I read. Perhaps it's in part because I now expect to jump through time from one set of characters to the next. It's always a little sad to leave the characters in whom I've grown interested.

Although I know historical fiction has limits, I did learn a fair bit about Irish history. To whit:

1. Vikings settled in Ireland and intermarried with the Celtic people. (Yes, I know, this should have been obvious to me, but I'd just never thought about it.)
2. The English came to Ireland in the first place because a vassal of the English king went to Ireland as a mercenary to fight for one of the Celtic kings who was trying to take the position of High King. When the vassal ended up marrying the Celtic king's daughter, inheriting his position and eventually becoming High King himself, King Henry II went to Ireland to assert his authority over his vassal (and therefore over Ireland).
3. The Irish church had some curious traditions, including priests who married and monasteries that were associated with prominent families (the position of abbot was passed from father to son).
4. In medieval times, your rights depended on whether you were considered Irish or English, but that designation was not as straightforward as you might think. Sometimes if you were prominent enough and wealthy enough, the rulers would overlook your actual ancestry.

This book covered from 430 A.D. to the reign of Henry VIII. I'm looking forward to reading the second book, which will take me to 1922.

Ginger Pye

Much to everyone's relief, the kids and I finished Ginger Pye today. How, how, did this book win the Newberry Medal? Nineteen fifty-two must have been a bad year for children's literature.

There was not enough plot for 306 pages, and the characters were not compelling. All of us figured out the big mystery about 150 pages sooner than Jerry and Rachel, which makes them look more than a little stupid.

Michael has pointed out numerous times that we should have just stopped reading, but NB wanted to finish and I hate to abandon a book, so we kept plugging along. But it sure does feel good to be done.

Three strikes and you're out?

How many calls can you make to Poison Control before they send out Child Protective Services? Anyone know?

To date we've called three times:

1. LW drinks EM's trumpet valve oil. Poison Control says to watch for signs of a cold, as sometimes kids aspirate some of the liquid and it can lead to pneumonia. LW is fine. (LW actuall drank the valve oil a second time--opening the bedroom door, the closet door, and the trumpet case to reach it--but we didn't call the second time because we knew the drill.)
2. Two weeks ago, LW eats diaper rash creme (the Wal-Mart brand). Our call to Poison Control is the third call within a half hour for the same thing. You'll be glad to know diaper rash creme is not toxic. (Must not come from China.)
3. This morning, LW opens a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol and chews up and spits out one tablet. "Gum," he said, but it was more bitter than he expected. For future reference, a child his size can consume four 500 mg tablets "safely." Why do I think I might need to know that in the future? (Oh, and just a warning. They make Tylenol bottles without child-proof lids. It does say, "Not for homes with young children" but somehow I missed that when I was staring at the bizillion varieties of Tylenol on the store shelves. And somehow it didn't even register that the bottle was easy to open. We have since thrown the bottle out.)

Sigh. Will this child survive his childhood? Will I?

No Blueberries?!?

Every summer we pick blueberries at a farm about a 45-minute drive from the inn. Two evenings each week they have live music in the blueberry fields so you can enjoy the concert while you pick. We take a picnic dinner, pick a ton of blueberries, and then gorge ourselves on blueberry pie, Belgian waffles, and other treats for a week before freezing the rest. A blueberry pie made from berries you picked yourself is a wonderful reminder of summer in the middle of a cold New England winter.

Blueberry picking is one of the highlights of our summer.

This year, we put off picking until Michael's parents were here. We figured we might not get quite the number of quantity of berries we usually get, but the farm had scheduled concerts for a full week after his parents' visit, so we felt confident there would still be berries, and we wanted to share the experience with them. I checked the web site last week, and all looked good. We planned to pick tomorrow.

I logged on this morning to confirm the hours, and discovered that the season is over! Yesterday was their final picking day. They didn't even have last Thursday's evening music.

Does it count as summer if we didn't go blueberry picking?

Have you thanked your neck today?

You don't appreciate body parts until they stop working on you. If you can turn your neck from side to side or swallow without pain, take a moment now to be grateful.

I think I slept wrong Wednesday night, and the kink hasn't gotten any better yet. A double dose of Advil takes the edge off, but I am getting pretty sick and tired of the whole chronic pain thing. Yes, I'm a wimp.

On the plus side, I have a great excuse for getting a massage...

Tomatoes!

Michael's parents arrived last night from Utah and brought with them an entire suitcase of produce fresh from their garden. We have green beans, nectarines, green peppers and . . . one whole box of ripe, delicious tomatoes! This is allowing me to indulge in fresh tomatoes, sliced and lightly salted. Or tiny tomatoes just popped straight in the mouth. I am in heaven.

Store-bought tomatoes taste like styrofoam balls compared to tomatoes straight from the farm or garden. And we don't get enough tomatoes from the CSA for me to selfishly eat an entire tomato myself. They must be doled out in salads they whole family can enjoy. But right now we have so many I can be greedy.

I think I'm going to sneak off to the store today to pick up good mozzarella and basil so we can have tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad and panini. Yummy.

CSA Report

This week, we brought home the following:

• 2 artichokes
• 4 tomatoes
• 2 jalopenos
• 1 waxy green pepper (hot)
• 3 yellow squash
• 2 big handfuls of mesclun
• 1 big handful of green beans
• 5 potatoes
• 3 patty pan squash
• 2 cucumbers

Brothers

EM and LW


All three boys


LW and NB

Pictures!

LW (aka "Lemmy"), 22 months


NB, age 7


IM, age 7


EM, age 11

La Belle France

I finally finished reading La Belle France: A Short History. (Short is a relative term; the book is 441 pages.) Let me tell you, there is a lot I didn't know about French history. Sadly, I didn't retain it all as well as I would have liked.

Alistair Horne's writing style is pretty dense, although he includes lots of witty asides and humorous quotes. (For example, "Francois Mauriac's famous witticism that he loved Germany so much that he was always 'delighted there were two of them.'") He does use French quite a bit, with no thought to translate. He's clearly writing to a British audience that reached a certain level of French proficiency in school. When Michael was in the room, he could usually translate the French for me, but when he was not here, I just shrugged and kept reading. My lack of French definitely detracted from the reading experience.

It was also an interesting experience to read a book written by a Brit for Brits. The frame of reference was different. Comparisons were made to situations and people I was completely ignorant of or knew only vaguely.

When I studied world history in school, I came away with the impression that France was slightly unstable for much of its history, an impression that was only reinforced by this book. I knew the students and workers had barricaded the streets of Paris during the French Revolution. What I hadn't realized is that blocking the streets of Paris was a common component of an uprising. Did you know that France had 20 governments between 1945 and 1954? I have a new appreciate for regularly scheduled elections that happen regardless of whether or not one likes the current government.

Talk Gamma?

Yesterday, LW picked up the cordless phone, pushed Talk to get a dial tone, looked at me and said, "Talk Gamma?"

I tried calling you, Mom, but Dad said you were out shopping.

Happy Birthday!

Random Thoughts from the Inn

Last night was another bad sleep night. About half an hour after I fell asleep, I got a call.

Man: "Hi. I know it's late but I'm here to check in."
Me: "What's the last name?"
Man: "A____"
Me: "There's an envelope on the office door with your name on it and your room key inside."
Man: "I don't see it...oh, here it is." click

Grrr. His was the only envelope I left out last night. Somehow he could read the sign on the left side of the double door that said to dial 0 on the phone to reach me but couldn't see the envelope with his name on it on the right side of the double door.

LW woke up shortly after that. Following our usual nightly routine, we came down to sit on the couch in the living room. While I was waiting for him to fall back asleep, I heard noise on the deck. Sure enough, someone's in the hot tub. Put sleeping baby down, go back downstairs and kick guest out of hot tub.

Blech.

Fortunately, breakfast this morning was a breeze. I had to open early for the racers, but I prepped everything I possibly could last night, so I had no trouble opening by the promised time this morning, and the guests paced themselves very nicely. I even had time to give touring advice to several people and try to call ahead to arrange a room for tonight for our British guests. (As it turned out, the Rough Guide to New England was 0 for 2 on getting the correct phone numbers for the listed hotels--one number connected me to a Catholic parish--so I directed the guests to the welcome center off of the interstate.)

Oh, and four days of patience paid off. I caught an r-a-t last night. You know, I hate the thought of killing most things, but I am remarkably hard-hearted when it comes to rats. As long as Michael isn't home, that is. He has a habit of making up a story about, for example, the baby rats waiting for their mother to come home, and next thing I know I'm crying over the rat.

The CSA Haul This Week

The CSA is getting better and better. This week, our single share entitled us to the following:

• Two heads of lettuce
• One handful of green beans and one of yellow beans
• Three parsley sprigs
• Three basil sprigs
• Six beets
• Three lemon cucumbers
• Four regular cucumbers
• Two red tomatoes
• Eight potatoes
• One bunch of kale

And I get the vague feeling I'm missing something.

Quote of the Day

I just read this quote in my French history book and had to share it.

What a beautiful life I've had. It's a pity I didn't notice it sooner. --Colette (towards the end of her life)

Did We Dodge the Train?

I'm actually feeling better this morning than I did yesterday or last night. The guests have all had breakfast, and most of them have gone home, so if I do get sick we should be able to cope.

This morning for breakfast, we had a choice of scrambled eggs with sausage and toast or pancakes. One woman came in with her husband and asked, "Is there any way I could get a waffle? I haven't had a waffle yet." Apparently she ordered eggs two days ago when waffles were on the menu. I said that I was sorry but unfortunately we were set up for pancakes this morning. She turned away and walked out of the breakfast room, muttering under her breath. Her husband ordered pancakes, and I saw that she joined him with some cereal and soy milk she had brought from her room.

I'm sure she thinks I am not very responsive to her needs, but we do not have a commercial kitchen. It's just a normal, small-to-medium-sized family kitchen. I don't have counter space for both the griddle and a waffle iron. Not to mention that I would have needed to mix up waffle batter. And since Michael is gone and the inn is completely full...

Sorry. I have my limits.

The Headlight of the Oncoming Train

I can see a train coming, otherwise known as the 24-hour Stomach Bug. *sigh*

IM threw up on Friday morning shortly after breakfast, but kept lunch down and was fine the rest of the day. Michael optimistically declared that she must have eaten something funny. (What it was, since she'd eaten the same food as the rest of us, he didn't say.)

Michael left last night to drive to his writing retreat in Canada. They (he's carpooling with his cousin) got a late start last night because his passenger got caught up in bad traffic on her way to us. I got a call this morning saying that he was throwing up and could I please call the car company and add L as an authorized driver of the rental car?

So now I'm feeling a touch queer in the stomach and somewhat feverish, and I don't know if it's just psychosomatic or if I am in fact coming down with the bug. I'm operating on a sleep deficit because the guests were not nice to me last night--I couldn't shut down until 11 due to a lost guest calling repeatedly from the road, I had to kick the same guest out of the hot tub at midnight, and another group of guests were being noisy on the back deck and woke me up at 1:00. Plus, the convention group needed breakfast at 7:00.

I've been resting as much as I can--yes, the kids are watching too much TV--and trying to eat small amounts and keep well-hydrated. I'm trying to stay on top of dishes, laundry, etc., so we are in good shape if I'm out of it for a day or so. I hope if I do get sick, it doesn't happen during breakfast tomorrow. I'm really not sure EM is up to cooking for guests.

Things to Be Thankful for Today

1. When the microwave died, it died at 2:00 in the afternoon when I was warming LW's bottle and not in the middle of serving breakfast to our full house or right as I was going to bed tonight.
2. I mixed up tomorrow's applesauce coffee cake tonight, so when I discovered that the seal was broken on my applesauce (and it was growing mold), I had time to run to the convenience store and buy another jar.
3. The river. It was almost 90 today, and playing in the river with the kids this afternoon sure felt good. I usually just go down in shorts and sit at the edge with my feet in the river, but today I wore my swimming suit and went all the way in. I'm especially glad that unlike the popular swimming hole down the road, which is in full sun, our river stretch is nicely shaded in the afternoon.
4. I got caught up on some paperwork and filing. In addition to the lovely virtuous feeling I get from doing unpleasant things I have to do but dread doing, I discovered...
   
5. One of our business CDs does actually mature before our property taxes are late, so even if the rest of the summer and the fall prove to be as so-so as the rest of the year, we can pay all our bills without having to loan the business money.

So all in all, it was a good day.

The Ghosts Have Left the Building

Or so I was informed by one of the guests in room two. The ghosts were apparently in room three last night. Supposedly, they are the second owners of the inn and were here about 15 years. They have stuck around to help us, but did agree last night to leave if the guest they were talking to cleansed the inn of the negative energy. Which she was nice enough to do. So, we should be all nice and ghost-free now.

(Silly us, we thought we already were.)

What I didn't tell the guest was that we know quite a bit about the former owners of the inn, and there is really no one who matches that description (here about 15 years and now dead). Even if you say, here as a ghost for 15 years, it doesn't match.

We are the fifth owners of the inn. The first owners were the parents of the man who built the place. (He was very young, which explains a lot, and his parents are still alive, or were last summer when he dropped by to meet us.) Then there was a couple who sold it shortly after they moved in, because one of them had a health crisis. (They are the best bet for being dead, but I can't imagine they were here long enough to still be haunting the place 20+ years later.) Then there was a woman who got the inn in her divorce settlement but didn't really want it. (Husband apparently bought it for her without really consulting her. From what we've heard she hated it here, so again, I can't see her being too concerned about helping us.) Then there is the owner who sold it to us. She was here about 17 years (some of that time with her ex-husband), but she is still alive and well and cashing the checks we send her every month. (Her ex-husband died recently, but again, from what we heard, they got divorced largely because he was tired of running the inn and wanted to move, so I doubt he'd choose to hang out here.)

So, nope, no one really fits.

Just when I think the guests can't surprise me any more...

We Got Tomatoes!

Today was our CSA vegetable pick-up day, and we got tomatoes!! Tomatoes are hands-down my favorite fresh-grown vegetable. Sadly, we don't have enough sun to grow tomatoes. We've tried. But today I brought home two fresh tomatoes--one red and one black. Well, ok, black is pushing it, but the variety is named Black Prince.

We also got six potatoes, 6 garlic scapes, one head of cauliflower, one head of lettuce, twelve carrots (a mix of purple and yellow), four yellow squash, a bunch of scallions, two cucumbers, and three sprigs of basil (each sprig has about 4 leaves on it). Yummy! I'm not crazy about the garlic scapes now that they are maturing, but Michael can use garlic in any form.