I Couldn't Resist

Bed Linens: Proof of an Alternate Universe

For those of you who go about your lives buying the occasional set of sheets, a blanket or quilt here or there, perhaps a bed skirt or duvet cover once or twice in your lives, you've probably never really pondered some of the oddities of bed linens. For those of us who buy linens in quantities and make multiple beds each day, there are far more opportunities to discover/question/curse the bizarre inconsistencies and randomness of the bed linen industry.

Here are some of the things I cannot explain:
- 100% cotton sheets. Okay, they feel nice but even if you pull them out of the dryer before it finishes spinning and put them right on the bed, they're still wrinkled. Okay for home, not so much for a B&B. Life is too short to iron sheets.

- Blanket sizing. A queen size mattress is 60" x 80". A queen size blanket is 90" x 90". How, exactly, does one tuck in the blanket at the bottom? I'm on my third batch of blankets, the current ones are "King" size. I can't even imagine using anything smaller.

- Duvets & Duvet Covers. Same issue. My queen size duvet covers have a lot more fabric than a queen size duvet will fill. Last year, as an experiment, I replaced the queen size down comforter on my personal bed with a king size one. Wouldn't you know, it filled the queen size duvet cover perfectly. When I replace the comforters for the inn bedrooms, the new ones will be king size.

It's as if mattresses, sheets and duvet covers come from one planet with one set of standards and blankets & duvets/comforters come from a different planet with a different set of standards.

When we were getting ready to open the inn I made the decision that all our beds would be the same size (queen) and that all of the linens would be the same. I just don't have the patience to match sets of sheets to decor and I wanted to not have to take an entire set of sheets out of service if one piece got stained or torn. I found a sheet that I liked and bought in case quantities. A year or two later, realizing that linens go out of fashion and these would not always be available, I called the manufacturer and purchased most of the rest of the existing stock. They were already discontinued by then, I was lucky to have gotten what I did.

Coming into our 9th year of operation, we really need new sheets. I don't have enough still in service to do a full-house changeover, which is a problem. I've been on the hunt for new sheets for two years and still haven't found one that meets all my requirements. I actually thought I had found sheets I could live with and ordered them but when they arrived they were a totally different color from the swatch I'd been sent and they looked simply awful in the rooms. I sent them back. This week I requested samples of another sheet that I thought might work; the samples arrived and the fabric is SHINY. Not only that, despite being labeled as having a 55% cotton / 45% polyester content, they feel as if they're 100% poly. Ew.

I am in sheet hell.

The Psychology of Muffins

I make really good muffins. I'm not bragging, it's just fact. And it's my job, or part of it. Granted I still haven't figured out how to get them to reliably dome on top, but they taste really, really good. They're made from scratch with real butter from recipes I've adapted or developed.

About a year ago I tried an experiment with my banana coconut muffins. The recipe calls for two cups of all-purpose flour, I replaced one cup with a cup of whole-wheat flour to add some fiber/nutrition to the mix. There was no change in taste or texture, so I deemed the experiment a success and have continued to make them that way. It wasn't something I mentioned to guests, I just did it.

One morning last fall, after watching several guests look at the muffins on the buffet and pass them by, I spoke up. "These muffins are made with whole-wheat flour" I said. Immediately two or three of my guests got up and got muffins, which they proceeded to inhale enjoy. Interesting. I had thought a lot of my guests pretty much left their diets at home and ate what they wanted on vacation, but clearly the desire to eat healthy will stop some from enjoying a treat unless they think there might be some nutritional value to it. Since I was making them with the whole wheat flour anyway, I've started letting guests know. Muffin consumption has definitely increased. This morning, seven guests ate ten peach muffins.



For anyone wanting to make this substitution, whole wheat flour is darker than all-purpose so if there's already something in the batter that makes it dark, like bananas or mashed peaches, it works fine. I wouldn't add it into my blueberry muffins, which are white except for the berries (and I like them that way), but if you don't care about the color then go right ahead.

A Few Random Things

I know I've been a bit lax about posting lately, my attention has been pulled in too many directions to compose a coherent post. We've been very busy for this time of year, which is good, and I still have some winter projects to complete and some supplies to order before the busy season really rolls around. None of this is terribly interesting, however, so I'll invite you to read a couple of things I've found recently on some of the blogs I read when I have the time.

A while back I posted a bit of a rant about weddings. They have a way of getting seriously out of control that I just don't understand. My own wedding was a backyard clambake, very casual and a lot of fun. But then, I just didn't have the "big wedding" dream. Big or small, the details can be mind boggling. I found this post at a blog on organizing. It should be required reading for anyone planning a wedding.

I now take you to a completely unrelated topic: Jacuzzi tubs. We don't have any, primarily because there was a) no way to fit them into our bathrooms and b) the way this house is constructed, there would be no way to isolate the vibrations, meaning that everyone in the house would know when someone was using a jetted tub. Many of my innkeeper friends, however, do have them. Guests seem to enjoy them. Here's a story of a guest enjoying one in a way none of my innkeeper friends ever envisioned (perhaps that's for the best).

And finally, I leave you with this. It is an utterly useless site, but I'll bet it'll make you smile.

Customer Service

I actually received good customer service this week. Kudos to the tech support folks at HP who helped me out.

Back in December I discovered that my HP OfficeJet All-in-One printer wasn't working. Not only wouldn't it print, it appeared to be dead. As in a giant paperweight sitting on my desk, performing no function whatsoever aside from collecting dust. Things at the inn were slow that month, so the printer might have been dead for a day or two (or three) before I even noticed.

I popped over to HP's tech support page and selected live chat, since that is free. I'm pretty sure the guy at the other end of the line is in a country on the other side of the world and has a pretty specific script from which he has difficulty deviating, because the first thing he suggested I do made it clear that he hadn't really been paying attention when I said the printer had no power. Once I repeated that for him, he suggested I check to see if the power supply (external on this printer, thankfully) was warm to the touch. Bingo! It was not, and a properly functioning power supply should be. I thanked him, ended the chat session and popped over to parts & supplies where I ordered a new power supply. It was around $40 plus shipping, but that's a lot cheaper than a new printer. Since the printer was 2 years old, I figured it was a good investment - I'm not ready to replace it. The power supply arrived about three days later, I plugged it in and the problem was resolved. Because things were so slow that month, I really didn't suffer from having no printer for nearly a week and I was pleased that the solution had turned out to be a simple one.

All was well in printer-land until this past Tuesday night. It was late and I was about to head up to bed when I noticed that the power light on my printer was off. "Uh-oh" was my first thought, as I hopefully pressed the "on" button and waited, in vain, for it to light up. Damn. Checked the power supply immediately. Room temperature. Double-damn. Looked in my credit card bills to confirm December order date. It's too late at night for me to be able to do much else, but I know I've got to get a new power supply ASAP because I have guests checking in the next day, the day after and then a full house checking in on Friday. I use the printer to print out my check-in sheets, invoices if necessary, notes for late-arriving guests, etc. This is NOT the same situation as December, when I didn't really need the printer.

Before even having coffee the next morning (Wednesday) I called HP tech support. We went over the problem and the history. The tech looked up my order and sent me over to the parts department. The person in the parts department who took my call quoted me a price on the part. I remained calm and told him that since I was replacing a power supply that was 3 months old, I expected them to send me a new one for free. I also made it clear I expected nothing less than free shipping, next day if possible. It took a little time, but I eventually got approval for a free replacement and shipping, although I was given a Monday delivery date - best he could do, he said. Okay, I figured that was as good as I was going to get and I'd figure something out for the weekend's printing needs. My phone time invested: 48 minutes (by the timer on my handset).

Later that day, after an unsuccessful attempt to hook up a fairly old printer and an equally unsuccessful attempt to access my husband's printer off our home network, I got a shipping notification email from HP. When I looked at it I discovered that the part had, in fact, been shipped FedEx next-day. It arrived and it solved the problem. I was pleased enough to email HP and thank them for the help.

Now let's keep our fingers crossed that this power supply doesn't quit on me after another three months, because that will put me smack in the middle of my busy season.

Back and Busy

I had a great vacation, an unprecedented almost two weeks away from the inn. Adam, unfortunately, had to head back after less than a week to finish some projects he had to deliver. He has a custom furniture business in addition to being my partner in the B&B and he's got quite a few projects in his shop at the moment. We also had guests coming in for the weekend, so he was going to be taking care of them as well.

While in New York we were able to see some good friends, eat great food and see a show. Our plans for dinner at Gramercy Tavern didn't work out, it turns out that we couldn't get a reservation for any time between 6:00 and 9:30 on a Tuesday evening! Adam even spoke to them that afternoon and they'd had no cancellations. Hard to believe. Instead we took a chance and wound up at Tabla instead. It was lovely. We spent the day on Tuesday going to museums. We started at the Transit Museum, which I'd always wanted to see, then headed uptown to the Guggenheim to see this exhibit. If you're in New York between now and the end of May, go see it. Afterward we headed across the park to the American Museum of Natural History. Adam has done a lot of work there over the years and he knows most of the exhibit department staff. I know a few of them, in particular a guy I worked with at my first job in NYC who now works as the project manager there. Adam & I went to the Water exhibit and the Butterfly Conservatory, then we met Dean at a bar on Columbus Ave. for drinks and to catch up. Did I mention that Adam built the Butterfly exhibit ten years ago? Pretty cool, huh?

Thursday 2/28 was the final concert in a series of three at Madison Square Garden that I really, really wanted to see: Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton. I didn't have tickets but figured what the heck, I'd go down to the Garden and see if anyone had a couple of extras they were willing to sell. I've done this before with Broadway shows and it works just fine. I was a bit surprised at the number and general sleaziness of the scalpers outside MSG, but New York's Finest were doing a decent job of keeping them a good distance from the entrances. Since I don't look anything like a scalper, I positioned myself near one entrance and quietly asked people as they went by if they had extra tickets. After about 15 minutes a gentleman turned at my question and asked "Are they for you?" I assured him they were and he handed me two tickets (a friend was meeting me there). I asked him how much and he said "I just want to give them to someone who will enjoy the concert." I looked at the tickets, they had a $250 face value. Holy sh*t. And they were legit (yes, people sell counterfeit tickets) - my friend and I got in no problem. These seats were on the floor. Right next to the mixing board. Aside from 10th row center, this is the best place to be. The concert was just incredible. I felt like the luckiest person in the world that night.

The last few days of my vacation were spent in Maryland at The Brampton Inn, hanging out with some innkeeper friends. We ate & drank well, traded horror stories of renovations and furnace melt-downs, shopped and had a lot of laughs. Danielle and Michael, our hosts, gave us a tour of their gorgeous property, including the two new luxury rental cottages they're building. It was wonderful and affirming to be with other people living this crazy life.

I got back on 3/6 to a busy weekend and two old friends visiting. There are still winter projects to do and paperwork to organize. I'm back to it in full force but I'll try to post again soon.

In Which the Innkeeper Takes a Vacation

I returned on Sunday, 2/10, from a lovely relaxing week in Vieques and Puerto Rico with three friends. We stayed here, which I heartily recommend, had some wonderful meals, swam at some incredible beaches and in a bioluminescent bay, which was pretty amazing. The last day we flew to Fajardo and hiked in the El Yunque rain forest. Adam stayed in Wellfleet to work on some furniture projects he needed to finish and take care of the inn on the days there were guests here.

As soon as I got home I dove into tax paperwork. Nothing more fun than that! Once that was completed I did some more work on the winter projects list and we had guests to take care of for several nights.

Today we're off to New York City for a week. We have tickets to a show on Sunday and reservations at Gramercy Tavern for my birthday. Adam returns on 2/28 but I will be staying for a couple of extra days then heading down to Maryland for a few days to meet up with some innkeeper friends. We'll share ideas, kick back, drink a lot of wine and have some laughs. I return on 3/6. That will be the longest stretch of time I will have been away from the inn since we opened.