I feel good recommending...
The Holiday Inn Express in Modesto. Not the old Holiday Inn which was by the train track but the new one that is on the other side of the freeway. I can also re-assure you that the Days Inn in Rocklin is worth skipping. There is just something wrong with picking up your bath towel and finding a long black hair.
The Holiday Inn is new and has wonderfully strong shower heads. The staff is great especially when people check in late at night. They even offered to provide me with dinner - I had just come from dinner with JenHarper so wasn't too interested. But I did help myself to the hot chocolate chip cookies.
More on Jane Austen
Okay, Willougby is definitely a jerk and Edmund is not much better. Eleanor deserves a medal for not strangling Marianne.
Just wanted to share this with everyone...
Lizzie Palmer YouTube video -
Remember Me.
Finally reading a Jane Austen book...
Well, listening to it during my drive time here in California, I realize why I've never finished a Jane Austen book. I've been listening to Sense and Sensibility.
I want to strangle Marianne and her mother. And all the talk of a gentleman being ancient at 35, it's easy to see that the author was young herself to think of that age as being in one's dotage even given the lifespan for the era and while I'm offing people, can I shoot Willoughby? He's a total twit! How can anyone consider him a romantic hero?
Have I mentioned the cow smell?
Did I mention that I keep getting put up in hotels where it smells like cows outside?
Here I am in very dark Merced with a cell phone that is working spotty at best and not at all at worst. The funny thing? Here at the Super 8 the room is bigger and nicer than my room last year at the Ramada.
My rental car has a pushbutton start and is totally key-less which is kind of weird to me and I really don't think I would like to own a car with this kind of system.
There's something about a pedicure...
that just makes me cringe.
Don't get me wrong, I love having someone massage my feet and paint my toenails but there was a news article not to long ago on the spread of foot fungus and other diseases from nail shops with unclean practices. They gave a list of things to watch for and to avoid. I recently had a pedicure at a shop picked by someone who loves going there. Considering her insistence on extreme cleanliness standards, I figured the shop would abide by the simple rules given by the news report.
1. Soaking tubs should be sanitized between clients. - - - Imagine my shock watching them drain one tub and immediately start refilling it for the next client. Not only did they not disinfect it, they didn't even rinse it out and dry it. Who knows what callus shavings and cuticle clippings were still in it? I did my best to pick out a massage chair with a dry tub. How was I to realize that the jets in it were broken and would spray everywhere.
2. Tools should not go from client to client but should be cleaned between uses. - - Another total cringe factor here for me, thank goodness I know the person whose feet were in the callus shaver before mine. I knew her feet would not have an infection and I couldn't help but be grateful the woman was so quick and didn't give me time to think about who was there before the person before me.
3. Loofahs and other scrubbing items should be individual use or cleansed between clients. - - Another ick! here that nearly had me run screaming from the shop if I didn't know that I would have to walk barefoot across the floor and who knows when that was last sanitized.
4. Nail polish bottles should not be shared for all clients. - - I saw this one coming when we walked in so I made sure to pick a brand new bottle that was still sealed. Even so it totally grossed me out to have her dip the brush into the bottle each time she did my toes.
Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get home and wash my feet with disinfectant!
The place I like to go for pedicures - - puts a fresh liner in the soaking bin when the client sits down, gets tools for each client out of one of those blue disinfectant tubes that you see at hairstylists stations (and they change the solution every few hours). She has small loofahs to scrub my feet and she throws it in the garbage when she's done. As for the nail colors, if I don't bring my own, she pours it from the jar into a thing that looks like a disposable artist's palette and uses a disposable brush to do my nails (the brush goes into the garbage right behind the loofah when she's done). I also see her use hand sanitizer before and after she touches my feet which also makes me feel confident about her professionalism. The down side to my lady? She doesn't have a massage chair for me to sit in, just a nice recliner that she puts a fresh clean towel across before I sit in it and there are no jets in the soaking tub but considering that the ones in the other place kept squirting me, I'm not sure that is a downside.
I'm on the road again....
Next week is Arizona and last week was Spokane Washington.
So I flew into Pasco, stayed the night and did my first meeting, then drove 50 miles to my second meeting in Othello, another 26 to Moses Lake and met up with Seattle Jen. We had a great dinner at Inca's and did show and tell. Like last time she showed me some great Chatelaine pieces.
Then it was 132 miles to my hotel in Pullman and the good thing is that even though it was dark, at least it wasn't foggy the way that it was two years ago. In the morning I checked with both the hotel and the facility I was supposed to talking at and neither one had seen the box of the presentation packages. A phone call to the office confirmed that the box of supplies was sitting at my hotel in Pasco, they had been delivered about the time that I was in Othello.
So after my 9 am meeting (done without supplies) it was a 134 mile drive to Pasco and then another 135 miles to Spokane (ending up one hour later than the original meeting time). So due to the mis-shipped package, I ended up driving an extra 194 miles.
I also learned that the rural speed limit in Washington is 60 mph where it would be 75 mph in Utah.
I also started and finished The Jane Austen Book Club on CD. I think it would have made more sense if I was familiar with Austen's books. But it was entertaining enough to keep me awake.
Greetings from ice cold Pasco, WA
I'm used to November in Utah being cold. This year has been an exception and I forgot that the rest of the country may actually be having a winter this year. So I arrived in Pasco ready for my several hundred mile drive with a copy of The Jane Austen Book Club, my business attire, my handouts and projector and no coat. That's right, no coat. It is freezing up here. Mind you its midnight and I only arrived 2 hours ago so I'm not sure what the days will be like but at this rate I'm going to be cranking the heater up in the Vibe that I'm driving (is it just me or does it seem like all the rental cars have really weird names lately?)
At least this trip is only 2 days and the really good part is that I get to have dinner with SeattleJen and see her stitching, even if it is freezing.
And just think, next week, I'll be in sunny Arizona - I can think of that to give me the warm thoughts to survive this freeze.
I thought I had a working rotation!
So last month I redid my rotation and bought a new stopwatch. I was just feeling out of control and wanted to have at least something that was in order in my life.
So I worked on my focus piece for 4 weeks and when I went to take it down DH asked what I was going to work on next. I told him I was going to throw a quilt up on the little frame. His response - "Can't you wait until after Christmas?" Now his response is justified considering that Harry Potter #3 was up for 10 months but it was on a full size frame that takes my entire sitting room. This is the little frame that sits in front of my TV chair it's only 2x3 ft. He does have a point in that I'm scheduled to be out of town with work more than I'm in town this month and we'll be having Thanksgiving dinner at our place.
So, as much as it annoys me to do so, I probably ought to reorganize a few of the slots and redo the rotation, especially since I haven't stitched my sisters Christmas ornaments this year. It's a good thing that this month's SAL is ornaments and obligations.
Comments about Running Man...
We watched Running Man with the kids and laughed about Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger both being politicians today since the movie makes fun of both politicians and television.
Some of the lines that the kids noticed - -
I feel sorry for the young people, they’ve closed the schools.
Get the President’s talent agent on the line.
You have the com, Mr. Spock “Who’s that?” “Aw, young people don’t know what they’ve missed.
And Dawson’s speech at the end where he talks about how television has been telling people what to eat, what to wear and how to think for so many years that they don’t want to do it any other way. “We just give the people what they want.”
Now if I could just get Max Headroom on DVD.
