22 Day of 365 of What it is Like to Run a Resort

At 8 a.m. I was out by the dumpster to take off the anti-bear device. The garbage truck was due to arrive soon and I wanted to be ready. On my way to the dumpster I picked up the fish cleaning house's garbage. The bag had slid into the garbage can so when the next person threw in their fish guts, they missed the bag. Thank God they wrapped them in newspaper, but they smelled as bad as you can imagine. When I finally got them all back in the bag, it was time to breathe. I had been holding my breath. What a stink! My hands were wet from fish goo and there were even scales stuck to my hands. Yuck! So I tied the bag into a knot and immediately washed my hands at the sink. Our fish cleaning house has a table, butcher block cutting board, soap, sink, brush, garbage can, stool and shelf for newspapers. When I reached in to wash my hands, I jumped because there was a huge, live spider in the sink. Remember those black plastic spider rings from Halloween? Yeah, that big. He was dispatched quickly by the scrubbing brush and then I thoroughly washed my hands. I took the garbage to the dumpster, and just as I was lifting off the cover, or anti-bear device, I heard the garbage truck. A customer's car was parked in the way, so I ran up the hill to the Balsam cabin to get them to move their car. They did, and were a little upset about it. I apologized to the customer and they were very nice about it then. The garbage truck driver apologized for being so early too. He explained that with Loon Days going on, he had his entire schedule changed for the day. The first Wednesday of August in Mercer is the famous Loon Days. The entire downtown is full of vendors and tents. The whole thing started out as just a flea market kind of sale and became a huge deal. Since it is in the middle of the week, vendors from all over are available so the entire town is mobbed. Mercer alumni come from far and wide for this event so its also like Homecoming week. Our resort pretty much cleared out this morning to go to Loon Days, so I wasn't about to stay behind by myself. By 10:00 a.m. I was on my way to Loon Days. I parked our beat-up minivan in our friend's driveway. They live a few houses down from the elementary school. This means I only have to walk a few blocks to downtown. I walked and walked and bought stuff and then sat down for lunch. I ordered some pork schnitzel from the Pines and sat down at their picnic table. Soon I was joined by my friend, Karen. She is a health inspector for the county and she and her group had just finished inspecting all the food booths at Loon Days. She was eating some of the same food I was, so that was a good sign. She and her fellow inspectors said that all the food booths were fine. She has to inspect our resort every year too, which would be a bad thing for our friendship if it weren't for the fact that we're just so close to perfect its not a problem. Since we bought all new mattresses in 2005, we have a lot fewer citations. In fact, the only citations we get are for new code changes. She's not doing us any favors because she's my friend. She's a perfectionist and believe me, if there was anything she needed to write us up for, she would do it. In fact, I have a lot of pink sheets from the last 12 years to prove it. Usually the write ups were for things we had no clue about - like we needed a vent in the floor right behind a gas space heater, or a smoke detector was not working properly because a customer had taken out a battery. When I got back from Loon Day, I went in to check messages. John, my husband, is with his dad, about 5 hours away, who is dying. I have had them on my mind all day. I called him back and spoke with him awhile. His dad was being brought back home and hospice was being set up there. He said it was sad to see his dad like that but it is good that he was coming home at the end. It is so sad also that John is going through this when I can walk around downtown and have lunch with friends. I wish he was here with me and everything was back to normal. But life throws curve balls. My son can attest to those curve balls. A week ago he finally finished his 4 year term in the Marines. During his duty his platoon was scheduled to go to Afghanistan. I prayed and prayed that he wouldn't have to go. Then when he was off duty, he and some other Marines were in a car accident. My son, Joey, had to have surgery on his leg, which had a chunk taken out of it. He also had some other injuries but because of the accident, he didn't go to Afghanistan. He was thrown quite a curve ball. This evening at the resort some kids were opening and slamming the steel cellar doors on our new cabin. The noise was so loud, that I had to go over there and put the fear of Cheri into them. Then I noticed that the neighbor's dog was in our resort again. So I put him in our minivan and drove him the 2 miles back home through a gravel driveway to our neighbor's house. We call them neighbors, because they are labeled as such in the country, but 2 miles is a long ways for that dog to keep coming on his own. I used one of our old leashes to tie him up to the stairway there. When I tried to leave, he tried to follow so I had no choice. When I got back, our dogs were very happy to see me. I love dogs. I would have been pretty lonely these last few nights without them around. This afternoon a UPS truck arrived with a present for our golden retriever, Senna. The box was labeled, "Senna Stratte". I was very surprised but called her over. When I opened it, I found a brand new toy for her. Boy was she excited when she saw it. Last week we had some customers here with their dog, Max. Max had the same type of toy and Senna kept trying to steal it. So they were very nice and generous and sent her one. She grabbed it in her mouth, and went absolutely bonkers with excitement. She danced around on the deck, ran up and down the stairs twice, and then took off on a run for the beach. Half way there she turned around to see if I was following, which I was. I threw it in the lake for her a bunch of times and when she started shaking off in front of customers and friends, I just threw it on the lawn. She is one happy dog tonight. There was supposed to be northern lights tonight but now its raining. Bummer.