Hi,
It’s been a bit, but you should see me more often soon. I hope to have my housekeeping issues solved by next week. Derronda’s picking up three weekday shifts (gotta luv her) and the other two I should have covered soon. Great news and not so great news. Great news, June was my third busiest month since opening here. Not so great news, I’ve been the weekday housekeeper. 🙂
There’s a free jazz concert and poetry readying on September 11 with sax star Oliver Lake on the street outside the Mattress Factory. The poetry reading is sponsored by Asylum Pittsburgh, a very cool organization that has this house over by the Mattress Factory that sponsors dissident poets. One of the poets will be Khet Mar from Burma.
Also, Phipps Conservatory, my favorite space in the City has added Friday night hours until September 12. The Victorian greenhouse is featuring their gargoyle show with Gargoyle Nights. They are open from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. with guided tours at 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The $20 admission includes the tour, gargoyle bites (BBQ by Chef Joe Colantuono) and $4 fruit, lemonade and vodka cocktails. For those of you that have been in Phipps during the day, the evening shows are spectacular. It was the most popular tour during the Dale Chihuly exhibition two years ago.
There was a cool article in The Trib Sunday about drive in movies. One of them, the Dependable on Moon Clinton Road (out toward the airport from here) is doing quite well. It only has had two owners since it opened in 1960 and current owners bought it in the 60’s a few years after it opened. In the 80’s it showed adult films, but switched back to general interest a while back and does quite well. It has four screens now. An amazing thing is it is open year round. Other drive ins in the general area are the Twin Hi-Way in Robinson (close be the Dependable), the Riverside in Vandergrift, the Hi-Way in Latrobe, the Evergreen in in Mt Pleasant, the Kane Road in Beaver County and the Comet in Brownsville.
For a number of years, when I’ve taken long distance trips my left arm would fall asleep from having my elbow on the open window sill in the truck. Frequently, when I sleep, I tuck one of my arms under my head. Lately, that arm’s fallen asleep and it wakes me up from the pins and needles. I went to see Dr Casey Phillips, a chiropractor across the street from me. I’ve never considered going to a chiropractor, not that I’m one of those people that doubt their reliability, I just don’t go to doctors. After my second visit to Dr Casey, my arms haven’t fallen asleep since.
There was an article that talked about Pittsburgh and me in the Lexington Herald-Leader last weekend. Here’s the link if you want to see it Herald-Leader
A local carpenter did an amazing job repairing the termite damage under the powder room and in the Parlor under the piano last winter. He made the quarter sawn oak flooring and actually recreated the decorative walnut boarder around the edges including the box design in the corner. He’s back doing some other jobs for me. I know no one ever noticed but me, but the door down the hallway from the front door that leads to the Veranda never had the molding on the left. The carpenter couldn’t match the the molding already on the top and other side of the door. So he bought the closest he could find and then made it match. He used pine instead of walnut (five hundred dollars difference) and then faux stained it to match the other two pieces. Amazing.
My check-in is from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m., which is fairly standard in the industry. Check-out in most hotels/inns is eleven or noon. This gives at least three hours to get the rooms cleaned and ready for the new guests. Friday, four of my five check-ins arrived early, one as early as noon. Saturday two of my four check-ins arrived early. With an Inn as apposed to a standard hotel, when we’re not actually cleaning rooms, we use the time between breakfast in check-in to run our errands, set appointments, have some quiet time to balance the check book, maybe even blog. This past Friday, I didn’t have a housekeeper and so I had to keep stop cleaning rooms to check new guests in. I’ve had problems with this a while back, so in my confirmation letter I send to all guests, I changed the text stating the check-in times to capital letters. That pretty much resolved the issues until until this past weekend. If an entire letter uses the standard use of capitals and small letters, except for one sentence, you should assume that’s pretty significant to the Inn keeper. I understand how traveling guests think, “I just want to drop my luggage off”, “My flight arrived early and maybe the room’s ready”. What they don’t realize is how this can really throw you off your stride. And what am I going to do, come down and tell them to come back in three hours? That would be pretty rude. And I don’t want someone’s visit to start off on a negative note. It’s just kind of frustrating and I feel better now that I’ve vented.
GREAT news, the new housekeeper starts tomorrow. My torture is over. 🙂
ed
