Making Beds

 I wasn't back to work for more than a day. People left and my boss and I decided to turn over a cabin to make future incoming guests easier to manage - using this cabin meant that I wouldn't have to rush a turnover in another cabin, and if cancelations happened and we ended up not needing that cabin, it's easy to break down and the laundry is all done.

So, I go in intent on needing to make only the one bed - a double, not that it matters - and I look over at the bunks. This cabin has two sets of bunk beds and a full size bed. It being so late in season, upper bunks have already been wrapped up and put away, but the bottom bunks were still made.

Mind you, I'm picky about appearances, but there was only a couple weeks total left in the season, so I was willing to overlook the style of those who worked in those cabins before, but, picky me, I decided I'd just tweak those two beds so they looked more like the one I was getting ready to make. Whoever had made them before liked to fold down the comforter, blanket, and sheet about 18 inches or so and tuck everything in all around. I always hated tucking in the comforter, because once it's out again - in use - the edge is all wrinkled, and untucked, it covers up some of the roughness of the bed frames. Another thing I used to do was iron out the wide hem on the sheets and pillowcases, because at some point in their history, before I worked with them, they crinkled up - some worse than others. My hope was that those crinkles would eventually iron out, but they never did. Laying flat, however, looks better. For just a few more days, I wasn't about to dig out the iron.

So, I was just going to spread up that fold and go back to making the original bed.

Now, mind you, when you pay anywhere between a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars to stay at a place where you will be sleeping in a bed, the last thing you should expect to do is to remake the bed so you can actually sleep in it. 

The moment I moved those blankets, I saw that whoever had made that bed before didn't give a damn about the guests that would be staying in that cabin. It made me wonder how many times she had done this very thing. It kinda made me mad, but looking back, I should have expected something of the sort because I'd already discovered a shorted blanket on another bed. Rather than spread the blanket out properly, it had been folded in half. It would have been fine if the guest was a child. An adult would have had cold feet, being left with only a sheet and the comforter to cover them. 

But back to this issue.

I grabbed those blankets to smooth them up and discovered that they only went so far as the wall, and carefully so, which pissed me off even more. I turned to the other bunk bed and discovered the same thing. Carefully smoothed to pass a casual inspection until someone sought to get in. The comforter was wide enough to nearly reach the floor once untucked from the front. Each layer was lined up to the wall as if they'd used a ruler. Not even an inch made it around the far corner of the mattress. Double my work if not my laundry. 

Sigh

Now I had 3 beds to make, but at least the end product was the way I liked it and my picky self was happy (short of the ironing).

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2020 - The Year of Changes

 Thanks to this most wonderful pandemic ravaging this world, I've been out of work all summer long. I go back tomorrow for the last days of the month - its something, but not exactly what I planned.

Being out of work this summer has kinda been a blessing. For starters, I managed to blow out my knee somehow just before coming out and snowshoeing around made it worse. Even now, it still bothers me, especially walking over uneven ground - ground slanted down is the worst. So, sitting around all summer helped that a lot. I would have had to quit, and I really didn't want to.

Another problem with me going to work - all our boats are giving up the ghost. Well, not all, but you get the idea. Last fall - oblivious to the future, of course - we had our two best running boats pulled out by a lodge owner who does that for $300 a year (winter) per boat. Not bad, they'd be back in the spring and we'd have our boats back in record time.

Then came 2020 

Then came Covid

The owners of that lodge still have not been able to come here, let alone out here to run their business. It is only thanks to the fact that locals who come down once a week to look after the place that one of those boats was launched. Not the one I usually drive. I wasn't going to work so I didn't really need it. Besides...

We had my old 'sports car' boat. Last year the steering cable broke, but we could put a tiller handle on it to steer it - so we did, but then the throttle cable was acting up worse than usual so my husband grew concerned about that, and then, last time we drove it, it wouldn't start (it has a key start, and there was nothing). Turns out it didn't recognize that it was in neutral, and if it's not in neutral, it won't start. Good thing my hubby was along - he could use a rope to start it. 

We also had a little 15hp we bought from those same lodge owners to troubleshoot, only now it runs worse than when we bought it. Correction, it ran okay when we got it, just not long enough to get me to work. No idea why. So there it sat. Now, after having sat for several years. it hardly starts at all and won't keep running. Kind of a mess.

That brings us to the one we had launched. A compression test says that it's really really low on both cylinders. I can't start it anyway. So, now that I'm going to work, my husband has to take me. Fortunately my boss brings me home. 

I was going to apply for retirement after this summer anyway.

And therein is another issue.

It would seem that the social security people think that everyone has loans so they use those loans as a means of identifying people. So, when I try to apply online, they ask me if I have these two loans and for a selection of choices for how much those loans are. Since I haven't had a loan for like 40 years or so, my information doesn't agree with theirs so I can't apply online. I might have to go to town this winter just so I can use my phone. Time will tell - sigh.

Not really a good year for me, but I suppose it could be worse.

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