A bad day on the slopes

As I was reminded today, it is nearing the end of November, and the archives for this month are bare. So are our nerves. So is the ground, mostly. So is the fridge, as well as the table yesterday, on Thanksgiving day. The only thing not bare and depressing at the moment are our condos. We are nearly at 100 percent capacity this week. Our entire month has been spent preparing for this week. We have been racing around, moving long-term renters out, throwing together quick-fixes that might cover the damage they left for just long enough to keep our short term thanksgiving guests happy, buying thousands of dollars worth of items to restock and refurnish our units back to how they were this spring. We have been deep cleaning everything, which means cleaning every surface and item in the unit, and deep conditioning all the wood- furniture, trim, cabinets, everything that is wooden, and can dry out it our high, dry county. It is so nice not having to deal with skint long-terms anymore. No more knocking on doors at odd hours of the day, hoping to catch them at home, no more waiting at the office for them to drop off rent checks, only to finally realise, after your evening is all shot, that they are going to no-show again. No more lame excuses and wild, fabricated emergencies to wade through when you do finally catch them. But then again... typically, short term renters cause almost as much stress, just in another form. While long terms try their best not to be found, short terms are very much there. The last two days have been typical of the rediculousness of short term renters, and may hint at the root of my phobia of being seen as a tourist or a non-local, or even slightly diva-ish whenever I travel. A big group rented four units, and requested an early check-in, in spite of the fact that some of the units were booked the night before their arrival, and needed to be cleaned before they checked in. We raced to get them ready, had most of them done when the whole group pushed their way into the office to pick up their keys. I stopped at the last unit, which our new cleaning crew was still working in, and told them to call me when they were finished so I could inspect it. They weren't fast enough, because as the door swung shut behind them, one of the renters stuck her foot in the door. By the time I got there, it was overflowing with suitcases, coolers, rental skis and snowboards, uptight women, kids of all sizes and shapes, and men who wanted only to grab a beer and find the remote control, and apologise to me for the women. I had almost escaped when the matron of the bunch, a rosy-nosed blonde with big hair cornered me with a complaint about one of the units, which smelled as though it had been smoked in. Would I please do something about that? I offered to drive back to the office and get the ozone machine, if they would be willing to vacate that unit for the next four hours while it ran, thinking that would call her bluff. That would be great, I was told. And please vacuum this rug, as well. It looks as though it wasnt done, she told me, pointing to a bit of fireplace ash on a throw rug. Since it was loosely woven wool and a vacuum would destroy it, I shook it over the balcony for her, nodded politely to the husband, who told me in a quick aside that he didnt see a problem, since the people staying in that particular unit were smokers themselves, then raced back to the office for air freshener and the ozone machine. Half an hour later I was back, to find the offending unit occupied by said smokers, and the matron didnt see why I would think it necessary to evacuate that unit for four hours just to clear the air, when there were smokers in it anyway, and she couldn't even smell it anymore. Didn't I realise how inconvenient that would be for them? ...A small anecdote for you. The season has begun. We have had to deal with calls every twenty minutes- "Is it ready yet?" despite the fact that we tell them that we will contact them when their condo is ready. We have had the refund hunters, planting everything from opened soap bars and gravel in tubs to mouse droppings under sinks and (we suspect) panties in the sheets in order to be able to, with a little luck, get their stay for free. We have had the diaper changers, who need help with everything from finding the grocery store, to wanting more free samples of the items we leave in gift bags for them, to changing lightbulbs that have burned out during their stay. We are not so much exhaused from dealing with these people as we are from preparing for them, trying to anticipate their complaints, trying to not give them any reason to call us. It would be a lot worse had we actually slept and sat down to eat in the last twenty days.

But today, a day that there just happened to be no inspections for me to do, only tons of other stuff, Mr. B. and Marci told me I could take a day off. I am embarrassed to even admit this, but I woke up at six o'clock this morning, and it was so exciting to think about not going to work, and what all i could do with a whole day that i absolutely could not go back to sleep. It has been nineteen days since the last time we had a day off, and we spent that one sleeping, recouperating from a flying trip to Kansas for a wedding. I think we set a new record. Thirty four hours, three meals, a near caffeine overdose, several pairs of painful shoes, and lots of satin, mascara, bobby pins and hugging relatives later, we were back in our own driveway. FIrst thing this morning, I went to the grocery store, determined that turkeys were still far too expensive to make one for this evening, which cleared my plans considerably, went to Keystone and hit the slopes, on snow conditions that were, to be possibly more complimentary that i aught, absolutely deplorable. The runs were icy, the crowds were insane, the lifties were stressed. The U.S. Ski Team are training at Keystone this year, and had a slolom course set up on the main run down to the base, making my favorite runs not very user-friendly. And when I finally got tired of dodging flailing ski poles and took to the trees (at least they're stationary), the snow was so crusted there was no gettin on top of it, and I ducked under a fallen tree and didnt notice a fist-sized branch which caught me right in the noodle with a rude "thwack!" Slapped me right down, and left me with a goose egg and my pants full of ice shards. Suddenly distrustful of the trees, which have treated me so well in the past, I worked against the flow of people and found a completely deserted run. It was deserted for good reason, being one of Keystone's steeper black diamond runs, the moguls were icy but not nearly so hard to dodge as the hundres of two foot tall seedlings and rocks poking through the snow, but it provided me with the most fun I'd had all day. That is, until a gully through a flat spot sent me arse over teakettle (thanks to a special uncle of mine for the priceless visual that phrase inspires) and damaged what few sharp angles my body possesses. I dragged my damaged self back to one of the plastic Adirondack chairs lined up on the "beach", peeled of my hat, coat, and gloves, put my goggles back on to shade the sun, propped up my feet, and basked. Naughty words floated around me, most of them regarding the snow conditions, everyone else saying them so I would not have to, more and more people dragged in, cradling elbows and hipbones, and plopped around me. A cloudbank crept in over the top of Northpeak, and as soon as it blocked the sun, I hoisted myself up, gathered my effects, and climbed onto the luxurious new padding of the Ruby Express back to the frontside of Keystone. Had a six-person chair all to myself, stretched out and had no desire to snowboard anymore. I spent the rest of the day shopping for clothes. And tomorrow at work, I can wear some of them. If one has to go to work, one may as well look good doing it. It was a good day. I must agree with the saying, "the worst day on the slopes is still better than a good day at work."