There’s a couple that has stayed here several days to a week every summer for about five years. They didn’t stay last summer and I actually did notice their absence. He called a couple of weeks ago to reserve a room for this summer and I asked him about last year, he told me they’d taken a special trip for a big birthday and hadn’t had enough vacation time left to allow for a trip to Wellfleet. He seemed pleased to have been missed. This summer he and his wife want to stay for two weeks! Typically I request a 50% deposit to guarantee the reservation, but since this was going to be a fairly big number and because I know some people are struggling, I offered to break up the deposit into two payments for him. He replied that there was no need; when the stock market began to fall he’d liquidated some investment he’d had and that he could think of no better place to put his money than at The Stone Lion Inn.

Most of the time I like what I do. Sometimes, I love it.

I have a guest here who appears to have an extreme case of homophobia. Wouldn’t even consider going to Provincetown where, unlike Wellfleet at the moment, there are good restaurants (the topic of restaurant closings is a whole other post). If there is one thing I can’t tolerate, it’s intolerance – whether it be racial, sexual, social or anything else. This is going to be a long two days of tongue-biting for me in order not to get into an argument with the guest.

I’m resisting the urge to call several of my gay friends and invite them to have breakfast here on Tuesday. It would be fun, though.

I know it’s been a while since my last post. We’ve been insanely busy and somehow August seems to have nearly slipped by already. It’s been a good year for business but I’ll admit to being tired. Although we remain busy into the middle of October, the pace of life slows down somewhat after Labor Day and I look forward to that.

One of the difficult parts about summer is that although the ringing phone means business, it also means frustration. The majority of the phone calls in July, August and September are for dates that are already booked. In particular as each weekend approaches there are numerous phone calls from people seeking rooms for Friday and Saturday night. It’s no fun for them and no fun for us to have to tell them we’re booked. And frequently the caller wants to know if we can suggest another place. We usually can’t. As summer wears on and I get more tired, the impulse to be less than my usual polite, helpful self with the callers gets stronger. No good can come of that!

This past week I added an on-line availability calendar to my website. I had my website designer make the link into nice, big buttons that are easy to find. They very wisely put the link on both the rooms and the reservations pages. The result was almost instantaneous. The phone has almost stopped ringing. When it does ring, it’s much more often someone looking at nights we do have or it’s someone who’s already in town who wants a room for tonight. I can’t help the latter, but at least I’ve got a fair shot at helping the former. What a relief.

I think I’ll now be able to survive the next two months with my sanity intact.

I make really good muffins. I’m not bragging, it’s just fact. And it’s my job, or part of it. Granted I still haven’t figured out how to get them to reliably dome on top, but they taste really, really good. They’re made from scratch with real butter from recipes I’ve adapted or developed.

About a year ago I tried an experiment with my banana coconut muffins. The recipe calls for two cups of all-purpose flour, I replaced one cup with a cup of whole-wheat flour to add some fiber/nutrition to the mix. There was no change in taste or texture, so I deemed the experiment a success and have continued to make them that way. It wasn’t something I mentioned to guests, I just did it.

One morning last fall, after watching several guests look at the muffins on the buffet and pass them by, I spoke up. “These muffins are made with whole-wheat flour” I said. Immediately two or three of my guests got up and got muffins, which they proceeded to inhale enjoy. Interesting. I had thought a lot of my guests pretty much left their diets at home and ate what they wanted on vacation, but clearly the desire to eat healthy will stop some from enjoying a treat unless they think there might be some nutritional value to it. Since I was making them with the whole wheat flour anyway, I’ve started letting guests know. Muffin consumption has definitely increased. This morning, seven guests ate ten peach muffins.

For anyone wanting to make this substitution, whole wheat flour is darker than all-purpose so if there’s already something in the batter that makes it dark, like bananas or mashed peaches, it works fine. I wouldn’t add it into my blueberry muffins, which are white except for the berries (and I like them that way), but if you don’t care about the color then go right ahead.