Tag: hotel

Twozdaz Wandering Thoughts

I encountered two hotel trends which displease me during my recent travels. Yes, here is your warning: this is a first world rant.

When I was making reservations, I specifically sought a place with a bathing tub. The hotel said they have tubs. My wife has medical issues, and a hot soak in a tub helps alleviate many symptoms.

Guess what the hotel didn’t have when we checked in our room? Yeah, no bathtub. I spoke to them about it. Can we move to a room with a bathtub? Alas, only one room in the hotel’s entire offering has a bathtub.

Say whaaaat?

That hotel, the Courtyard by Marriott, told us we needed to change rooms. They’d made an error. The entire second floor had been promised to another party. We could stay in the room but not use the elevator. Whaaat? So, we left that hotel and moved into the Hampton Inns.

It was much better. Guess what the room didn’t have? Yep, no bathtub. The hotel only has one room with a tub.

Whaaat?

My wife and I had already been aware of this trend toward showers only in hotels. This was the first time it slammed us directly in the face.

I will predict that as this trend spreads, a counter trend will kick up: we have bathtubs! They’ll be advertising the presence of tubs as they once boasted of air conditioning, cable TV, HBO, and free Wifi. Time will tell, of course.

The other disturbing trend was the lack of a ventilation fan in the bathroom. There’s no switch to throw to circulate the air, help clear the air when the room is steamy, or, ahem, help us cope with body functions, if you know what I mean.

According to brief research (I queried search engines), the reasoning behind this: reduce costs. Aesthetics.

But, but, but…what about the customers’ needs?

I’m telling you, it’s just more enshittification.

2

Fridaz Theme Music

Frida in Monroeville, PA, a Pittsburgh suburb arrives as a near duplicate of our Ashlandia weather. 49 F now, we expect a mid 50s high.

We had successful and straightforward travel. All went as if designed with us in mind. Cool. But, the hotel, Courtyard by Marriott, is another matter. That’s for another post, I think.

Inflation picked up. Not as much as expected. An Economist article included the idea put forward by many economists that companies are sucking up tariffs for the short term. Their reasoning was that Trump was inconsistent, rolling out tariffs, then pulling them back. Also, companies and countries had found some temporary workarounds. The workarounds are ending as the tariff picture sharpens in focus. They expect it to get worse.

Alongside that, Trump announced he’s no longer negotiating with Canada over tariffs. As befits a person of little understanding of negotiating, tariffs, and history, Trump is whining about ads which Canada had in which Saint Ronnie badmouthed tariffs. Trump, of course, cried, “Fake new!” Naturally, he offers no evidence, instead just screaming in infantile all caps in his trage.

Trump says he’s ending trade talks with Canada over TV ads

“The ad was for $75,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

Of course, for some reason, the US national deficit shot up a record rate to a record number. Doesn’t have anything to do with PINO Taco, of course. yes, snark.

US hits $38 trillion in debt, after the fastest accumulation of $1 trillion outside of the pandemic

After a solid day of traveling, a good night of sleep, and some weirdly interesting dreams, The Neurons rewarded me with Pat Benatar singing “Heartbreaker” in the morning mental music stream.

Off to see Mom shortly. First, food somewhere, I think. I’m waiting for my wife to finish dressing before we go about it. Hope peace and grace finishes its break and finds you, me, the nation, and the world in general. Till then, cheers.

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The Lavish Hotel Dream

I found myself at an expensive luxury hotel in my dream last night. My wife was with me at this place. Polished gold covered many surfaces, and if it wasn’t gold, it was sparkling glass, shiny marble, or deep, dark wood. Located in the middle of a very busy metropolitan city, the tall skyscraper was hugely busy and full.

I don’t know why I was there, but my wife and I made a complaint about something going on. No idea what that complaint was, but shortly after making it, the hotel staff were suddenly hugely obsequious and apologetic to me. Then they said, “We didn’t realize it was you.” Laughing, I joked, “I didn’t realize it was me, either.”

Just like that, they were treating me like I was royalty. I’d show up and they would tell other customers to make way for me, a cringe thing for me, who prefers not having preferential status or being the center of attention. Almost as wild, the other customers seemed to recognize me and were also differential, which, oddly, made me suspicious. I drifted into questioning why this was happening, sneaking into territory that they were playing a big joke on me or setting me up for something.

Going to a ballroom section, I was accosted by some staff as I entered. I thought they were going to tell me to leave. “Here, try this food,” they said, offering me things on toothpicks. The first turned out to be some kind of special and exotic cherry. Eating it, I was blown out by its juicy sweetness. I told others, “That’s great, you need to taste this.”

The staff said, “Oh, but this is very expensive. It’s free for you but others need to pay for it.”

Pulling a huge wad of cash out of my pocket, I replied, “I’ll pay for it for them.”

“No, no,” the staff answered. “You can’t pay for anything. Put your cash away.”

I responded, “Why can’t I pay for anything?” Meanwhile, the stash of money in my hand shocked me. It was all US currency. I thought, where’d I get all this money? I figured it must be change and it’s probably ones and fives or something. But going through it, I discovered twenties, hundreds, fifties.

Another staffer was beside me. “If you liked the cherry, perhaps you’d like to try the dried apricots.”

“Oh, I love apricots,” I answered. “Yes, I definitely want to try them.” He gave me two and I ate them with gusto, simply staggered by their flavor. “So good,” I told the staff. “Thank you.”

Just then, a manager arrived. “I want to speak to you,” she said. I was like, oh, no, what’s wrong now? She said, “Your stay here is free, so I wanted to tell you that you’ll see a refund on your credit card statement.” She then handed me three shiny pennies. “These are also for you, with our compliments.”

As I took the pennies, I wondered, why are they giving me pennies when I have so much cash, and the dream ended.

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A Driving Dream

My wife, SIL, and I needed to take a trip. I procured a car for us, paying cash for it. It just happens that it looked just like the 1968 Camaro RS I owned in RL in 1975, complete with stripes and black vinyl top, a fun, reliable, and sporty car. In the dream, I didn’t know that it was like my Camaro of my youth because we were youths.

I don’t know why we were traveling by car, other than going from point A to B. Tucker, a current RL cat, was traveling with us. My SIL and I took turns driving, although I did most of it. At one point while I was driving, I suddenly couldn’t control the speed. I was telling them that in the car as I tried braking, kicking the accelerator, and then trying to take the car, an automatic, out of gear, attempting to put it into neutral. When I couldn’t move the center console shifter, I concluded, “I think we’ve lost the transmission.”

I managed to get the car stopped. We got out to talk and stretch our legs. My wife was inattentive and left the car door open. Tucker immediately leaped out. I caught him and then scolded her for leaving the door open and letting Tucker out. She dismissed me and what had happened, which irked me. We decided to go on. I thought for a moment that she was going to drive, which I didn’t want for some reason. I then drove again.

We arrived at a hotel and in a dream blink, we were checked in and up in our room. I think it was in Chicago. It was a large, lavish suite, which included a butler of sorts who was also pressing us to eat or drink, telling us each time, “It’s free.” I didn’t think it was free, but included in the room. At one point, we discussed going out to dinner. The butler started making suggestions about where to go. My SIL was reading about our room during the conversation and asked, “Do you know what floor we’re on?” As my wife replied, “No,” SIL said, “We’re on the 668th floor.”

I went over to the huge windows and looked out. Seeing how high we were, I gasped. “Wow. Why are we so high?”

Dream end.

0

The Hotel Dream

Several memorable aspects emerged from this dream. My wife and I, younger folks, had bought an older place. Having moved in, we discovered it was a hotel and we had several guests. I knew them; all were male salesmen, white, with short black hair, wearing suits, with very broad shoulders. They looked like ex-offensive line men and I knew one had been. Right after I realized they were in the rooms, they began checking out. Turned out there were three.

The first salesman checking out forced me to realize that I didn’t know what was happening. Scrambling to catch up, I went through the small hotel. Dinghy wallpaper was hung, which I declared needed to be replaced. At least three stories were found. The rooms were small and the halls were tall and narrow. Several cats were present. I began taking care of them while inventorying the hotel. It was dilapidated, with a strange, brownish carpet which was bare in many spots. The salesman was ready to go and needed to pay and get a receipt. I found a system hidden behind pieces of paper taped to the top of them. The paper were notes to staff about how to use the system according to the header on one, but all were blank.

I wrote out a receipt longhand for the guest, thinking through all the line items a receipt like that should have. He was comfortable with that and prompted me, “You also need the date.” I then signed it. Holding up a fat tome, he mentioned he had a paperback book that was in the room and wanted to take it with him. I told him, “No charge,” because we had bought it used at a Goodwill for a quarter.

My wife, who’d been wandering around the place rushed over, urging me to charge him, complaining, “That’s why we’re losing money.”

I told her that I didn’t think a quarter would break us. We argued about little things adding up. I noticed that the carpet’s edges were green.

Meanwhile, I was thinking, I need to organize a checkout system. I removed the papers from atop the system and found a small gray system. Looking very old, it was turned off and didn’t seem to be attached to anything. I decided not to use it but just do everything by hand myself. The second man showed up to checkout. This went better, but he had to tell me when he arrived because I had no idea.

I realized by this point that the odd carpet was withered grass. Finding a spray bottle of water, I began walking around, spraying the grass to encourage it to grow back. As I did, I discovered petunias and tulips springing up in full bloom and called out to my wife, “Hey, look, we have flowers in our yard.” I was thinking as I did this it would be lovely to have a lush green lawn as my carpet. This lawn was full of weeds. That didn’t worry me; I would pull the weeds. Since they were inside, the weeds shouldn’t return as long as I kept pulling them when they appeared and watered the grass. Many parts of it were already green and restored. I would let the flowers stay.

At this point, the third man arrived to check out. Since I was working on the carpet-lawn, I told her to check him out and explained what to do, which she did.

After that, a very slick-appearing man in a uniform appeared. He introduced himself as ‘the major’ and showed me so beautiful shiny blue things which he’d acquired from foreign countries. He wanted to display them for sale in my hotel. My wife was instantly against that, telling me, “Don’t give him any money.” I informed the man that I wasn’t paying anything or giving money or security in any form, no security deposits, nothing, and that we would not be liable for his objects. He seemed to be agreeing with that. Then he sat down and put his legs up. His feet were replaced by prosthetics. I asked him if that happened in the war, and he said, “Yes.”

Dream end.

5

Burgers and Beer Dream

The dream found my wife and me on vacation at a seaside resort. Throngs of people enjoyed warm and sunny weather as a festival proceeded. Bands played and people sang. Many milled about, going from one spectacle to another.

We broke out of our small luxury place on the main boulevard and proceeded down the seaside promenade where the main events were taken place. Sunshine teased blue wavelets and gulls wheeled above. What struck me dumb was wherever I went, crowds so that I was never bothered by the numbers, never needed to wait in line, and was never stopped unless I wanted to be stopped.

We returned to our room because we needed to dress for dinner. Dinner plans were unsettled but we were meeting others. Our suite had a living room with large windows. Strangers were gathered there, along with an employee, a big bluff, graying hair white guy. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail. We conversed about who we are and who we’d been. A dark-haired white woman with red lipstick wearing a dress that matched her lips sat in a blue accent chair listening. He and I ended up talking about cats as I discovered that he had a cat on a leash. I told him about a RL trap, neuter, and spay project I’d participated in during one duty assignment. Then I told everyone that they needed to leave because I needed to shower and change clothes. The woman in red stood up and kissed my cheek, thanking me for helping cats, and then she and everyone else left.

I went into the other room, showered and changed. When I came out, my wife and her sister were sitting on the sofa. They told me that they didn’t want to go out. They didn’t feel like dressing up and were worn out by the day. How ’bout if we called room service and just had burgers and beers with fries in the room. That worked for me.

Dream end.

2

Traveling Alone Dream

My wife and I had been traveling together but stopping to stay in a town, I went off on my own to visit with friends.

Now I was returning at dawn. I was staggering with exhaustion, having been up all night driving and walking.

I was a little lost. Things looked somewhat familiar but each turn had me pause to frown and figure out where to go.

At last I was in a little blue car. I came out a parking lot and began turning right. A huge red pickup truck went by, just missing me. A second came by and almost hit with both of us swerving at the same time. Both of those vehicles had been on the wrong side of the road. Quick as that, as I’m cursing the other drivers, I remember, this is a one-way street, and it goes that-away. I snap the wheel around to go in the right way, grateful there weren’t more cars coming because that could have been disastrous. Parking behind the two trucks, who simply pulled off, I walk up to apologize to the drivers. The second truck’s driver is a large elderly man, a white fellow with short silver hair, wearing a light blue short-sleeved flannel shirt. He’s walking up to the red truck. Its windows are all blacked out. I can’t see its driver.

I shrug off apologizing. I’ve reached the hotel where my wife and I are staying. I traverse a little alley and enter the rear of an aircraft to cut through to the hotel. People have spread mattresses and blankets across the aisles, and they’re sleeping. There’s also a huge Great Dane sleeping under one blanket. It wakes, sees me, and gets up and moves out of my way. The sleeping people and another little dog, small and white, awaken and see me, and laugh at the situation. I carefully get up on the mattresses and pick my way to the other end of the plane, out and into the lobby.

It’s a light blue lobby, with a coffee shop to one side. A middle-aged dark-haired woman with short black hair and brown hair greets me. I’m exhausted. I ask for coffee and then go to use the restroom. In there, I see myself in the mirror. My hair is dark brown, full and thick, matching my beard and mustache. I look like a wildman who just returned from living in the jungle. I’m wearing pale blue shorts. They’re not mine. I check my pockets for my wallet; it’s there. Finding a brush, I style my hair, beard, and mustache. That instantly transforms me into a really good-looking guy.

Okay, back out at the counter, light blue Formica, I find a glass mug. It has thin brown fluid in it, which might be weak tea, along with ice and a lemon. I sip some as a woman comes up. I realize it must be hers and apologize for drinking her drink but figure, I’ll continue, since I started. I ask for coffee to add to it.

Leaving there, I head for my room. It’s either 126 or 124. I can’t remember and chastise myself for not asking at the desk. The rooms are like little cottages but they’re stacked side by side.

I pull a key out of my pocket. It’s a bizarre skeleton key. I have no idea what it’ll fit, but it’s not a room key. It has a square, almost baroque wire design, with a short skinny portion for the lock. WTH? I have no idea where it came from so I return it to my pocket and then continue to look for the room where we’re staying.

Dream end.

0

A Ragtag Dream

I was staying in a disheveled sort of place, a ramshackle series of hotels connected to a large, decrepit aircraft hangar. The hangar was white; the hotels were pale green and light pink. A number of friends and my wife were there. We seemed like refugees trying to pull it together and move on.

Activities were taking place in all of the hangar. One person with us was S, a short, energetic woman who’d been an office manager where I’d worked. S and I met up by an aircraft in the hangar. The jet was something like a 737. We planned to take it to leave. But before we could board, S said, “We need to have all the rivets sealed.” She had a rag and some stuff. Showing them to me, she went on, “A little of this needs to be rubbed on each one.”

Looking up at the aircraft, I answered, “We would need to start at the top and work our way down, section by section.”

S said, “It needs to be done in about an hour. Can you organize people and get this done?”

I replied, “Sure, okay.”

She thanked me. We parted.

After we walked away, I thought, we don’t need to do that. That’s overkill. I’ll talk to S about that.

I kept going. I saw some other friends just arriving. They had some clothes. I recognized the clothes as some stuff I’d left behind. They were returning them to me.

But we didn’t meet up. I needed to get back to my room to get my wife ready to go. As I wend through people across the hangar to my hotel section, I saw another pile of my clothes on the cement floor and scooped them up to wear, then went to the room.

My wife was still in bed. I roused her. Our room was small and cramped, with a bed and a tiny bathroom. She was confused about what was to happen. I went about, explaining it to her while packing. She climbed out of bed; she was wearing gray pajamas. As she started moving and looking for clothes, she went into the bathroom. In there, I saw a huge cobweb with a dead mosquito eater hanging in it. I pointed it out to her, saying, “That’s been here the whole time that we’ve been here.”

She agreed, then as she moved around it, we saw other, larger ones.

We exited the bathroom. She said, “I need to think.” She took out four small gray rectangles from a bag, then set them on the floor, spacing them about four feet from one another. I didn’t know what she was doing.

Bending to the first one, she pressed a button on it. Music began playing. She repeated this with the next two. I recognized the music with each. She began dancing and singing to the music coming from the third. It was an old pop song by Abba, “Dancing Queen”. Then she moved to the fourth and pressed its button. She stopped dancing and singing, listening. I realized that it was playing “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen and sang along with it. She seemed unable to hear the music and stood listening.

Dream end.

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A Hotel Dream

Wife and I were staying in a huge hotel. We were up high, although I don’t know the floor. Red and gold were the only colors used, except for white marble floors in the hallways, which were tall — about two stories — and twenty feet wide. Walls were gold. Lots of tall, gold-framed mirrors and windows. Carpet, drapes, and furniture were red. Quite opulent. Because the place was so tall and sprawling, cafes and stores were on multiple levels.

Going into one upper-floor cafe, I encountered two young men in uniforms. I assumed they were military. Said as much. They issued me a dark, mocking look. One said, “We’re not military. We’re MOAB.” Like I was stupid.

I didn’t know what MOAB was. Assumed it was a quasi military-national guard or reserve situation. I left the two young men for a table. My wife joined me. I told her about my convo with the men. She was like, yeah, they’re MOAB, like everyone knows that. Then explained to me other people that she knew were MOAB, including two sons of our elderly friend. I was stunned that I was so ignorant.

She went off to the room with plans for me to come back to the room to go to a farmer’s market. I stayed, surfing the net and typing on my laptop. Two young men entered. About thirty years old, white. Both looked like Matthew Mcconaughey although their blonde hair was cut in different styles. I considered approaching them to tell them that I knew their mother and confirm they were MOAB but decided against it and left the cafe.

I then spent time roaming the hotel. Its center was an open atrium. You could look down the well and see all the floors, along with the lobby at the bottom. The fourth floor was where the hotel intersected with surface streets. Several of the hotel interior corners were intersections with traffic lights. That floor was also where the hotel mall was located.

I couldn’t figure out how to get from floor to floor, so I began hanging over rails and dropping down, or jumping from floor to floor. I was going to my hotel room to meet my wife but became sidetracked exploring. At one point, I was standing in an empty, carpeted area. I was surprised; it seemed to be the back of a restaurant in the hotel but the decor was different — white walls, low lights, umber carpeting. A shipment arrived for the restaurant. Men began picking up items and putting them away. One pile was off to one side. The manager, a tall, dark individual who appeared Asian glanced at me and said, “What are you doing? Let’s go. Get everything put away.”

I picked up the supplies and went around, trying to learn where everything goes. Another arrived and asked me what I was doing because that was his job. I explained that I was putting things away but first I needed to learn where they go. He took the supplies from me with a disdainful look and head shake.

I left there, sliding down a rail and then jumping off the end to another level. People witnessing this were impressed, loudly saying, did you see what he did? Stopping, I realized that I was late to meet my wife. I then saw her with two friends. They were on the fourth level and walking toward the friends’ car. I realized that she must have become tired of waiting and was leaving for the market.

I rushed to get down to the fourth floor but I was up on the sixteenth floor. I decided that jumping wasn’t going to work and raced about, trying to find elevators and escalators. Looking down, I saw their car pull into traffic and leave the hotel.

I thought that I needed to call my wife and tell her that I’d meet her at the market. Then I couldn’t find my phone.

Dream end.

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