Really! Button that suit up!

I know that it’s highly irregular to see a supplemental entry into danlangdon.com, but there is something that has been bugging me, and I just have to get it off my chest.

As all of you doubtless know, I began my career in the hospitality business, before escaping about six years ago. As it happens, I now walk through the lobby of one of my “Alma Maters” several times each day, and there is something that just peeves me out.

It’s non-uniformed male employees and their business suits.

In my day, we had managers who were old school. Many of them were European (with the majority of them being Swiss, for some reason) and they all had high standards and low tantrum barriers. You towed the line or you took a torrent of verbal abuse that would cause you to rethink your career choice.

I remember one Food & Beverage director I worked with who had a particularly short fuse. He used to round all of us lower-level managers and supervisors up and take us on a tour of the “back of house” areas and point out any irregularity (we’re talking spider webs up in the beams here) He had this vein on his forehead that used to pop out and throb when he got mad. He had had several heart attacks by the time I worked for him, and I’m sure he has gone to his reward by now – but he did drill into our heads some very basic and solid hospitality standards, and one of them is to look professional if you want to be treated professionally.

Part of that expectation was that you NEVER went “front of house” without your suit jacket, and when you did, that jacket HAD to be buttoned.

At this particular hotel that I now frequent, there was an amazing woman named Irene. She was British, and had come up through the English hotel system, where you start as a scullery maid and work your way up. Irene was in her sixties, wore stilettos every day of her working life, and had an inordinate amount of energy. She rode herd on me, and never hesitated to dress me down when I wasn’t dressed up.

Now I walk through that hotel, and I see these young managers walking around with their jackets unbuttoned and it drives me nuts. Not only is it sloppy and unprofessional, it makes their asses look huge – especially when they are wearing double-breasted suits.

But the hotel is not nearly as classy as it was when it was the corporate flagship hotel. Now it’s just one of a very large chain, so I suppose it is inevitable. But really boys – class is class, and you need to clean up your act. If you want to get ahead in that god-forsaken industry, you need to at least look like you know what you’re doing.

Yards are for Tards

I admit it. I'm a failure as a gardener.

I tried. Kind of. The idea is pretty: moving along through a well-manicured yard, clipping something here, watering something there. But it just doesn't work that way.

Besides my own general slothfulness, indifference and incompetence, there is the question of the climate. Things grow here in Seattle. All of the time. Among those things are blackberries, which are hateful plants that snag at your legs and cut your hands to ribbons, even with gloves on. You can clip a blackberry bush off at the ground, spritz it with round-up (yes, I know, it's a horrible poison, but this is a matter of life and death here) and I swear it will come back.

Then there is English Ivy. Sometime in the past some joker thought it would be funny to transplant the little English Ivy they got while in the hospital or something. The Ivy looked around and said "Hey! I like this!" and ZOWEE -we have English Ivy literally on everything not moving here in the Northwest. It's even worse than moss, which is another thing that creeps up on you. (Just ask my roof)

As if this weren't enough, we have a lot of feral cats in my neighborhood, and they like to use the yard as their bathroom (I'm pretty sure Sputnik has a hand in this). So even if I wanted to potter in the garden I'd have to look out for their landmines. It makes mowing day a real joy.

The solution is to pave over as much of the yard as possible, and I've actually done that in the backyard, where it hardly ever gets any sun anyway, and I am thinking of doing it in my side yard, which is long and narrow and basically just a path to the backyard, but I can't bring myself to do that in the front yard, as that is just TOO Beacon Hill (the Seattle version at least)

So I'm stuck. Stuck with an uninspired front yard that has more than its share of cat poop. It's a bitter pill to swallow, that I will never be one of those "gardening people", but I suppose that there are upsides. People who garden tend to drink things like Chai Tea and like yammer on about "closure" and "feeling centered" and that is certainly not the sort of person I wish to be.

Updated the Site!

New interior pictures, more pictures to come.

I have come to the conclusion that I am drowning in stuff! I need to discard some of it, but I hate to give up old fabulousness just to make room for new fabulousness.

The truth of the matter is I need a bigger house, but who can afford it, unless I more someplace hateful like Council Bluffs (where I could get a DREAM of a house for free! Except for the fact that it's in Council Bluffs....)

I just went a little batty and bought a new buffet. And a fabuous bar. Tell me what you think.

Oh, and have a happy Memorial Day! Fly your flag - the conservative jerks don't have the corner on patriotism, you know (they don't even know what it is)