B&Bs
So when I said Thursday, I really meant Friday. I'm tricky like that, you have to keep up. Anyway...
I have unresolved feelings on B&Bs. My paternal grandfather died in January, and my grandmother, only three months later, had to leave her house of 45 years after losing her husband of 55 years. It fell to my mother and me to clean out her house so that it can be rented. That's where I've been this week, choking on dust and staring in wonder at polyester suits. My grandmother's closets were full of 30 years' worth of clothes (see special SATURDAY POST for that rant). They planted their house at the top of an uphill, half-a-mile long driveway, the scariest I've ever encountered, especially when it's icy. It's isolated, there's no light, and my mother felt decidedly unsafe having us two defenseless ladies alone in the house for the night. So we went to a bed and breakfast (we had to lie and pretend to my grandmother that we'd stayed in the house because a. she's a New Englander and doesn't believe in spending money and b. what's wrong with the isolated, musty house that's been locked up and has the dust of the ages?).
I don't understand the appeal of B&Bs. While I appreciate being in a house, rather than in a hotel, I despise chitchat. Sure you get to stay in a nice room and aren't forced to stare at ugly, industrial carpeting in the hallways, but is it worth the sacrifice of my quiet morning? My mother delights in chatting up the owners during breakfast. Morning, however, is not my best time. And by not my best time I mean the time when I am homicidal with a touch of cranky. Therefore, I do not delight in the early morning chitchat.
For those not familiar with bed and breakfasts, the idea is this: warm bed and a hot meal with friendly hosts who have renovated a gigantic house for your pleasure. Put like that, it sounds charming. Charm being the trade of rural Connecticut and other areas where city slickers come to gaze at the beautiful foliage and bask in the small town pace of life, B&Bs abound. When you arrive the night of your stay, the B&B owners, almost always a retired couple, greet you, having stayed up for you. When you wake up (preferably before 9), they have a hearty, American meal waiting for you. The expectation is that you mingle with the other guests around a series of tables or one, long table. You discuss where you're from, summarize your purpose in being there, muse on the joys of meeting new people, laugh with the hosts about how simply amazing it all is. Then, having made 30 minute friends, you all go your separate ways to jump in seas of old clothing, go fishing or check out the antique shops.
I don't mind mingling normally, but I find any sort of motion or interaction before noon to be sort of abhorrent while on vacation. It is fascinating and not a little alien that people can string two sentences together in the morning, but also that they're interested in the ones you manage to mutter. Small talk is something that can't be taught, and it's something in which I wasn't born to engage. I am a listener, however, something which has served me well, and which the kind of people who run B&Bs seem to enjoy. You ask a harmless question about the renovation of the house, and it undoubtedly elicits a fifteen-minute long response. Then I zone out, humming and nodding occasionally as I chew my breakfast. I have to admire them, somehow, these B&B lovers and owners. Having been inculcated with impersonal, urban manners and living and raised by a country-raised father who warned me of the charming, quaint facade, the phenomenon is one of wonder to me.
I have unresolved feelings on B&Bs. My paternal grandfather died in January, and my grandmother, only three months later, had to leave her house of 45 years after losing her husband of 55 years. It fell to my mother and me to clean out her house so that it can be rented. That's where I've been this week, choking on dust and staring in wonder at polyester suits. My grandmother's closets were full of 30 years' worth of clothes (see special SATURDAY POST for that rant). They planted their house at the top of an uphill, half-a-mile long driveway, the scariest I've ever encountered, especially when it's icy. It's isolated, there's no light, and my mother felt decidedly unsafe having us two defenseless ladies alone in the house for the night. So we went to a bed and breakfast (we had to lie and pretend to my grandmother that we'd stayed in the house because a. she's a New Englander and doesn't believe in spending money and b. what's wrong with the isolated, musty house that's been locked up and has the dust of the ages?).
I don't understand the appeal of B&Bs. While I appreciate being in a house, rather than in a hotel, I despise chitchat. Sure you get to stay in a nice room and aren't forced to stare at ugly, industrial carpeting in the hallways, but is it worth the sacrifice of my quiet morning? My mother delights in chatting up the owners during breakfast. Morning, however, is not my best time. And by not my best time I mean the time when I am homicidal with a touch of cranky. Therefore, I do not delight in the early morning chitchat.
For those not familiar with bed and breakfasts, the idea is this: warm bed and a hot meal with friendly hosts who have renovated a gigantic house for your pleasure. Put like that, it sounds charming. Charm being the trade of rural Connecticut and other areas where city slickers come to gaze at the beautiful foliage and bask in the small town pace of life, B&Bs abound. When you arrive the night of your stay, the B&B owners, almost always a retired couple, greet you, having stayed up for you. When you wake up (preferably before 9), they have a hearty, American meal waiting for you. The expectation is that you mingle with the other guests around a series of tables or one, long table. You discuss where you're from, summarize your purpose in being there, muse on the joys of meeting new people, laugh with the hosts about how simply amazing it all is. Then, having made 30 minute friends, you all go your separate ways to jump in seas of old clothing, go fishing or check out the antique shops.
I don't mind mingling normally, but I find any sort of motion or interaction before noon to be sort of abhorrent while on vacation. It is fascinating and not a little alien that people can string two sentences together in the morning, but also that they're interested in the ones you manage to mutter. Small talk is something that can't be taught, and it's something in which I wasn't born to engage. I am a listener, however, something which has served me well, and which the kind of people who run B&Bs seem to enjoy. You ask a harmless question about the renovation of the house, and it undoubtedly elicits a fifteen-minute long response. Then I zone out, humming and nodding occasionally as I chew my breakfast. I have to admire them, somehow, these B&B lovers and owners. Having been inculcated with impersonal, urban manners and living and raised by a country-raised father who warned me of the charming, quaint facade, the phenomenon is one of wonder to me.
posted by Meredith at 12:36 PM
3 Comments:
Sarah Vowell has a great chapters about B&Bs in Assasination Vacation. I think you might enjoy it.
Thanks.
I have to disagree with you about the "30 minute friends." When my family visited the Netherlands when I was 12 we stayed at a little B&B/dairy farm called the Clara Maria that my parents had stayed at a few times on forloughs during their seven years in Liberia. The last time I had been there, I was a toddler. Well, the old couple that ran the place actually remember our family and they knew who I was ten years later. It was crazy sweet. Plus my sister and I got to milk the cows and jump in mud puddles with their little grandson Pieter. ^__^
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