In Miniature

I like little things. Not in a freaky way, like an old guy in a cardigan who builds tiny dollhouses with silk flower gardens and functional window blinds and lies to his social worker about it. Not like that. Just in a miniature condiments kind of way. And a travel size tube of toothpaste kind of way.

I hadn't actually considered offering room service at the inn, until I found this.

I don't stay in fancy hotels much. Camping is more my style. Even if I do splurge on a room, I hardly ever order room service. But if I did, I would ask for french fries, or scrambled eggs. With ketchup.

Then I would keep my fingers crossed that the establishment I chose is the kind of place that springs for mini ketchup bottles, instead of the type of place that serves their ketchup in a ramekin with a tiny spoon. Although they would earn a few points with the tiny spoon, the absence of a adorable little Heinz label wouldn't be easy to forgive.

And I am not the only one with an affinity for the mini. Check this place out. They have dedicated themselves specifically to the sale of items marked 'not for individual sale.' But I don't mind. It's nice to know you could spend $.34 on a single half-ounce cup of strawberry jelly, if circumstances dictated that you have exactly half an ounce of jelly and no more.

Anyway. I suppose it is my love of miniature things that led me to develop an affection for a particular piece of furniture in this house. It's in the Chittenden Room. Right now it's serving as a night stand, but at some point, in one of its former lives, it was a seamstress' side table. Small AND intricate. I love it!




Like a woodworker's heinz bottle.

Steak and broccoli

Matt, my boyfriend, and I were just coming into town. It was only the second time he'd met my family. We had made a long trip, and we were ready to be there, but we had plans to stop at a grocery store about half an hour south of my parent's house. The town where my parents live, where I grew up, is the kind of place where it's tough to find a head of lettuce after eight o'clock.

We were tired from the drive. I suggested we just stop and pick up a steak we could throw on the grill. And some broccoli. As we came into town my cellphone chimed. There was a message from my mother.

She told me they were on their way out for the evening, that we were more than welcome to join them at a friend's house for dinner, but if we didn't feel like it there was a steak and some broccoli in the fridge at the house.

Matt looked at me like I was some sort of suspect.

My mother and I had been living four time zones apart for almost five years. We still did things like pick up the the phone to call, only to find the other one already on the line. Even when I was living at home, my mother would buy a gallon of milk on her way home from work, and she'd end up putting it in the fridge beside the one I had purchased on my way home from school.

Duplicate groceries are the least of it.

New Job

My mother called me from Vermont. 'What do you think about innkeeping,' she asked. I had been employed as a personal assistant for less than three months. Previously, I had been unemployed, a waitress, the editor of my college newspaper, the scan coordinator at a doomed natural foods store, a printer's assistant, a misguided Masters student, a cook, unemployed, a substitute teacher, a 'childcare professional,' and as I believe I may have mentioned, unemployed.

'I'd probably like Inn keeping,' I told her. She told me about a property she'd seen for sale. There was an incredible kitchen, she said. Her catering company was expanding, it had outgrown its current kitchen long ago. We'd use the kitchen for catering, and to run the restaurant that was already on site, she said. But there happened to be a beautiful old farmhouse inn. Was I interested?

I planned a weekend trip, and we toured the property. The Inn had 8 guest rooms, the house had been built in 1824. The property was gorgeous, so was the restaurant in the barn. Downstairs in that barn there was a quarter-million dollar kitchen. The place was huge. Somewhat bigger than the closet that serves as the kitchen in my family's other restaurant.

We walked around with the Realtor, then with my real-estate-guru of a grandfather. On the plane I stifled my enthusiasm. I told myself not to get too excited. The property was held by the bank, and they were anxious to sell. A month later I moved in.

Since then I have been busily painting, moving furniture and baking. I have worked hard. And right now, I feel like I have worked my creativity right down a dusty hole. Like the Inn when we first walked through, it feels a little hollow in here. Maybe a bit mismatched. But, like the Inn, it has captured my imagination and my enthusiasm. Soon it will smell like zucchini muffins.

This will be the tale of the 1824 House Inn, and the girl who keeps it.