February 12, 2014

• I Know I Have a Story Rattling Around in Here Somewhere…

  Not too many dull moments here at Casa de Queenie.

  I have been renting out my guest room to short term guests from a couple of  alternative accommodation websites called airbnb and crashmypad. I have been doing this since June of last year. I use the sites for finding places to stay when I am out of town.  Especially for work.

  It has been lucrative and interesting. To say the least.

  The guests are usually associated to the University. I live within a short bike ride of UC Davis. A leading school in research and teaching in a pretty well located town. We are less then two hours from the coast and a little over two hours to the mountains. The capitol, Sacramento, is a hop skip and a jump from here. Not exactly a vacation destination but definitely a hotbed of educational activity.

  I get people from all around the world. Austria, Germany, Vietnam AND Canada so far.

  Sometimes new students staying short term to find long term dwelling; a parent coming to visit their student here; people coming to do research or short term education only provided here.  Davis has a world famous veternary clinic facility.

  And it also provides me interesting tales to share with you. Here, have a glass of wine (or tea…depending on the time  I will tell a couple of good ones…

  Long term guy inquires – over a month. We both agreed to meet in advance. It was fine. Gentle young man from the bay area. He was doing business classes and excited about doing yoga.

  We are having a bit of a heat wave and this poor guy is riding his bike to school and yoga classes. He is from the cool coast and this is killing him. He is a big guy. It is sucking away his motivation. He appears to not be going to class and staying longer and longer with family and friends in the bay area. And he seems to be beating himself up over this. We had several long chats about this stuff.

  I came home from work one day just after week one into his month and a half stay to find at least a twelve pack of empty light beer cans stacked on the couch and another twelve pack on the table.

  When he ventured out of his room I simply said I knew that he would be disposing of all that stuff shortly. He was so embarrassed.

  He said that the beer was the only way for him to beat the heat.

  He was a huge lover of costco and bought these ginormous forty eight packs of beer and drink them in the same day. This was how it was the rest of his stay, when he was here. And I never saw another can laying about.

  He was the sweetest nicest guy. We never hung out and drank a drop. I really worried about him. He was seeking council from an older family friend, he told me, and forwarded his email asking what I thought and if I had any advice or insite I thought might be helpful.

  He was/is the sweetest gentlest lost for the moment person and I wish him all the best. But, all that beer?!?

  The vietnamese vet students who actually spoke pretty good english considering. They had a ton of questions before arriving and I sent them links to everything and anything they asked about. This was months before their reservations. They were here for two weeks. Two guys.  I explained that it was just a bedroom but let one of the guys sleep on the couch at no additional cost. The situation seemed uncomfortable to them but I tried to describe it clearly in advance. They kept blowing the circuits everytime they blew dried their hair. They busted up a floor molding piece and tried to cover it with slippers. I laugh about that still. I liked them but I don’t think they enjoyed thier stay as much as they had hoped.

  Very quiet, nervous fortyish lady inquires and wonders about bringing her two pets. A puppyish girl pooch and a quiet never to be seen cat. The gal is working on a class she needs to complete in order to get her English degree.

  To be honest, she comes off a kind of dodgy. Not bad, just odd. A bit gnomish and shy. She has lived in several places. She is meek to speak to. So when I ask what she does for fun and she tells me stand up I am thinking….Righhhhhht.

  I mention a couple of open mike stand up places I am slightly aware of and she mentions some group at the university that meets to do stand up. I do not take this information seriously.

  A couple of evenings after she has moved in we talk about some stuff and she mentions that she has been on Conan and Craig Fergusen and Comedy Central. I am like WHAT? Not out loud but of course, the next day I stalk her on google and I find all these links to her stand up on all these great shows and she is friggin’ HILARIOUS.

  I mention a bit she did about the awkward moment after someone almost says I love you first and she says she tried to fill the uncomfortable pause with WOW YOU GOTTA BE SOME KIND OF FAGGOT – I tell her how my co-worker and I were dying over that (I admitted to totally stalking her). She looks at me with her dark and soulful eyes “Well” she says “That’s a true story.”

  My new friend from BC. Visiting her son who just moved here in November from San Jose. He isn’t liking it as much as he had hoped. But he has a girlfriend nearby. Really nice looking and polite young man.

  She loves Lola immediately, most EVERYONE does. But Lo takes to her just as quickly. She is quiet and dry and I like her. She mentioned that she liked sweet white wine (ONE GLASS she writes…) and raisin bread for breakfast. I make sure she has both when she gets here. She is busy with her son but in the evenings we hang out together like gals would. Watching movies, petting Lola, reading books. She tells me hilarous stories, sweet but edgy in a way you would not expect from this freckled petite lady. Her eyes sparkle as she tells me about nearly pushing her husband into traffic shortly after they were engaged. She panicked and told him and he made her walk in front of him the rest of the afternoon. I heard several of these laugh til you pee tales. They are married forever and he is in good health. But oh my, this lady is a keeper. AND, by the end of the stay I had her up to three glasses of wine on some evenings. Success…

  A darling little hippie couple came to stay for two nights. They were checking out Davis as place to live and raise their two young children. They came from up the hill between Auburn and Nevada City. Adorable, shiny, dreadlocked, tatooed and peirced. He works in the Bay Area and is use to commuting but they want to raise their family elsewhere. I kind of think that Gold Country area is a pretty nice place to raise your kids but you do have to DRIVE AND DRIVE to do anything. I did it when I raised my kids in Pollock Pines.

  We had a small conversation with the whys and whats of such a move. I had to offer up how stuffy Davis can be but agreed that I hear the schools are great (I mean like elementary) and it is so safe here.

  I ask why they want to move down the hill?

  Little miss dreadlock sunshine tye dye yoga teacher looks at me with her beautiful clear bright eyes and tells me, “I’m sick of living around dirty hippies that only want to talk about growing pot.”

  I get it but I had to chuckle. To myself.

  We have a new guest for a month. He is a medical student at UC Davis doing research on the mutated gene that causes blindness or no eye in the uterus.

  He says that it is a deficiency of vitamin A in the mother that the gene blocks from absorbing. So interesting.

  Nice guy from Michigan. He is married and his wife is expecting a baby in June.

  He is going to be a doctor and she is a doctor.

  Lola loves him and even Esme comes out to meet him. And he is allergic to cats so that is too funny. In that she ignores everyone else but the guy with the allergies. She hangs out at his door and I have to shoo her away. 

  I always look forward to my next guest. It is fun getting the room ready and making the place comfortable for anyone and everyone. Lola loves all the new attention. Everyone loves Lola of course.

  And in MY EXCITING LIFE???? I am hooked on a French crime thriller called Engrenages (Spiral). Really. That is about all I have been up to. I am picking up French criminal television slang. Mon Dieu!

  • 12:43 am
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