You are all well acquainted with the Things I Do when staying at a hotel.
Remember how I said that the next time I stay at a hotel, I was going to stay in a Hampton Inn? Because they wash their actual duvets and also have kickass hilarian commercials?
Ultra violet (UV) sterilization wands– Wands from Purelight are used to sterilize "high touch points' in the hotel such as telephones, clocks, light switches, door handles, bathroom fixtures and common areas. [Ed. Note: A recent study found that the main light switch in hotel rooms is the ickiest, germiest, fecal-matterest location in the entire joint, coming in at 112.7 CPU (colony-forming units of bacteria, per cubic centimeter). The recommended level for "cleanliness" is a mere 5 CPU. Why, that's, that's, well, a lot more CPUs. GROCE.]
UV inspection black lights – These black lights are used as part of the housekeeper inspection process to detect any biological matter [Ed. Note: Read, human spermatozoa], food particles [Ed. Note:Read, vom], and more [Ed. Note:Read, blood and urea], that the human eye cannot see.
Clean remotes or wraps for the remote control device – These unique, seamless remote controls are designed specifically to make it easy to clean and disinfect before each guest stay.
Pillow and blanket wraps – Extra pillows, blankets and towels are wrapped in 100 percent recyclable and biodegradable single use wraps to ensure guests know that these products have been cleaned just for them.
It sounds good, nay, it sounds outfuckingstanding, but how do we know they will actually adhere to such strict standards? How do we know that Brunhilde the Maid has run a black light over the bed's headboard and bleached away the spooge and vag-hands? that she has used a sterilization wand after Cloroxing the bathtub so as to eradicate bum-bum-chowder germs? How do we know that is has occurred to Brunhilde to sterilize the coffeemaker and the microwave buttons?
In the same vein as not knowing whether Brunhilde has actually disinfected the toilet seat or has actually cleansed the water glasses that are covered with a paltry paper wrapper stating "For Your Convenience," we will never actually know whether anything has actually been cleaned. But, let's just hope they have some semblance of decency in their hearts to actually go through with these hygiene measures. LET US PRAY TO JESUS, CHILD. Pray that hotel employees become more adept at removing fecal coliform and escherichia coli and salmonella and staphylococcus aureus from our vacation spots.
I like where they heads is at, tho, dog. I like where they heads is at. UV wands and black lights and TV remote-control condoms and fresh blanket wraps FOR ALL.
So we are back from our adventure at the Great Wolf Lodge!
The trip was part success and part OCD nightmare. Allow me to break it down for you, in the LONGEST BLOG EVER.
First, we left the baby in my mom's care. Now, there's no one more capable than she (except for yours truly of course). My mom is a great babysitter & grandma. But we've never left the baby overnight before, so I was sad. It was nice, though, to have a couple days out with just our big girl, too.
Then, we had to make the drive in a ton of snow. Two hours south. If you haven't heard already, Seattle is having a major snowstorm. Well, more accurately, the convergence zones are, and I'll give you three guesses as to whether we live in one. OK WE DO. So just getting out of the neighborhood is terrifying. (Oh, and coming home today, with way more snow than before, was no picnic either.)
Once we arrived, my husband checked in while we waited in the car to unload our stuff. This was the first cute pic of the lodge that I took, the front doors!
It was funny, as I sat there waiting for my husband to finish registering at the desk, I watch 1,000 people go in and out of the doors. And I noticed that not one, not a single person seemed to care about the germs on the door handle. In fact, they handled the door more than necessary with full palm contact, touching it in several places, etc. I was like, "Am I really the only one? Am I the only person who thinks about the atrocities that lie on door handles and doors themselves?"
Anyhowz, inside, there was the adorable lobby:
One of my favorite things that I passed was this picture, in a kids' cave:
Dude. It's a THREE WOLF MOON painting. Could there be anything more awesome?? I ask you this.
Then we went to our room, the Wolf Den Suite (hereafter known as the Wuff Den, because when Maya saw her Wolf Den sleeping cave, she said, "This is where the baby wuffs sleep!"). The room was frickin adorable. I mean, I was squealing like a veritable piggy at the cute. Check out the Wuff Den!!
The rooms dens at Great Wuff Lodge have suuuper high ceilings. I don't know why or how, since this fucker has EIGHT FLOORS and it doesn't seem nearly tall enough.
Then I was done squealing at the cute, and it was time for bidness. It was bidness time.
I took my trusty Clorox wipes neatly in hand, and proceeded to clean EVERYTHING. Yes, everything.
I cleaned:
The living room countertops
The tables
The light switches
The inside doorknob
The TV remotes
Basically the whole Wuff Den children's sleep area itself
The bunkbeds
The phone
The alarm clock
The pen
The activity guide
The dresser handles and front boards even though we weren't going to use the dresser
The headboard posts on the king bed (because people touch those fuckers with Sex Hands)
The shower knob
The bathroom sink handles
The bathroom sink counter
The toilet flusher
The toilet lid
The toilet SEAT
ET CETERA. I did everything short of splashing pure bleach around.
Once things were wiped down, I called reception and asked for two more sheets. Previously, I had swiped two sheet bundles off a maid's cart--
--but after arriving back at our room, I realized I was holding two bundles of approximately 100 pillowcases each. Oops. But actually, they came in handy. More on that in a second.
So I took the new sheets and put them on top of the duvet and tucked the top under, while the sheet below it was tucked over it. So the entire bedspread was contained. I did the same on the kid bunkbeds. Then I put a fresh pillowcase over every single pillow in the joint, the opposite way of the first pillowcase, so that we wouldn't touch the pillows by mistake. I hate it when that happens.
Then, I took those 9023842184 pillowcases and covered the entire couch and armrests with them. In case you're wondering, OH YES I DID.
I now present, Great Wuff Lodge Before & After:
Bed before:
Bed after:
Bunks before:
Bunks after:
And my pride & joy, the couch. The couch before:
The couch after:
lollllll you know you <3 me
Even though things were cleanish, I did my fair share of freaking out and saying, "Don't touch! Don't touch! Get off the carpet! Don't touch!" And of course, just walking on the carpets skivved my shits. Ahh well. Baby steps.
After we cleaned all the things, we went to the enormous waterpark. It was fabulous!
We stayed for hours. We did almost everything, over and over again. I loved the big waterslides. Although, I couldn't help but wonder, as I climbed all the stairs up to ride the waterslides, if any of the water dripping on my head from the landings above contained urine.
At one point, we stopped at the snack bar for some junkfood goodness. I got cheese nachos, and my husband got a mini-pizza. Maya got a PB&J. My OCD flared up real hard, because I saw the womyn who was handling our food--er, really handle our food. She wasn't wearing gloves, and she touched my chips (in fact, she picked one up off the counter and put it BACK on my nachos). Then she manhandled the pizza, as she cut it and put it in a box. I was sore disgusted.
Anyway, then we went back to our room to shower off the filth of the swimming pools, and decided to try to take a nap. No go. Nobody could sleep, even though Maya was exhausted. So then, we went to "gr8_space," their arcade (lol r u 4srs). That was two tons of fun, as we taught Maya to say, except for...DUN DUN DUN...the germs. OH the germs. I was saying "Maya don't touch your face!" every two seconds. But we did have fun playing a ton of games, and we got 278 tickets, which equaled exactly one set of sparkly lipglosses for kids and one tiny pack of Sweet Tarts. lol.
At some point, we wandered a cute gift shop, where we bequeathed unto Maya a sorcerer's hat, a silver crown, and a huge heavy golden coin. (She really wanted that coin.)
Later that night, we headed over to Camp Critter, a restaurant where you could eat under overhead tents. It was v. cute.
I had a rather tasty Mediterranean wrap, and even though I damn-near broke my tooth on a kalamata olive pit, I enjoyed it. Oh but my absolute favorite part (<--- sarcasm) was when Maya cheerfully piped up, "Mommy, you're so fat!" Thanks kid. Thanks a lot. Zut alors!
Oh, and as usual, we took our handy alcohol wipes to the restaurant and had at it. Wiped down the table and our hands (even after washing), touched the ketchup and salt with napkins, etc. You know me.
Also at dinner, Maya decided to sing "This Old Man." Here is how she sang it:
This old man, he played one, He played knick-knack on my straw With a knick-knack paddyback gav a dog a bone, This old man came rolling home.
This old man, he played two, He played knick-knack on my lamp With a knick-knack paddyback gav a dog a bone, This old man came rolling home.
And so forth. She kept substituting the real words for the things she saw around her, and my absolute favorite was "knick-knack paddyback gav a dog a bone."
Oh, and whenever you dine at Camp Critter, apparently they give you wolf wuff ears. Maya loved hers.
If you're wondering why she's in jammies, it's because right after dinner, they had a kids' show followed by storytime. All the kids wore jams.
The show was kind of hilarious, because at first everything was fine:
And then the dark-haired ladything got stuck in the door and it never fixed itself. It stayed like this the remainder of the show. The talking trees and moose and things all stopped moving, too, while the voices continued. Behold, the creepy creepy frozen lady:
It reminded me of the scary lady in Ju-On.
Anyway, at the very end of the show, something magical happened. It started snowing! Soapsuds! :)
It was great. Maya had a cow. Here are some random merrymakers and then one of Maya:
After the show came storytime. Danielle came out and read a story about wuffs, and then all the kids got to have pictures taken with Wiley the Wuff. Soooo cute.
Then it was back to the room for a lovely glass (or three) of wine and bedtime. Oh, but first, Maya was drawing a picture, and I asked her to tell me about her drawing, and she said, "It's you, Mama! And you're standing on the water--" [here she points to the nose of the mama she drew, and finishes:] "--that's why you have a SNORTLER on!" My husband and I laughed our bum-bums off for like 15 minutes. Snortler!!
Anyway, come bedtime, at first I tried sleeping in the nice cozy king bed, but the featherbed and down comforter conspired against me, and my nostrils SLAMMED SHUT with allergy swelling. So I decided that the Wuff Den would be the girls' room, and I decided to sleep on the top bunk. (1) Because its fun to sleep on the top bunk, and (2) because it's fun sleeping in a girls' room, and (3) because shut up.
I actually went to sleep pretty quickly, which is remarkable due to the severity of my insomnia. Only hitch? We forgot to put Maya in a Pull-Up before bed (yes, homegirl still wears Pull-Ups at night--child just will not night train), and at 4 am she woke up in a state because she couldn't find Coggy, her little stuffed dinosaur. I climbed down the bunk ladder to perform a Coggy Search & Rescue and thusly discovered the absent Pull-Up. Lo and befrigginhold, Maya was soaked through and through. Fuuuuu...
After turning on the light and finding Coggy (who was right beside her) and changing her pee-peed jammies and putting a Pull-Up on her and putting a towel down for her to sleep on and then going pee myself, I was wide awake. In fact I am typing this particular portion of my blog at like 5 am from the top bunk (on the godforsaken "experimental internet" on my Kindle, with a dumb little book light) because I still can't sleep. Fuuuuu...
How many more hours until we can go swimming??
---
The next morning, Maya was up at 7:30 am (I never went back to sleep at all), so we started to get ready and also pack up to check out. (You could stay at the lodge and do anything you wanted, including the waterpark, all day, even after check-out.) After loading up, we went to breakfast. I had the most un-credible omelette: green onions, black olives, spinach, tomato, cheese, and something else I'm forgetting. Then after that, it was back to the room for a quick wardrobe change, into our swimsuits, and we all headed out to the waterpark. We played for several hours, until we were kind of burned out, then showered in the locker rooms (which was HORRIBLE for me--using a shared shower, stepping on the shower floor, having to get changed in an open area and trying not to expose myself, trying not to step on the floor outside the shower, pulling clothes up a still-wet, sticky body, sweating like a sweaty horse...) and changed into clothes we'd brought separate from our other luggage. After, we all shared one mini-pizza, during which Maya was being so obnoxious that I said, "Let's be quiet. Let's see who can be quiet the longest." Maya paused five seconds, then said, "Not me." We loledirl.
After snack, we went to the Cub Club to make our own lotions. Actually, we wandered by, then realized the lotion-making segment didn't begin until 2:30 pm, and it was only 12:45 pm. We debated what we were going to do, because we basically had nothing else to do until then, and we didn't want to wait. Plus the snow was getting really bad. SNOWNOEZ!!!1 So I peeked in and asked the girl, "Do you think there's any way we could do the lotion-making now?" She was soooooo sweet. She said we definitely could, since the entire place was totally empty, then she set out to help us.
Maya and I each made one. First we sniffed a ton of oils, from patchouli (yiiick) to cucumber watermelon, and decided on our favorite smells. Maya chose a Christmas scent that smelled like oranges and spice, and she also picked "sugar cookie." They mixed pretty well! Mine was an odd combination, but turned out heavenly. I picked lilac, "tsunami axe" (which smelled fresh and a tiny bit like men's body wash), and "Egyptian musk," which was more soapy, not really at all musky. I blended them until they were just right, and now I have a delicious, light, fresh smelling lotion. Oh, and we got to color them. Mine is pale blue, and Maya's is green. (Her favorite color.) Maya named both of our lotions. She named hers "Green Butterfly." She named mine "Flower." :)
Oh, and the girl who was so cute and nice who helped us make these lotions, she kept talking about how OCD is just because she likes things in order and in place and gets mad when someone just dumps supplies in a big box or something. I was like, "Bish you cute n shit but you ain't know what OCD is!"
After that, we hit the road! This was the snow the day before:
This was the snow the next morning:
Rainbow? Or trick of the camera?
This is our snow at home. Tomorrow we are predicted to get, and I quote, between 10 inches and 3-4 FEET. What. That's not even a thing.
Look, our snowman lost his head and is leaning drunkenly.
You can't tell from that pic, but we have at least 6 inches. That's what he said.
Anyway, we managed to get through our ridic snowy neighborhood and safely into the driveway. Whew. Then we all took showers/baths, again, because that's how we roll, baby.
---
TIDBITS
As a sidenote, you'd think with all the walking and climbing stairs in the lobby and the waterpark--carrying a huge innertube, to boot--would actually make you lose a bit of weight or at least balance out the large intake of calories. But wouldn't you know it, this here bitch actually gained weight. FFS.
