The first hotel that hired me was, uh, modest. I mean, to me it was the freaking Plaza, but looking back it wasn’t that fab. Luckily, I knew nothing about hotels at that point, so I was totally convinced that I was selling the best product imaginable. I was like the love child of a crackhead cheerleader and an ADD kid sans Ritalin about that place.

In my eagerness and excitement about the (tiny but who knew) bonus I was earning, I volunteered to lead a tour of extremely important people through the hotel. I can’t exactly remember who they were – there were, like, eleven or twelve of them – but I do remember that we planned the tour for weeks. We had meetings involving all the departments, and we staged staff members at every turn of the tour to delight our guests with their cheerful attitudes and helpful happiness. There were special shuttles arranged, delicious foods prepared, and even a champagne toast planned for the end of the experience.

We met them in the lobby and proceeded to our first stop. We saw the restaurant, the lounge, the ballroom, and the five meeting rooms. We visited the pool, the fitness center, the gift shop, and the hair salon. We talked about the jogging trail, the shopping center, and the nearby creek. And finally, finally we headed up to look at guestrooms — our most important commodity, the thing we had planned the best. First we saw a room with two beds – a double/double. Next we looked at a king room. And last, we went to the top floor to our best suite.

I slipped the key card into the lock, chattering all along about the last movie I had seen. I faced the corridor, pushing the door open with my shoulder. My guests were gathered around, hanging on my every word, laughing, thoroughly charmed. I led them in. And there, to our left, with the door wide open, was an Asian man noisily – nay, angrily – dropping every kid in China off at the pool.

Almond oil is a miracle product. It smells good and can be used a bunch of different ways. When you’re self-employed, multi-functional items are oh so important. It’s not cheap, but it is cheaper than most beauty products. When you factor in the environmental costs of using chemicals and plastic tubs versus all-natural almond oil, it comes out the clear winner. Here are some recipes for home-made beauty products using almond oil.

Put one-third of a cup of sugar in a bowl. Pour almond oil over the sugar, mixing together. In the shower, scoop some out and rub it on your skin. Presto – exfoliating, moisturizing body scrub. You can do the same thing with salt, if that’s what you have.

Fill a clean jar with a half cup of castile soap (Dr. Bronner’s is the most famous, available at Kroger, Publix, and other fine grocers; and Trader Joe’s makes a store version). Add a tablespoon of almond oil. Sprinkle in a few drops of peppermint essential oil. Shake like hell. Voila, shampoo. The peppermint adds a cooling tingle and refreshing scent, which makes this shampoo my favorite for the sweltering summer heat. Feel free to leave out the mint or substitute another essential oil for a different fragrance.

Pour some almond oil into your bath for a moisturizing dip. You can also put it directly on your skin as a moisturizer, which I usually do in the shower during the winter.

Wet your hair but don’t wash it. Squeeze out all of the excess water, and pull hair back in a bun or ponytail (or comb back short hair). Starting at the hairline, massage a small amount of almond oil at a time into your scalp, covering the whole head. Then, pour a teaspoon or so into your hands and rub them together. Smooth your oil-covered hands over your hair, paying particular attention to the ends. Wrap in a scarf or towel, and let sit for at least two hours and preferably overnight.

This article is about how hotels can make their Facebook fan pages more engaging, and it came out today. You can see it in its original format here (including one annoying typo), or read the copied in text below.

After you’ve set up a Facebook fan page, you still have to have something to say! As you build your community of fans, keep in mind that relentless pitching will get you laughed off the virtual stage. Remember, today’s fans just might turn into tomorrow’s customers, or, even better, your unpaid word-of-mouth sales force. Make sure that you’re talking about what they want to hear.

1. Set up comprehensive Google Alerts to deliver the latest news to your inbox. Try topics like “business travel tips,” or “things to do in [your city.]” Everything you get won’t be wort posting, but you’ll get some tidbits that will interest your fans.

2. Use an aggregator site like AllTop. This site pulls together tons of resources on tons of topics, and it lets you build a page of content feeds that interest you.

3. Encourage fan photos, videos, and stories. It’s often illuminating to see your property through someone else’s eyes, and people love to tell their own stories. Think about a free night for the best photo or story featuring your hotel.

4. Put yourself in your fan’s shoes. Don’t post something that you would be annoyed to read from your least-favorite business, much less your most-favorite. More than a couple of posts per day, and more than a couple of sales pitches per week, and you will get ignored.

5. Schedule 30 minutes a week for content brainstorming. Put it on your calendar, and spend the time writing down as many things as you can come up with to post about. Take notes in your Blackberry when you think of things, and ask your co-workers to help.

6. Use your page for value-added promotions. Don’t just ask your followers to visit your new website; give them an exclusive discount rate code to use for upcoming soft dates. Your fans should benefit from paying attention to you – with first dibs on news, offers, and events.

7. Ask questions. The fans of your hotel want to help you determine your next steps. Ask them to help you choose which charity you’ll support this quarter. Take a poll about what time the pool should close. And, PS, actually care about the answers.

8. Don’t be afraid to court controversy. Take an issue that inspires passion – like resort fees or early departure charges – and ask your fans what they think. Create a space where people can debate – just try to keep yourself above the fray.

9. Be funny. Everyone appreciates a mental rest stop. Post occasional links to diversionary sites that you like, or tell crazy stories about the hotel – there’s no shortage. Don’t be afraid to court hoteliers as fans with inside jokes, either; every time a front desk clerk comments on your posts, they get spread to people you might never reach.

10. Don’t fake it. Your fans can tell whether you are sincere about being part of their online community. Social media is at its best when it lifts the curtain to show the human side of a business. Cut the corporate speak, and connect.

I have a really good memory. I think it’s because I sleep so much. I can remember what I wore on the first day of school in 1992. I know exactly what the air felt like when my mother shocked the hell out of us by jumping into a swimming pool and doing laps, when we thought she didn’t know how to swim at all. I cannot be beat at 60s-70s-80s music trivia, and almost everything I’ve ever read is lodged firmly in my head and won’t go away (no matter how much I want it to). And most especially, I remember everything embarrassing that has ever happened, including the heat of my cheeks and the dizzying, nails-in-your-palms shame of doing something stupid.
List of Stupid Things I Have Done Regarding Numbers:
1. Celebrated the birthday of someone on my staff on the wrong date, six days prior to her actual birthday. She didn’t want me to feel bad, so she didn’t tell me. I can’t remember how I found out, but I was mortified. And I thought it was hilarious.
2. Printed the wrong zip code on the business cards for the hotel I opened in Arlington.
3. Ordered a cell phone with an area code from the wrong state. Emphatically, as though I absolutely had to have that area code.
4. Printed the wrong phone number on a brochure that was supposedly being distributed to 2,000 people. Interestingly, no one ever noticed it but my boss. I have a feeling that the purported sales calls for which the brochures were printed never took place.
5. Initiated a celebration for a close colleague of the wrong birthday, just a week or so before we opened a hotel. This included involving a group of about 50 people to get her a cake, sing her a song, and just generally make merry in honor of her special day. In my defense, her birthday was wrong on Facebook, and my heart was in the right place – I didn’t want her birthday to get lost in the shuffle of opening madness. Ha.
Designing My Own New Logo

Six weeks ago, when I started my business, I really wanted to design my own new logo. I love graphic design (despite knowing nothing about it, technically-speaking), and I thought creating my logo would be symbolic of what I wanted to do with my business and my life. I drew a sketch and picked out a font, then spent hours trying to figure out how to draw it. Despite downloading many free trials of many software programs, I struggled to iterate what I wanted. Finally, I used autoshapes in Microsoft Word, and I actually came up with something pretty awesome. Or, at least, it was exactly what I wanted. Once the logo was set, I designed business cards and an email signature. I even gave myself a trumped up new title (Queen Bee). So proud and pleased, I set about sending out prospecting emails and trying to drum up business.
I sent every email from May 1 to June 11 with the wrong phone number on my email signature. I sent out probably 40 emails a day, begging people to hire me. Using the phone number of a guy who works as a framer. Proving that, while I will never forget the embarrassment of having done something so incredibly stupid, my memory is clearly not what I think it is. I hope that the framer’s business is booming.

S and I are headed to points north for a week, and we want to make sure none of our hard-won (some by purchasing, some by being the last people to leave the camp site) food goes to waste. We have devised some fool-proof ways to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Way One: Eat it before you leave. We had leftover steak, ground beef, and assorted vegetables. We ate cheese steaks with onions and peppers on day one; ground beef nachos with tomatoes and lettuce on day two; and cheese-steak-nacho-casserole-surprise on day three. Delish.

Way Two: Freeze it. Duh, right? But did you know that you can freeze cheese and cheesecake? About the only thing you can’t freeze is sour cream.

Way Three: Cook it down. We have six pears that are getting the Fruit Rescue treatment as we speak. We will then apply Way One (see above).

Way Four: Grind it up. Vegetables that would be weird to freeze, such as asparagus, are fine if you puree them first. Save the puree to make soup or sauce later.

Presto – more food for your belly and less for the compost bin.

My office is really hot in the morning, and I face a window through which streams the bright morning sun. The woman across the street is running an informal (illegal?) daycare business. At regular intervals, her customers appear to drop off and pick up little children. Every time she sees me observing this, she glances furtively around and throws me a shy little wave.
There is an elderly lady who walks slowly from her house to the bus stop at odd times. I’m not sure where she’s going. She doesn’t seem to be gone very long. I feel like she is too old to have a job, but I can’t imagine what else would have her taking these small, shuffle-y steps up and down the street in the hot sun.
Our neighbors in the two houses across the street from us are defensively picking the wild blackberries that grow on the edges of their yards, to keep me away from them. Fine by me – I’ve found a huge patch a few streets over that no one pays attention to, anyway. It’s in between two vacant houses that have been for sale for months. I guess the owners can’t get the yard cleaned up.
The mail gets delivered mid-morning during the week and late afternoon on the weekends. I’m wondering if the mail carrier likes to sleep in on Saturdays. I’m always excited when the mail comes these days, and I love putting up the flag when I have some outgoing mail, which is a lot more often than it used to be.
An older man walks a long distance, past our house and down our street and down another street. He is always dressed in white, but it doesn’t look like a uniform. I see him day and night making this treck. Once, our dog chased him down the street at 2am. I can’t figure out what he’s doing, but I know it isn’t something fun. His walk is slow and measured, and he carries a bag that looks really heavy. His back is bent over as he makes his way deliberately up the hills of the streets around my house.
When we walk in the morning, I see the unwanted items people set out on the sidewalk for the trash or trash-picking neighbors. Even when it’s something I don’t want, I find myself itching to take it. I guess some people aren’t feeling the recession as much as others. Or maybe they just don’t know how not to consume – maybe they have to unlearn the idea that everything they have can and should be replaced on a regular basis. I know that I have only recently stopped feeling the overwhelming urge to buy things to fill up the rooms in my house. I started feeling more full when I started working for myself, stopped needing to fill the spaces with the rewards of commerce. I think I’m full from drinking in the rhythm of the people working on my street, these people trying to make their way.