HMS Beangle

Hotels are odd things. Strangers packed into too small a space each morning, huddling over a meagre spread in a kitchenette. Pardon me and Excuse me and May I and Oh, I’m sorry around a warming dish with watery powdered eggs and mass produced sausage patties, a platter of single serve bowls of artificially colored, machine extruded cereals next to a bin of apples and ripe bananas. How long has the oatmeal been out? Am I in your way? Is there decaf? Hotels are liminal, hermetically sealed spaces where no one belongs and everyone exists. Exists. Exists, until they leave for someplace else. Always someplace else.

Yesterday a woman sat waiting in the lobby while I read in a corner, letting Jeff enjoy a few hours of Hollywood with its flashing lights and percussive bangs. She needed something, someone, somehow either for a room or a ride to appear in her name. She sipped lobby coffee. I sipped tea. Snatches of a one-sided telephone conversation spiked the silence, ending with Please, help me. Help me. I’m counting on you. I’m counting on you. She was there when I left; she was there when I got tea later.

So far breakfast places that use a K in place of a C are abysmal. If doubled, such as Kountry Korner, oh baby, that place is to be avoided no matter how busy it is. Yes, it’ll be cheap, but at what cost? Go hungry before setting a foot across that threshold. If, on the other hand, there is almost no interior seating, there’s a janky drive up window, and the words Biscuit Barn follow a first name (for example Ben’s or Tammy’s), tuck that napkin in tight around your collar and get ready for your eyes to roll to the back of your head. In the spirit of ‘Since we’re in the south,’ we’ve eaten at both a Waffle House (in Chattanooga) and a Huddle House (today). Once was more than enough for both, but Huddle House was the better (and definitely the cleaner) of the two.

We’re trying to spend some time outside each day, so we wandered around a small, local botanical garden yesterday, despite nothing being in bloom. It’s completely volunteer funded, run, and maintained; it looks to be well arranged. There must be a few master gardeners in this part of Georgia. I imagine it’s a lovely place to visit when the heat of summer comes barreling in. We read all the plaques, enjoyed the sculptures, sat on the benches, and watched numerous songbirds flit between feeding stations. We had the place to ourselves.

It’s a small thing, but I’ve come to the conclusion that all coffee shops should have a pile of puzzles on hand for patrons. The little café here does and it was a nice mental break to put together a tiny 100 piece puzzle while sipping on a latte. When we got back to the hotel, we broke out the Backgammon board and Jeff proceeded to win three games in a row. Games, especially ones that include a hefty dose of chance, are underrated.