Crash!

That banging sound you've been hearing is undoubtedly my head slamming against the wall.


My computer finally crashed & burned last week, something it's been threatening to do for awhile now, and this time it knocked me for a loop, disappearing (temporarily, I hope...) 8 years of business email addresses out of Incredimail, along with 8 years of sent emails and 2400+ emails in my in-box. I managed to finally find several thousand of my "sent" emails, and was just about to pat myself on the back for being a True Geekette, when Poof! everything in my inbox & sent folder from the last week vanished, as well. NetPlus Computers, our great computer repair go-to-guys in Welch, WV, working together with my husband (a.k.a "The Bill Gates of Landgraff, WV"), rather amazingly managed to put most of Humpty Dumpty back together again & reload & reconfigure almost all of the gazillion broken bits and pieces in the last week... but my Incredimail address book & 2400+ emails are still AWOL. In the last 8 years I have grown to rely Totally on Incredimail, & the handy way it downloads all our disparate email accounts every 5 minutes... and my files in it have grown so huge that IM finally demanded its Very Own Computer Drive. As I type this, glass of wine in hand, I am hoping/trusting/praying that our trusty NetPlus Guys are beavering away at trying to find my missing emails & address book... I've sent a desperate, pleading email to Incredimail, to which I've yet to receive a reply, so at the moment I am still rather stunned; the mere Thought of having to recreate a semblance of our business email contact list from 8 years worth of sent emails has driven me into a kind of punchy stupor...
On a happy note, Dan and I just celebrated our 5th "real" wedding anniversary, as we secretly "eloped" and ran off to Judge Muransky's office in Welch to tie the knot 6 months before our "formal wedding" in July 2005. In honor of the occasion, I got Dan THE hottest & most utterly adorable computer mouse from MouseEnvy.com! Given that Dan's laptop mouse was dying, their "Red Lingerie" mouse seemed like THE perfect gift- it's "me"! And it even glows when you push its little buttons! LOL!

I found MouseEnvy thru a cool contest they host on Twitter to win a free mouse, but when the Sweepstakes Queen didn't win one, she broke down and ordered! They have all sorts of cute mice: dogs, cats, fish, hot peppers, teddy bears- even a red velvet heart mouse for V-Day, & a diamond-encrusted one for $32K! My choice was $20 which you truly can't beat, and Dan loved it!

On the Sweepstakes Front, the AbFab $230 LG Bliss phone I won last year finally arrived. It's as thin as a biz card, & according to the 200 pg. manual, it takes pix, surfs the net, & has a Querty keyboard so in theory I can Blog & Tweet from it; for all I know, it sings & dances, too... But it didn't come with a service package, Cellular One is the only thing it will work with, ATT is the one that works on our towers HERE, & so this precious little thing I had such high hopes for is still sitting in it's little box :-( I haven't had a cell phone since I gave up my NYC Sprint freebie in 2002 after we moved to McDowell County, WV & couldn't get ANY cellphone reception. I went thru a stupid Withdrawal Phase, wherein we'd drive to Bluefield & I'd turn it on, only to hear "You have 456 messages... from two weeks ago", but gradually I weaned myself from it, & came to not only do happily without it, but to ENJOY being without it, & the $50/month savings didn't hurt, either. Then cameth WalMart, who putteth up towers, thus transforming McD Co. from a Cell-Free-Zone into the bustling metropolis it is today (LOL), but by then I'd gone for 6 years w/out a cell & had no desire or need for one any longer. Now I've gone & won myself Mr. Bliss, but at the moment he's a doorstop :-(

As for our day-to-day Life At The Inn, we've been filling Elkhorn Inn Gift Shop orders for handcrafted West Virginia coal statuettes - including our fab 12" Mountaineer statues for the US Army!- and getting ready for guests, & it's (happily) no longer 16 degrees outside, so I don't have to wander about in 6 layers of clothing. (I'm down to 2! Woot!) It warmed up & rained the other day, melting all the pretty snow, which actually bummed me out, as the mountains are back to being that wintry brownish-tan-gray that depresses the poopies out of me. And now we have a "Wind Advisory", meaning Dan had to 'batten down the hatches' as the wind can kick up to 60mph 'round here... The Good News is that we've managed to "play hooky" a few times & get to Bluefield, WV for some great music at Gary Bowling's House of Art, EXCELLENT Real New Jersey Pizza at Frank's Pizza (and yes, they are from NJ, and they have things like Capicola ham that NO ONE has west of the Hudson River!), and some fun evenings at the new Ramsey School Club. I actually now get to get Dressed Up & Put On Makeup again more than once a year- a BIG "woo-hoo!" moment for a (former) Upper East Side Girl like me... FINALLY places to wear those black sequin spike-heel booties I splurged $29 on at Forever21 this winter! LOL
The Elkhorn Inn has also started sponsoring music videos of our southern West Virginia bands- starting with the great George Robertson Band (pictured below) via Bluefield View, and you can see them on YouTube and our Facebook Fan Page!
Bluefield View, run by Terry Rowe, is on Facebook, too, and he's done more to promote, not only Bluefield, but southern WV, than anyone (besides us!) in at least the last 8 years! There is Always some new event on the Bluefield View page, and we urge you to check it out and become a "fan", too; there's a link to Bluefield View's page on the Elkhorn Inn's Facebook Fan Page



Last week I also became a DJ (LOL) on blip.com, creating the Elkhorn Inn Station! I often Tweet (@elkhorninn) and Facebook links to music and videos, and I've pulled up some great music from WV bands like George Robertson, Stacey Grubb, and Alan Johnston & South 52, as well as cool music from Israel, Italy, Ireland, NYC, Louisiana, lots of oldies, and other faves of mine & Dan's. Check it out!

The other night we snuck out & made it to Chef Pat Doute's opening of her new "Bohemian Cafe" at the Bluefield Chamber of Commerce's networking event at the Quality Hotel. Chef Doute made her Alaskan-style cold-smoked salmon for the event, and it was SUPERB! Chef Dan does mostly "hot" smoking of his herb-crusted lamb chops, duck, pork, ribs, etc., and this is the first time we've EVER had true, cold-smoked salmon- the kind we know and love from Alaska- here in West Virginia! YAY!

Ain't we cute?!

Below:

- John Woodside of the Nitty Gritty Dirt band playing at Gary Bowling's House of Art "Open Mic Night"...

- Pete Sternloff on 'Lucille' at GBHoA...

- Patch Whisky's art in the window of GBHoA...

- The "West Virginia Blow Dryer" at Ramsey School Club...

At the moment, Chef Dan is taking a break from being DIY Dan, and is marinating the dickens out of a bevy of pork chops; his brew of apple cider, figs, and secret herbs and spices has made the Inn's kitchen and dining room smell Divine! Dan spent all of today wearing his Mr. Fix-It Hat (and that ghastly, nasty, ratty old vest I loathe- but won't throw out, as he has some sort of weird, sweet, testosterone-fueled attachment to it which I respect... If my guy is using power tools and needs to wear his Lucky Vest, however nasty it is, that's fine with me!), rebuilding one of our garden fences. Thanks to good ol' WV stone & 1922 concrete, he went thru at least 6 drill bits today, but Fency is 1/2 up, & I have True hope that within a day or two we will have a Brand Spanking New Garden Fence...

And now: a glass of wine (AmRhein Wine Cellar's "Ruby", from our summer sojourn to their lovely Virginia vineyard...) & then back to my Pile O' Paperwork-from-Hell. (With maybe a little Tweeting or Facebooking or Bliping first...)

Elkhorn Inn Sweepstakes & Contest Winners!

Last night (Dec 2, 2009) wonderful Dreama Denver (Denver Foundation, Little Buddy Radio, etc.) did the drawing for the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre's "Facebook Fan" Sweepstakes winners, and Elisse (me) announced the winner of the Elkhorn Inn's "Marketing Buzz" contest at Gary Bowling's House of Art in Bluefield, and BluefieldView put it all on YouTube! Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrOy1-DPeLo
We've notified the winners, and most have already claimed their prizes! :-)
Dan & I are SO glad that a real, live Railfan won our "Marketing Buzz" contest, and gets the Grand Prize of a $320 gift certificate for a 2-night stay at the Elkhorn Inn & a Chef Dan dinner for two!
We've gotta say it: BluefieldView makes THE best videos! Terry Rowe somehow manages to flatter us all, and flattery will get you Everywhere, dahling! :-) He does an AMAZING job of promoting all the many things southern West Virginia has to offer, and we truly owe him a debt of gratitude, for without his 24/7 work and Facbooking & YourTubing & Tweeting, we'd never know of many of the great things going on right under our noses!

Tonight Chef Dan made us an amazing turkey gumbo- with a 'chocolate roux', andouille sausage, okra, and shrimp- and it was THE best thing to warm one up on a cold, winter evening! Walking into the kitchen at Just The Right Time, I got to help him make the roux, & discovered it really is a 4-handed feat- I've no CLUE how he does it alone! The creamy, rich roux gives the gumbo a smooth, sexy smokiness, and all the different textures of the shrimp, sausage, okra, & turkey, plus the 'zing' from peppers & his secret mix of herbs and spices make for one Very luscious, sexy soup... Yes, soup Can be sexy!


This past weekend, Dan & I threw the puppies (Whiney & Drooley, a.k.a. as Pibble Bear & Lady, pictured, drooling) in the Jeep, & zoomed up to our friend's hunting cabin in Virginia for a quickie getaway. I have NEVER seen a dog drool as much spit as Drooley- I mean Lady- did in the first hour of our trip. I SWEAR she has secret pouches in her face that can hold quarts of spit... Lady's part lab, & this trip gave new meaning to words "water dog"... It was actually rather an amazing thing to witness, albeit in a rather nasty & disgusting way... The Intention of this little jaunt was for Dan & I to hunt together, & so we packed enough camo, long underwear, ammo, & Hunter Orange for a week. In prep for our Saturday Walk In The Woods To Go Get Dinner, I had to make sure I could accurately shoot at least one of Dan's weapons; his rifle having such a long stock that I couldn't even see thru the scope properly, I target-shot his 12-gauge shotgun... and flipped over backwards! Although I (amazingly) hit the target with 3 out of 12, I did it while flipping head-over-arse & evidently put on quite a show... For when I stood up- DEEPLY embarrassed, as I've Never been thrown by a gun- our friend Judy was speechless, & her son was agog; unbeknownst to me, I had blood running down my face! If I'd had that gun braced against my shoulder (as I'd been taught to do), I would have dislocated it & wound up in the ER, but fortunately I listened to Army Dan & tucked it under my armpit! So instead of hunting, Dan & Ms. Puffy-Face (with her "hunting wound") trundled off to Clark's to look for a gun that boo-boo might actually be able to hunt with, and I found the gun of my dreams: a super-light, short stock AR15. For "only" $800! So when we win the lotto... :-)


On the way back to the cabin we stopped at Gray Ghost Vineyards for a wine tasting :-) & to make up for my blueness at not being able to hunt, we bought a couple of bottles for our little "wine cellar" back at the Inn... I especially liked their "Victorian White", a "stainless steel Chardonnay" that has a lovely, light pineapple-y nose, & I think will be great with the Vietnamese foods that Dan & I love to make... We'd brought all the fixings for the spicy Vietnamese green papaya-grilled beef salad, and made it for our friends at the cabin, and the minute I got home I ordered more green papayas (& fresh Thai peppers & coconut milk...) from http://www.tastepadthai.com! Taste Pad Thai Truly has THE best fresh produce & groceries for Asian cooking- delivered right to your door! On top of which, their customer service is Great, AND they now have a 20%-off coupon if you order on-line! YAY!



On another happy note, the Sweeps Queen of Landgraff, WV really Did win an LG Bliss phone in the "Lose Your Ugly, Find Your Bliss" Sweepstakes! I sent in the affidavit, they emailed me that they got it, and I'm now waiting on the arrival of my Bliss! (My True bliss will be if it actually works here in southern WV!) I am ALL excited about this, having given up my cell phone in 2002 when we moved to southern WV from NYC- I couldn't get so much as a message on it here, much less make a call. But Wally World put up a cellphone tower right above the Elkhorn Inn, & l'il Bliss is supposed to take pix and do all Sorts of cool stuff! I have High Hopes for this baby!
So yeah, I really DID hit "critical mass" in the Sweepstakes Department this year! Some people play solitaire on the computer at 3a.m.; I enter sweeps... LOL

Thanksgiving!

Today Chef Dan made his magnificent fresh-oregano-stuffed turkey, with an incredibly crispy herb-and-smoked-sea-salt rubbed skin, and we had it with "Saffire", a crisp, dry white wine from our trip to AmRhein Winery in Virginia earlier this year, and it was wonderful! With it we had our garden-grown potatoes, mashed with the skins on and topped w/Chef Dan's rich, creamy giblet gravy, and an herb-bread baked stuffing made with our fennel pesto, and cranberry sauce with grated orange peel... and it was truly a delicious Thanksgiving dinner at the Elkhorn Inn! I am deeply thankful for a great many things, but Numero Uno is that I'm married to the love of my life...

Last night Dan & got dressed up & went out for a 'night on the town'- and yes, you can actually do that now in the mountains of southern West Virginia! First we had a wonderful "pre-Thanksgiving" sushi-saki feast at Kimono in Princeton; they truly do have some of The best sushi I've Ever had in the USA, and last night they were Packed! Then we went to Gary Bowling's House of Art in Bluefield for their always-great Wednesday Night Open Mic, and had a great time! Gary Bowling's had The biggest crowd- standing room only- and it is a BIG place!- and it was really jumping! At the end of the evening Dan & I wound up dancing to "I Love You Just The Way You Are", sung by Dreama Denver (the voice of Little Buddy Radio and the personificaton of the Denver Foundation- she is the widow of Bob "Gilligan" Denver), and by the end of the song I was literally in tears- but really Good tears! :-)

Hope your Turkey Day was grand, too!

Summer's here! :-D

It's finally really and truly summer at the Elkhorn Inn- & it has even stopped raining! :-D

We've had a wonderful spring so far, with lots of great Railfan guests from places as far away as Florida & England (they love the "Pokey" in the UK, too!), & this weekend brought a return visit from our Favorite Trout Fishermen! (For them it was a "slow weekend on Elkhorn Creek"- only 30 some-odd trout between the 3 of them!) They came with the makings of their famous "Beach Grog", & after Chef Dan's dinner of Fresh Herb-Stuffed Cornish Game Hens, we all sat outside in the cool of the evening drinking Beach Grog, watching the trains, & yakking- a most pleasant way to spend then evening! Last week Dan and I made 3 1/2 quarts(!) of oregano pesto from the summer's first harvest (oregano being something that grows Really Well in southern WV...), and smeared on thin slices of toasted Italian bread, and served with chunks of Parmesan and a glass of dry, white wine, it makes a Fiiiiiiiiine appetizer!

The other great thing that's happened is that the Elkhorn Inn "officially" became a Destination Inn- we've had several guests who stated that came to stay with us ONLY because they'd heard about Chef Dan's wonderful dinners! I am SO proud of him I could bust! :-D

I haven't posted in awhile... basically because Duty (a.k.a. FEMA) Called, & I spent 3 weeks in Tallahassee, FL writing Community Relations reports for the flood disaster response operation. And while I spent three weeks basically eating one, endless plastic tray of Chicken Caesar Salad during and after 12 hour days on the computer, (followed by diligently running on the hotel treadmill in an effort to lose the $#!&%$! weight I put on 2 years ago on another FEMA disaster operation...), Dan was at the Elkhorn Inn taking care of guests and making them fabulous gourmet dinners... When I left for FL all the slacks I took with me were Dan's 32 inch pants :-P But I was a Very Good Little Dieter on this operation, (for once...), & by then end of my three weeks, (stress being good for me, apparently...), I was down to 130 lbs & wearing size 8 WOMEN'S slacks I'd bought @the Tallahassee Goodwill... & 130 lbs. is where I'm still stuck! :-( As you may recall from earlier posts, I am a hard-core devotee of thrift shops, & so instead of hitting the mall like a "normal" person might, I used the Garmin GPS Dan got me for Hanukkah to locate the nearest Goodwill to the office (right next to La Fiesta, a really nice little Mexican restaurant!), & overstuffed my suitcase with a complete summer wardrobe of Ann Taylor & Talbot's separates! I got to stay at the Hilton Gardens Inn in Tallahassee which has a great staff & was a Great place to come 'home' to each evening, and together we compiled a list of great restaurants in Tal I was hoping to get to (such as Chez Pierre) to do foodie "research" for Chef Dan, but I never had a chance! (Gotta go back...) :-( On our Sundays off, however, my coworkers & I did get to enjoy a bit of Florida (besides Goodwill!): we drove down to Panama City one day to sit for a few hours on the beach & eat some great oysters, & back in Tallahassee we found an excellent Cuban restaurant & went to Gill's Tavern several times for live music, whisky, & yummy crab cakes! Mother's Day happened while I was in Florida, and the Puppies (Tiger & Lady) got together with Dan & sent me (bless their little hearts), a gift box: a wonderful card, a lovely watch, some cute clothes, high heels, a carton of cigs, & a bottle of Bushmill's! Do I have good kids, or what???!!!

Who WAS the starlet who arrived @the Elkhorn Inn in a stretch???

One of the most wonderful things I got to do in Tallahassee was get to see a doctor who agreed to take a simple diagnostic skin test (unlike any of the doctors I go to in West Virginia who literally and categorically REFUSE to perform simple blood or skin tests), and thus learned I had yet another antibiotic-resistant staph infection. I mention this because given that I have had such infections in the past (and that a misdiagnosed e-coli skin infection became blood poisoning and nearly killed me in 2006), it continues to stun me that NOT ONE doctor I have seen in WV will agree to perform basic skin-swab or blood tests, so I literally have to leave the state (usually for Virginia, but in this case Florida) to have such tests done, and receive appropriate treatment. This, in a word, is NUTS. It's also criminal negligence.

While I was taking sulfa drugs, basking in the relatively dry warmth of a Tallahassee spring punctuated daily by the afternoon thundershower-from-hell, and listening to the locals regale me with stories of T's mind-numbing summer humidity, and my co-workers were fending off the rattlesnakes & water moccasins in Santa Rosa County, West Virginia was having yet another flood... and Federal Disaster Declaration. Dan pumped a few inches of water from our basement, but Landgraff, WV, where the Elkhorn Inn is, was fortunately spared; Logan and Man, however, were hard hit, and several hundred homes were destroyed; the picturesque waterfalls trickling down the mountain onto Route 52 turned into life-threatening torrents gushing across the highway, washing away roads, & creating mudslides! When I got home we had an Inn full of guests, but it was still raining like mad; the day of the Bramwell "Coal Baron Mansion" Open House we temporarily lost both power and water! But basically The minute I got back, rain or no rain, Dan & I had to finish planting the veggie garden, and we managed to get in a "field" of red and golden sweet corn, as well as tomatoes, the Tabasco pepper seeds I brought back from Louisiana, & all sorts of exotic peppers (I got tons of really cool seeds for things like Israeli Star of David Okra, Tree Tomatoes, Jamaican Hot Chocolate, Passilla Bajo, and Fezher Ozon Hungarian Paprika peppers from Trade Winds Fruit), onions, garlic, squash, pumpkins, melons, & herbs. I stuck all different kinds of basil & peppers in amongst the flowers (what is now trendily being referred to as "edible landscaping"!), sunflowers, beans, & peas everywhere I thought they might grow, & we planted two "bags" of potatoes, as well as red geraniums across the front of the Inn where we have the "spring tulip show" in April... Assuming we now get some serious sun, I have high hopes for "Kibbutz Elkhorn Inn" this summer!

The other fun thing we got to do once I got home was go to Gary Bowling's House Of Art in Bluefield for their Saturday Blues Night Out with C& S Railroad & Nat Reese! (There's a GREAT video of it on our Facebook page, so please become a "Facebook Fan" of the Elkhorn Inn! There's "railfan" videos & great trout fishing photos posted, too!) I can't Begin to tell you what a GREAT place Gary Bowling's House of Art is! We've waited 7 YEARS for a place like this, never really believing it'd ever exist- & here it is! Great music, great art, a fun place to eat, have a glass of wine or beer and hang out, and a truly great place to send our guests!

Father's Day (or as we call it at the Elkhorn Inn "DogFather's Day") was yesterday, and The Puppies got together and decided to get DogFather Dan a 3-month membership in wine.com's "Wines of the World"- what smart dogs! Yes, it was a rather extravagant present, but hey- he's our meal ticket! :-)

July 4th weekend we're having a Wing Ding at the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre in celebration of my "Big 5-0", with Alan Johnston & South 52 (and hopefully Alan's daughter, Stacy Grubb, who just cut her first album in Nashville!), playing again at our Theatre, and so at the moment we're trying to get Way too much done in Way too little time... I am also back to drinking 5 cups of Green Tea each day, still trying to diet off the last 15 lbs...

But the mountains are green, the orange and white lilies are in bloom, we're harvesting oregano out the wazoo, there's little bunches of grapes on our vines, the hummers are fighting at our feeders & the swallow babies are chirping from their nest on our porch, &, (to top it all), Dan made me Chicken Piccata the other night w/lemon, butter, capers, & white whine- & so all is right with My world! Trust all's right with your world, too! :-)

Happy New Year 2009! Gary Bowling's House of Art, & Trains!

New Year's Eve 2008-2009: Gary Bowling's House of Art, Bluefield

New Year's Eve was fun- for the first time in 6 years we left the Elkhorn Inn on New Year's Eve-

because there was finally someplace worth going to! Friends and family from Virginia, North Carolina, and Minnesota came in, and we all got duded up & went to Gary Bowling's House of Art in Bluefield, WV, the area's only professional art & music venue, for their BYOB Dinner-Dance. Gary Bowling and his friends have truly created a great creative space in Bluefield- a professional art display space with a great and eclectic selection of interesting artwork (much of the best, in my opinion, being Gary's 3-D installations), a professional music venue with a real dance floor, and a fun place for dining, exhibit openings, and special events.
I really have to hand it to him, as after 6+ years here here we'd both truly given up hope that there would Ever be place within several hours driving distance of the Inn worth going to.

The food was served downstairs, at tables situated amongst the art displays: a pleasant pasta buffet with Caesar Salad & desert cannolis, it wasn't exactly what I'd envisaged as a gala New Year's Eve dinner... but we broke out our wine, and had a nice meal. Then we went upstairs where The Emeralds, a very good oldies band, was starting to cook, and spread out the contents of our cooler along our festively decorated table: more wine, Bushmill's Irish Whiskey, Applekorn from Germany... The band played a great deal of fun dance music, mostly 60s & 70's, & everyone had a great time swing dancing, slow dancing, even line dancing, for hours. We took "smoke breaks" and wandered around looking at all the art work (Mel loved the "biggest Skateboard in the World"!), got make a few new friends, and congratulate Gary on pulling off a great party! I got to wear the beautiful hand-painted silk Ao Dai Dan had made for me in Vietnam, & so, even as fat as I am right now, I at least felt as pretty as possible! (The long, floaty Ao Dai tunic, slit up both sides to the waist and worn with slim plants, must be The most flattering outfit ever engineered!) Our niece Mel from Minnesota got to spin around the dance floor in a wonderful iridescent purple ball gown, and she truly was the belle of the ball!

Happily, when we finally had to do the long drive back to the Inn in the wee hours it was uneventful, with no traffic stops, little traffic, and no problems. A Very nice way to start off 2009! I wanted to soak in the hot tub in the wee hours of the new year, like Dan & I did last year, but everyone else was too pooped!

"Chef Dan" made a fine dinner of Poached Salmon on Pasta with Alfredo Sauce at the Elkhorn Inn the evening our friends arrived, and we served on our festive New Year's dining table, complete with our giant, 6' inflatable New Years Baby!

The night of Jan. 2 we finally saw our "first trains of the New Year": The Pokey stopped in front of the Inn for an hour! It was a beautiful railfan scene, the lights of the train softly illuminating the track and landscape ahead in a gentle rain, but but try as I might, I couldn't get a decent photo of her with our little point-&-shoot digital camera! AAAUGH! We really do need to get a Real camera- a digital SLR that I can take night shots with! The photos of "our" little train- the inflatable Santa Express- came out just fine, however! It's been so rainy, gray, & ucky lately that we've decided to leave up all our big, colorful inflatable decorations (see previous post) until the first Inn guests of the new year arrive this week!

And so begins 2009!