The Beau's Secret Fleet

In an earlier post I marveled at the number of Beau Rivage guests who use scooters to get around in the casino [the Beau is where many of the Habitat volunteers stayed]. A little mobility challenge is NOT going to keep them from enjoying their favorite pastime.

In fact, there are times, primarily any time of day associated with a meal, when you need to be extra careful or you might get mowed down by a fleet of grannies on Rascals.

I don't fault anyone for wanting to be as mobile as possible despite a setback, but I do think that perhaps a driving or safety course should be a prerequisite for going out on the open road, or in this case, the open casino.
Even more astonishing than the number of folks on scooters was the fact that all the scooters seemed to look alike, as though the Rascal vendor had a monopoly. But an accidental discovery revealed the answer to the puzzle: deep within the bowels of the Beau is a secret fleet of scooters, oxygen tanks, and wheelchairs.

This represents a standard of customer service that Congress and the airlines would do well to emulate. THIS level of planning is how you make sure your customers are pampered. If having a scooter is the only obstacle to your enjoying an evening of tossing change into a slot machine, then you can bet the casinos will be sure to have a fleet of them at the ready. You can even call ahead and request one.

Not me, though. Because the perfect evening after a day of hard work in Pascagoula wasn't gambling or sightseeing or even dining out. It was soaking in a hot tub. You can take those scooters almost anywhere, but not the bath.

Tools of the Trade

You don't have to bring your own tools to a Habitat build, but some of the veteran volunteers do. And in our case, it was a good thing. Without the cat's paw, we might still be at the site, pulling out nails with our hammers, our bare hands, or even our teeth.

The cat's paw (or bear claw, I heard it referred to both ways) is a small crowbar for pulling out nails. Habitat must have been very optimistic in thinking that we volunteers on House #9 would all be able to drive the nails securely into the wood, and thus not require the use of a cat's paw. They supplied us with a dozen or so hammers, but no tools for prying out errant nails that bent or broke.

Luckily, a couple of members of our crew had brought their own cat's paws with them. At times these little tools were more prized than cold bottled water. Because when you whack a nail and your aim is slightly off, it bends like a rubber band. Sometimes you can pull it out with the claw end of the hammer, other times you need the hammer for leverage and the cat's paw for pulling.

And you want to remove bent nails as quickly as possible. Because when you're standing at the site with a bunch of bent nails sticking out of the wall like an angry artist's sculpture it's embarrassing. You want to get rid of the evidence. Fast.

That's why I recommend if you've never been on a Habitat build you bring along one or two cat's paws. Keep one for yourself, and save the other to use for barter. As in, "Sure, I'll let you use this, but that means you get to do roofing and I'll stay on the ground."

This way, your tools of the trade can become tricks of the trade.

Hammer Time

My sister wants to know what my work boots look like. A colleague in Wichita can't imagine me swinging a hammer. Here are actual, un-Photoshopped photos taken this week.

What you don't see is the time I hit my thumbnail with the hammer. But it didn't bruise - it was only a flesh wound.

I learned a great new Southern expression today. "All that and a bag of chips." Let's hope I don't get a big head over this experience. I don't want anyone saying, "Anne thinks she's all that and a bag of chips."

A Bit About The Beau

The Beau Rivage is the hotel where many of this week's Habitat volunteers are staying. Despite the fact that the rooms don't have their own coffee makers like the Holiday Inn Express, necessitating that you have to be fully dressed before you can enjoy your morning java jolt, it is a fine place, with several restaurants, upscale shops, a coffee house with the friendliest staff on the planet, large, posh rooms.....and a casino.

I have never understood the allure of gambling. Giving away my hard-earned money to bet on a the fickle finger of fate doesn't seem like fun.

Maybe that's because I'm gun-shy. In the 80s I bought some stocks that ended up being unintentional penny stocks, which was gambling without the buffet. Or the cocktails. I didn't even get a shrimp platter or glass of wine for my troubles, only a stack of worthless paper.

However, the Beau, beautiful as it is, has not caught up with the non-smoking laws that are standard operating procedure in most other parts of the country. Smoking is allowed in most of the hotel, to the delight of many guests who find themselves alternately breathing from their oxygen tanks and taking a drag.

As a result, when you go walking around to check out the shops and restaurants you come back to the room experiencing the scratchy-voiced sensation of having had a couple of cigarettes. I feel like Jerry Seinfeld, who once joked, "I'm a pack-a-day second-hand smoker."

But aside from that I can see why folks love it here. The staff treats you like a million bucks once you arrive. And even the non-Habitat guests have been quite friendly. A couple of times I've stopped for coffee in my Habitat gear (t-shirt, shorts, name tag, hard hat) and complete strangers thank me for the wonderful work Habitat is doing here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

So all in all, the Beau is a place I will definitely visit again. But not for the gambling or even the food - which is delicious - but because those gals behind the counter at The Roasted Bean are the essence of Southern hospitality. I wish I could take them home to Wichita. But instead I'll take home the memory of their kindness. And raise a toast to them the next time I brew a pot of coffee at home. If I can remember how to do that.

If You're Claustrophobic, This Job Isn't For You

Here on the Gulf Coast houses don't have basements. They're just too close to the water. But what they do have is a sizeable crawl space under the house. It's unfinished, but a good temporary place for storage while we're working.

This morning we needed someone who didn't mind venturing into the crawl space to remove the siding that was stored there. I thought given a choice between that and the roof, I'd crawl.

It's not unpleasant, just cramped and somewhat dark. But it's not uncomfortable because of the soft red earth that some wise person spread on the ground while preparing the building site. It's like a cushion for your knees as you're crawling, which is the only way to get around.

I must have done an impressive job of shoving boxes of siding out from the crawl space because later in the day I won the prize for best crawler! My prize was that I got to go back inside for a half hour to store the insulation that we will place inside the ceiling tomorrow.

Thanks to this Habitat project, I'm learning all kinds of new things about home building. Luckily for Tiffany, the young lady who will take possession of the house next month, there are some very capable people on our crew who are making sure all of us volunteers are doing things right. Because without their oversight, I'm not sure I'd want to live in a house I built!

It Really Is All About The Food....

...So I talked to former president Jimmy Carter this evening. Yes, he and Mrs. Carter (Rosalynn) were the featured guests at a dinner I attended. Jimmy walked around for a bit and shook hands with some of us.

The food at the dinner was delicious. Crab cakes, sweet potato parfait, bananas foster, shrimp, a risotto bar, pecan pie bars....scrumptious! As was the food at a dinner I attended last night, and that my colleague Adele cooked for some of us on Saturday.

Yup, I've enjoyed some mighty fine traditional Southern home cooking since I arrived here in Biloxi a few days ago.

So what did I say to President Jimmy Carter when he shook my hand?

"I sure am enjoying all this great Southern cooking here." !

My chance to say something to the former president and all I could do was think about food!

If I Had A Hammer....

....There's no 'if' about it. You will have, and use, a hammer at a Habitat build.

I was hoping we might get to use those swell, zippy tools that you see on "Carter Can", but no. We're amateurs, and we might get hurt using nail and staple guns.

Throughout the day there's one thing you can count on hearing, and that's the steady 'thwack thwack' of hammers pounding nails. The sound reverberates throughout the neighborhood and even in your dreams long after the work day has ended.

And there are a dozen different kinds of nails to thwack. Luckily, if you have never used an 8 penny galvanized nail before, the crew will be glad to show you what it looks like. There are roofing nails, cabinet top nails, finish nails...that's just for starters.

Even if you don't regularly swing a hammer, you can at a Habitat build. Just be prepared to take ibuprofen and a hot bath at the end of the day.