I'm getting ahead of myself. Ahead of the circumstances that life is currently affording me. You see, in the course of my daily duties at work, instead of having my mind fixed on the task at hand (tedious as it is), all my mind keeps going back to is moving back home to Maine.

I want to start making plans right now, and I am at the very least eleven months ahead of when I can begin reasonably and logically doing so. I want to start considering how to sell our house. I want to start perusing the want ads of the Portland Press Herald. I want to start looking at condos and lofts on Realtor.com with an eye toward making a purchase.

I want to start writing lists.

I am feeling a homeward pull so strong that it's almost a physical thing. Does anyone recall reading The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where it describes the little tiny vibration that people feel, the strength of which is determined by how many miles from the place of one's birth that person is? And how Ford Prefect, having been born on a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, feels less a tiny vibration, and more a startling shock to his system?

Yeah, it's like that.

Labels: headspace, Maine

Posted by Laura at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

Believe it or not, this actually makes me MORE homesick.

I have a webcam image of Acadia National Park on my Google homepage. When I booted up my computer this morning and launched the Net, this is what I saw:


No, that is not a faulty webcam image. THAT, my friends, is the whiteout conditions of a good old fashioned Maine Nor'easter.

So I logged onto the Portland Press Herald to check out what was going on.




_{(Pics and images courtesy of the Portland Press Herald.)}

The entire state is under a thick blanket of snow, with more (and the worst of it) to come. Man, I would LOVE to be there right now. Crazy as it sounds. But snow days are what epitomizes all things good and peaceful and safe and wonder-filled of my childhood.

This entry is SO not going to nudge Calvin closer to my cause.

Labels: Maine

Posted by Laura at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments

Courtesy of MSN Live Search, and Avitable made me do it. I did a search of the house I live in now in Arizona, but that was boring. This is a shot of Grandma's house in Maine, click on it to see full size and the commenty tag-like things I put in it.

Labels: Maine, photography

Posted by Laura at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments

You know, as soon as I got the answer back from that company in Maine, I completely ceased to think about it at all any more. As many of you probably suspect, they did decide to go with another candidate for the position. As I told Dawn during one of our recent EPIC e-mail marathons, "They shall RUE THE DAY that they chose someone else!"

I wasn't even really that disappointed or upset, which is probably why I totally brain-farted about posting about it. When the contemplation of such a large life change is in the works, things hardly ever work out exactly the way you want them to on the first try.

So! C'est la vie. We have goals a-plenty right here in this house, right here in Arizona, to keep us occupied until this mythical Life Changing Event takes shape.

Labels: journal, Maine, work

Posted by Laura at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

Hi guys. A lot of you have e-mailed/commented, asking if I've heard anything back from that company in Maine that I interviewed with a couple of weeks ago. I haven't heard anything yet, but they did mention not to expect to hear from them until sometime around the 9th of July. Which is today. So I should know something soon, and you guys will be the second to know. Behind Calvin, of course.

I hate doctors completely. Absolutely. With the white-hot passion of a thousand burning suns. I went to my GP on Friday to see if they could do something about the screwed up thyroid levels appearing on my blood test results, so that I wouldn't have to wait until the 31st to see the endocrinologist (see entry on 6/26). I have almost all the symptoms of hyPOthyroidism (lethargy, weight gain, body aches, among others). Yet the doc said that the test results show that I should be experiencing hypERthyroidism, whose symptoms (heart palpitations, high blood pressure, excess of energy, weight loss, among others) are the exact opposite of how I've been feeling.

Here's the part where I got mad. She said that I'm probably depressed, and should take meds. I told her, "No, I know what that feels like. I've been on anti-depression and anti-anxiety meds before, and went off them back in November. I'm not going back on them, this is different."

She just smiled at me in a condescending fashion, said, "I think you should consider it, since that would be in keeping with all of your symptoms," and pat-patted me on the arm. As if to say, "You can't fix the problem until you admit there is one." Bitch. You all KNOW what hell I went through with my depression and anxiety, and for someone to suggest that I'm in denial or don't know what I talking about REALLY cheesed me.

She wanted to order up yet another round of blood tests and a follow-up appointment, which I absolutely flat-out refused. I am God-awful sick and tired of getting poked with needles. The year is only half over and I've had at LEAST six or seven blood tests already, for a variety of things. And I'm sure the endocrinologist (who I am still seeing) will order another round, since their office wasn't the one who provided this latest blood test, and it will be a couple of months old by the time I finally see them.

Not to mention the fact that each doctor's office uses different sets of ranges and parameters to measure blood and body chemistry, which I find to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. Where is the industry standardization? How do they expect to measure results over time, across disciplines, if their methods of measurement are all different? How do they expect to identify trends? I can't compare the blood tests that I got from the GP, the OB-GYN, and the Gastro doc because they use different measurements and scales for the same labs. It boggles the engineer and data analyst in me.

Let's see, what else? Ah, yes. Back on the 29th, Calvin and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary (see here for the entry I did about the wedding). What better way to celebrate than to eat steak, and watch steak! We went to The Keg for some blue cheese crusted filet mignon (uh. mah. gah.), then went to the Jobing.com Arena to watch the pro bull riding competition. I'd never been to any sort of bull riding or rodeo event, even though I've lived in the "Wild Wild West" for coming up on up on fourteen years.

I tell you what, we had a pretty darned good time. I was rooting for the bulls the whole time, of course. We sat next to a group of guys that were out for a buddy's birthday, and ended up gabbing a bit with them and sharing the flask-o'-whiskey around. There was a very pretty girl with a low cut top and hiked up assets sitting in the section below us, and every time she would climb up (and then back down, natch) the stairs on a beer run, the guys would all yell, "Puppies!" Yeesh.

Anyway, we took a billion and three blurry bull pictures. Bulls standing on their heads. Bulls standing on their tails. Bulls leaning at 90 degree angles. Cowboys staying on, cowboys falling off, cowboys getting their privates trounced. And a very entertaining rodeo clown that sang and danced to 80's music. All of the pictures are here, but I think this one sums it all up:


Bull's got hops.

Calvin and I are going to Oregon in a few weeks for the Oregon Brewer's Festival. I also intend on visiting Powells, and Moonstruck. We're staying in downtown Portland and will be there for four days. Are there any readers out there that are native to the area, or have been there, that want to recommend a place to go or a sight to see? Send an e-mail or leave a comment, thanks!

Labels: health, journal, Maine, work

Posted by Laura at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments

(This isn't the first entry on which I've used this title.)

So, I'm back! For those of you who want the short version, then I'll just say that everything went well and I should hear back from them with a yea or nay by the second week of July.

For those of you who want the slightly longer version, with pictures, here you go.

I flew out of Arizona at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. It's a three-hour leg to Chicago, then a two-hour leg to Maine. On the first leg, I sat next to a lady that was laughing HYSTERICALLY, way out loud, over the book she was reading. On the second leg, I sat next to a little nine-year-old boy who was travelling by himself to a lacrosse camp in Maine. On the layover in Chicago in between, I sat at the Fox Sports Bar and had myself a beer and a crab cake. During both entire legs of the flight I studied my brains out, going over all of the Factiva information that I printed out about this company, its parent entity, and the industry. I took copious notes. Very copious. Also, I like to say "copious".

I landed in Maine just before 5:00 p.m., grabbed my rental car and swung by the hotel just long enough to shower and change. My hotel was right next to the airport, but could have been in the middle of the wilderness, there was so much greenery around. Plus, there's like three flights a day out of Portland (I exaggerate, but it's no O'Hare), so I could leave my window open all night long and not be disturbed by 737's flying overhead. Here is the view from my hotel window:



I then departed again, and followed the directions from the hotel to the company I would be interviewing with the next day. That discovered (after only a slight mix up and turn-around), I high-tailed it to the nearest Amato's for Mecca Moment #2 of 2007 (see here for Mecca Moment #1).



Then, not wanting to just take my sandwich back to my hotel room to eat, I decided to explore "down the road a piece" and see if I could find a place to sit by the ocean. Well, down the road a piece took me to Prouts Neck. I gawked at the OH MY GOD houses, then pulled into Ferris Beach, took off my flip flops, grabbed my camera, cell phone, and crack (italian and Humpty Dumpty "All Dressed" potato chips), and walked down to the sandy beach. I sat a few feet from the surf, scarfed my food, and called Calvin to describe to him where I was and what I was doing (and how it was totally surreal that I was back in Maine again, but without him this time).

Despite the fact that I was missing Calvin, I was HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY to be there at that moment in time. I can't even begin to describe it, but I think the other patrons of the beach were wondering why I had a constant and wacky grin on my face.

I walked up and down the beach for an hour or so, taking pictures and sucking in the wonderfully cool salt air (it was 116 in Phoenix that day, 68 in Maine at dusk, and I was trying very womanfully to NOT rub it in with Calvin).

















I REALLY didn't want to pull myself away from the beach, but I knew I had a couple of hours more study time to put in before my interview in the morning. So I meandered back to the hotel, got into my jammies, put some TV on in the background, ironed my suit, and wrote notes until my hand cramped. Then I called Calvin and went over the information I'd found and the questions that I'd listed to ask, just to make sure I didn't sound like a dumbass.

The alarm went off at 7:00 the next morning, and I got ready to go, had two cups of coffee, drove to the business, and had about a half-hour to spare before my 9:00 appointment. So I sat and fretted and listened to the radio until about ten 'til. I signed myself in and got a stinkin' badge, then cooled my heels for another few minutes before the administrator came to get me.

She sat me down in a conference room and had me perform a timed logic test. The type were there are a series of letters and/or numbers that form a pattern that may or may not be obvious, and I have to produce what the next letter or number of the pattern would be. For instance, if "aabbcc" was the pattern provided, the next letter would be "d". Believe me, they started out that simple but didn't stay that way for long. After a while I was scratching my head and muttering, "What the fuck?" I was relieved when the administrator reappeared to say my time was up.

At 10:00 I met with the man that would be my boss. We ran through my resume and I described to him my work history. He described what the position would entail and a bit about the company, and at half past the hour he was wrapped up with his questions, and asked me if I had any of my own.

Heh. So! I opened up my portfolio, set aside the stack of papers I'd researched, flipped through my PAGES of notes, and asked him a WHOLE BUNCH of questions. I kept him going on those for another half an hour. I think a couple of times he was surprised at what I knew and what I'd gleaned about the company from the reading that I did.

At 11:00 I met with one of the VP's of the company, and right off the bat he told me the first gent would be the one to make the decision, and his role was just to see if I would be a good fit, personality-wise, for the company. He said he could see that I was obviously "well qualified", so I was chuffed at that. We really just chit-chatted about the group, the person who'd previously held the role that I was interviewing for, his own tenure of over 25 years, family stuff, AcronymCo's industry versus the one they are in, and just basically tangented a lot. He asked me why I wanted to move back to Maine, and totally understood when I described to him how I just wanted to come home again.

At noon the first gent picked me up in front of the lobby, and we met two other folks from the company for lunch. They talked a lot about common acquaintances and common experiences, so I just basically nodded and smiled a lot. Then the gent and I went to take a tour of one of their facilities and inspect a project that was going on there. Finally at about 2:30 in the afternoon he dropped me back off at the lobby, and I was finally done.

I went back to the hotel and got out of my suit (and pantyhose, ugh), and called Calvin to tell him how it went. Then I called my sister and left her a message letting her know I was in town, and called my uncle's house to talk to his girlfriend (he was out of town).

I showered and dressed in jeans (thank GOD), and drove over by the mall to kill some time. I browsed through Borders Books and Music, and called my cousin to see if she and her husband wanted to get together with me that evening. We agreed to meet at LL Bean in Freeport at 9:00 that night, so I grabbed a quick beer at Uno's and went back to the hotel for a nap.

I got up at about 5:45 and was away again by 6:00. My plan was just to meander my way up to Freeport from Portland, taking the back roads and maybe stopping at one or two beaches along the way. Driving the roads in Maine is just so beautiful, even when you're not going anywhere in particular. It's wonderfully enjoyable to poke around the curvy, twisty roads, looking at all of the trees and beautiful farms and houses, with glimpses of the ocean beyond the foliage.

I got lost on purpose. I'm one of those people who HAS to know where a road leads. So I'd find a likely turn, wander down that road until another one caught my fancy, then steer down that one. I actually talked to myself, "My lordy, I am so lost. I don't even know what town I'm in anymore. Hey, I wonder where this road goes? It's got to come out somewhere. It's fun being lost..."

"La la la."

When I purposefully tried to get myself back to where I needed to be, I ended up taking a road that dumped me right in the middle of Freeport directly across the street from LL Bean. I am that good, people.

It was barely after 7:00 when I arrived at "Bean's", so I spent a leisurely hour shopping for clothes. I got myself a pair of light, white cotton pants, a baby blue camisole, a slightly darker blue knit button-up sweater, and a pair of Bean's signature slides. It was durn chilly by the time I was done, so I put the sweater on immediately, and wandered around talking with Calvin on the cell and looking for a way to kill another hour before my cousin and her husband showed up.

I went to Jameson Tavern and had a beer while enjoying the live guitarist, and left again at 8:30 to stroll back towards Beans. Calvin kept me company on the phone until they arrived.

My cousin and I used to spend a lot of time together when we were children. She is the only daughter of my mother's oldest brother. We spent entire summers together, a few weeks at her house, a few weeks at my house with Grandma, every holiday, and many weekends. She's a little over three years younger than me - we played hard, fought harder, then would catch each other's eye in the middle of a knock-down-drag-out wrestling match, and laugh hysterically.

Since we've grown up, and of course since I moved away from Maine, we've hardly seen one another at all. So I was very excited and really appreciated that they'd take the 45 minute drive, when they had to work the next morning, to come down to Freeport from where they live in Augusta, just to have dinner with little ol' me.

We went back to Jamesons and took a table in the restaurant side. We gabbed AND gabbed AND gabbed, about absolutely everything, trying to pack years of catching up into a couple of hours. My cousin and I are scarily alike, a fact that her husband commented on several times.

We paused to take a breath and look around, and realized it was almost 11:00 and we were the only ones left in the place. Which closed at 10:00.

Oops.

We went outside and sat at the little bistro tables they had set up on the front porch of the restaurant (a house built in 1791 and renovated), and talked for ANOTHER hour. We finally wrapped it up a little after midnight, since they had to work in the morning.

I took one more beeline through LL Bean to use their bathroom before getting in the car to drive back to Portland. They're open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, even Christmas. You'd be surprised how many people were there shopping at 12:15 on a Friday night/Saturday morning.

I forgot how dark it gets in Maine at night. There aren't many street lights around, so I practiced my high beam skills. Hit the high beams, watch for cars coming toward you going in the other direction, hit the low beams, wait for them to pass by, hit the high beams, watch for cars... hit the low beams... wait for them to pass... hit the high beams...

I got back to the hotel at a little after 1:00, called Calvin to let him know I was safe, and hit the sack.

I slept in until 9:00 the next morning. My flight didn't leave until 1:30, so I took my time getting ready and packing. I had breakfast in the hotel restaurant while reading a book, and checked in at the airport at 11:30.

During the leg from Portland to Chicago I got to have a row of seats to myself. But the guy behind me was such an obnoxious conversationalist that I put my iPod on in self-defense. I mean, he was going on and ON about how he would only hang out with people with "old money", never with "new money". WHAT ever.

Chicago O'Hare was an absolute ZOO. My gate information wasn't on the board when I arrived, so I checked in with customer service, then sat at the bar at Chili's for a beer and southwestern egg rolls. It turned out that my flight, that was originally supposed to leave at 5:10, didn't actually get off the ground until nearly 7:00. If I had known I was going to be that delayed, I would have called Heather and asked her to hang out with me. I paced, I read, I got Starbucks, I pee'd about fifty times, I read some more. Then when I finally boarded the plane, I got seated next to this guy that smelled of cigarettes and bad breath, and he wouldn't stop getting into my personal bubble space. He annoyed the hell out of the other person in our row, the flight attendant (he pushed the call button, like, ten times to ask her why the fasten seatbelt sign was on... EVERY TIME it came on), and even the people in the row across from us. And he was in the MIDDLE seat, so you know that he had to lean across the other lady (I was in the window seat) to annoy the others.

Feh. By the time we landed in Phoenix I couldn't get off that plane fast enough. I called Calvin, who was circling the area, when I got my luggage, and he pulled up in front so I could just hop in and go. We stopped at home long enough for me to change and freshen up, and then got dinner at the Elephant Bar.

So there you go. A whirlwind, 6000-mile round trip from (almost) coast to coast, in about 60 hours. Peppered with good food, good conversation, a nerve-wracking interview process, and many many calls home.

I'll let you guys know as soon as I hear anything about the job. Thanks again for all of your well-wishing and support!

Labels: journal, Maine, photography, work

Posted by Laura at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments

A quote from my entry from May 18th

"I just sat and breathed for a long, long time. It felt so good to be there, and when it came time to leave I kept stopping and looking around to try to infuse my spirit and mind with the peace I felt there. The whole trip was filled with moments like this, as I tried to take away as much of Maine as I could, not knowing the next time I would be able to be there again."

Okay, so apparently "next time" is June 21st, 2007. If you had told me then that I'd be back in Maine barely a month later, I'd have accused you of hitting the peace pipe.

I am very excited about my trip, and very nervous about my interview. I have hit Factiva and printed out a bunch of information about this company and the industry in which it dwells, and I plan to study up on the flight so I can wow them with my "expertise". Heh.

Calvin and I went shopping last weekend and I bought a new suit for the occasion. I feel very swank in it.

Calvin and I are trying not to put the cart in front of the horse, here, but we've done a lot of "what if" discussions should a rapid departure from Arizona be imminent. And we've looked at houses on Realtor.com. We really like this one. Wish we were in the position to buy now, because when we ARE ready, this puppy will have been sold.

Such is our timing on this whole situation. We're not ready to move, but we're ready for a change. We're not ready to sell, but we want to buy.

Cart, horse, etc. I haven't even gotten the job yet, so all of this woolgathering and angst and "what ifs" may as yet be moot.

I'll post about how it all went on Saturday night or Sunday morning. In the meantime, cross your fingers for me!

Labels: headspace, Maine, work

Posted by Laura at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments

Hey you guys, thanks to all the folks who have been leaving me such nice comments and sending me such nice e-mails, wishing me well on my upcoming interview. I'm trying not to mind-frack (heh, been watching BSG) myself over this, but it's hard.

I'm torn. Almost exactly half of me wants them to make an offer I can accept, and almost exactly half of me hopes they don't make an offer. If I get the offer, Calvin and I will be plunged into a whirlwind of departure prep, up to and including getting the house ready for sale. We would have to live apart for an undetermined amount of time. BUT we would finally have a foothold in Maine, which is where I've wanted to be for, oh, 14 YEARS.

If they don't make an offer, Calvin and I are free to make a more controlled exit from Arizona. We can continue to pay down our debt, fix the house up in a more leisurely manner, and then job hunt when we're more prepared to make a move.

I applied to that job on a whim, not really figuring that anything would come of it. So I guess if something does come of it, it was "meant to be".

It's nerve wracking, though.

Labels: goals, headspace, Maine, work

Posted by Laura at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments

The company in Maine that I did a phone interview with a couple of weeks ago just called me. They want to fly me out next week, put me up in a hotel with a rental car, pay for my meals, take me out to lunch and dinner, have me interview with their muckety mucks, meet the people that would be reporting to me should they decide to offer me the job, and take me on a tour of their properties.

I just dropped Calvin off at the airport - he's doing some training in Texas all this week and is back on Friday. MAN, he needs to land RIGHT NOW so I can talk to him about this.

Once again, the word of the day is, "Eeep".

Labels: goals, Maine, work

Posted by Laura at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments

The thing I couldn't recall about Wednesday of our vacation day is taking a stroll with Calvin along the Eastern Promenade in Portland, after doing laundry but before pub crawling.


Thursday (5/10 for those of you following along at home):

Thursday we spent the entire day driving up (and then down, natch) the coast of Maine, following Route One (murder during tourist season, but we were early by a few weeks). First we hit Waldo's ("Hey, I found him!"), a convenience store/gas station/ice cream shop/hair salon/small engine repair (I kid - but there are actually a lot of combo places of bidness like that in Maine) in Falmouth, to stock up on road-trip munchies and beverages ("All Dressed" Humpty Dumpty potato chips are THE BOMB). "Up the road a piece", we stopped at the Muddy Rudder in Yarmouth for brunch (MORE SEAFOOD, PLEASE), getting there a few minutes before they opened but not having to cool our heels long at all.

Our waiter was very, very swishy.

From there we drove north (and then south - peninsulas are weird that way) to Boothbay Harbor. Now this is definitely a town that's only awake during tourist season - nearly every place we checked was closed until the next week. We wandered into a gift shop (hello walnut sized bladder), where Calvin picked out a really pretty little starfish necklace for me. I love it when he does that. We bought a couple of little souvenirs and wandered around looking at the ketch that can only be found in these little hole in the wall places in Maine.

We discovered that McSeagull's was open, and we stopped for a couple of beers and tuna tartar.




We listened to the conversation of a trio of chimney workers just back from their morning stint over on Squirrel Island (man, you can find ANYTHING on Wikipedia). We conversed with them a little as we all enjoyed our beers out on the patio - that was one thing Calvin was exclaiming over during the trip, how friendly the people are and how often they just want to gab.

That's where I get it from.

Upon leaving McSeagull's we wandered around a little more, but not much was open. I got some ice cream (black raspberry! yes!), Calvin got a couple of cigars, and we got back on the road heading south. We detoured at around the Bath area to ooh and ahh at the destroyers in the shipyard at Bath Iron Works, where my uncle used to work. You can see the HUMONGOUS cranes stationed there from miles away; certainly a major fixture in my childhood memories.

We then went down along another one of the "fingers" protruding along the coast, to check out the town of Phippsburg and Fort Popham. I'd directed Calvin and the kids to Popham Beach back in '99 when the four of us were in Maine, but we never made it to the fort.

Our attention was immediately caught by the pod of seals just off-shore. They and the loons were having a merry old time fishing; there must have been a large school of fish in the area to keep them there as long as they were. We took picture after picture (after picture - 19 made it through Photoshop and onto Flickr, but there were many more), getting our feet and pants wet in the process as we failed to notice the incoming ("INCOMING!") tide.


We then wandered around the fort, taking another bazillion-and-three pictures (36 made the cut). I think the best one is this one, with Calvin peering into the pitch-black cell ("I am NOT going in there...") and me lighting it up with the flash behind him.







We drove back to Portland with the top down, adding to our wicked scalp sunburns. When taking a road trip in Maine, I highly recommend picking up one of these. Not only does it show every single nook and cranny of Maine's craggy coast (plus the rest of the state, of course), it has a ton of information on recreation and activities.

Upon our return to our room, we got cleaned up and then went right back out again for another meal at J's Oysters. Calvin got a double order of crab legs - MAN were we moo-ing that night.

Friday:

We slept in a bit on Friday morning, and I once again ordered us a bit of room service so I wouldn't have to stumble down to the Map Room for their complimentary coffee. We left at around noon to head back to New Gloucester to visit with my uncle, and also my old neighbors the Marshalls (Brad's parents). My uncle and his girlfriend hosted us to a "little lunch" - fresh shrimp cocktail, baked asparagus spears wrapped in filo pastry, softball-sized steaks, and baked potatoes.

Moo. Again. Seems I was stuffed to bursting for the entire vacation.

It was so nice to be home, in the house that I grew up in. Absolutely nothing has changed, other than a little paint and updated decorating ala my uncle's girlfriend. The years just peeled away from me as Calvin and I walked up the Marshall's driveway, the way I used to so often, so long ago. We sat in their kitchen and talked for about an hour. They're such good people, and I got to see Brad's sister Christine for the first time in years, too. And a bunny! And their black lab, who is a clone of Brandy.

And they still have the swing in the barn.

It is such a relief to know that nothing changes about home. I can go home whenever I have the opportunity, and other than a few new houses and a few new stores (and a few closed businesses - the Burger King I used to work at when I was first married to X(m) is closed, and good riddance), everything stays the same. Thank God for that.

We stopped back at my uncle's (it's weird to say it's his place now, rather than Grandma's) for a few more minutes, and I went through some of my old belongings to weed out what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to throw away. Calvin was cracking up at my old school papers (a two-foot tall stack of them dating from kindergarten all the way through high school), and I pointed out to him the multiple A's and 100's. I laughed at my old high school yearbook and some attempts at artwork (I was never artistically inclined), and my uncle and I discussed how best to ship my mother's sterling silver flatware.

Though maybe he should hold onto it, in case we end up moving to Maine in the near future.

We intended that night to meet my sister and her husband in the Old Port for one final pub crawl on our last night there, but she never returned my multiple voicemail messages. Nor has she returned the messages I have left since my return to Arizona. I'm kind of pissed off at my sister right now.

I was feeling kind of crappy come Friday night anyway, coming down with the cold that is still lingering as I type this, two weeks later. Calvin and I went to back to Gritty's and back to 51 Wharf, but I was wilting fast, so we called it a night at around 10:30.

Saturday:

More room service, and I packed us up fairly quickly. We took one last stroll through the Old Port to secure a couple more souvenirs - including T-shirts for Calvin, Michael, and Marie's boyfriend that feature a black dog in what I will call the "pooping pose" emblazoned on the back. It's that Maine humor.

We ate lunch at Mim's (decent, but not thrilling - here is one person's take on it), then checked our car out of valet for the last time. Back on I-295/95, we drove south and detoured over to Kennebunkport to check out the sights. We had some time to kill before we had to make our 5:30 flight out of Manchester, so we drove slowly through the back roads checking out the village and the million-dollar houses.

In Wells we stopped at the House of Pizza for some wicked good three-way (a three-item pizza, for you flatlandahs).

Another hour on the road saw us at the Manchester airport. By this time my cold had really set in and I was miserable. To make matters worse, by the time we finally meandered to our gate (after killing a couple of hours in the airport bar and gift shop), we discovered that our plane was delayed due to bad weather in Philadelphia (our connection).

Thus began the terrible saga of our journey home.

Calvin was in fine fettle, as you can imagine, by the time we finally boarded our flight to Philly, nearly two hours late. We arrived at around 9:00, a half-hour late for our connecting flight to Arizona. Mayhem ensued as we tried to find a US Airways rep to get us booked for the next flight out.

The following morning.

10 hours spent overnight in an airport terminal. Because weather delays are not the airline's fault, and no reimbursement would be given for hotel or airfare.

Did I mention I was sick?

Calvin and I got some truly mediocre pizza at the two-minutes-to-closing S'Barro's. Yeee-uck. Then we found our terminal and moved two blocks of chairs together, because they all had arms so we couldn't stretch out without combining two sets and lying down the middle. It was freezing, blazingly bright with the nearby TV at full volume, and I was miserable. I bundled into all the clothes I had - a hoodie AND a sweatshirt which Calvin described as my "baglady look". A couple of airport employees stopped by to give us scratchy airline pillows and paper-thin "blankets", and we huddled in a miserable pile from 11:00 at night until 5:00 in the morning.

GOD what a suck night that was.

Sunday (12 hours after we should have been home already):

The plane from Philly to Arizona left at 7:30, and Calvin and I had the very back, non-reclining row. Of course. We leaned, layed, and scrunched (fortunately, no one else had the third seat), and slept the best we could.

We waited for EVER for our luggage (which fortunately made it on the same flight we were on), then grabbed the first ride out of the airport that we could. We were finally home by about 11:00 in the morning.

I'll tell you what, I am NEVER flying US Air again, and I am NEVER taking a connection through Philly. The airport was in chaos, with terminals that could only be accessed between one another via shuttle bus. ONE shuttle bus, with fifteen other perfectly functional shuttle buses just sitting idle on the tarmac. US Air employees are indifferent at best, rude at worst, and remarkably disinterested in being helpful or kind or polite AT ALL. Fuckers.

So, it was a homecoming suitable to our mood, since we were huffed that vacation was over and we didn't at all miss Arizona one minute, not one little bit.

Labels: best things, Calvin, food, journal, Maine, photography, vacation

Posted by Laura at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

Wednesday:

Let's see. Just a week since we've been home and things are already starting to get fuzzy in my memory. Wednesday morning I ordered us some fruit, pastry, and coffee from room service and spent the morning reading, photoshopping, and relaxing while Calvin did the same with the paper and the TV. Around noon we took the car to get some gas, then drove to Dimillo's (a short walk from our hotel but we didn't want to put the car in valet again) to have lunch with my uncle, his girlfriend, my cousin and her husband. We were there for over two hours, enjoying fillet (Calvin) and baked stuffed haddock (me), drinks, and conversation.

My uncle presented me with my mother's class ring, which had been lost at one point and then rediscovered and kept for me. I got caught up with my cousin, whom I hadn't seen since my Grandmother passed away. I don't know why, but it continues to startle me how well I get along with my uncle, when I was so fearful of him (out of respect and the threat of his righteous anger to get me to behave) when I was little. My sister doesn't get along with him at all - she has a different history with him than I do. But more on all of that in a different entry.

Anyway, we all parted company at a little after 3:00, and secured an invitation for lunch at my uncle's (my Grandmother's, where I grew up) on Friday.

Calvin was out of clean jeans, so we looked up the nearest laundromat and spent an hour or so futzing around with the more mundane aspects of living out of a suitcase. We may or may not have taken a nap after getting back to the hotel, I don't really recall.

What I DO recall is the BEST evening spent with my favorite person (that'd be Calvin), doing a pub crawl all over the Old Port. We went back to Bull Feeney's for a quick beer, then wandered down toward the wharf so I could show Calvin the spot that I took pictures from Sunday evening, while he was napping.


After rave recommendations from my uncle, we had dinner at J's Oyster Bar (the link is to another blogger who reviewed the place and took the pictures of the outside that I did not). The place is, like, three square feet and when I say it's an Old Port "institution", I mean that in the truest and most respectful sense. We went there more than once in our short stay. They had the best crab legs Calvin and I have ever experienced. Plus I got my much-craved steamed clams (and my yearly recommended allowance of sand). It's dim and crowded and shabby and fantastic. Real food with real people running the place, and the most unpretentious sort of clientele.


God, we loved that place.

Breathing deeply of the crisp night air, we set out with no particular destination in mind, and no plans other than to crawl our way through some pubs. We hit Gritty's and sampled some of their great house brew. I just have to say that I love the bars in the Old Port - all housed in old, old buildings with exposed brickwork and wooden beams, funny crannies and architecture that screams "converted".

Next stop was a bar on Wharf Street called "Cake" (can't find a link to it). It's newly opened and the bar tender (and part owner?) was eager to please. We sat on the whiskey bar side - the dance club side was empty in early evening awaiting clientele. We grabbed a couple of beers and ordered steak tartar and some crackers with cheese and caviar (very fancy schmancy are we on vacation!).


From Cake we crossed Wharf Street and went to 51 Wharf, a contemporary bar that was offering salsa classes that night, of all things. We declined the lessons and had a couple of Jamesons at the bar (after he tried to serve us SOCO. Yeesh.). The bartender was fantastically inattentive but we're low maintenance customers so after we got our drinks straightened around it wasn't much of a problem.


By the time we stumbled out of 51 Wharf it was quite late, and I honestly don't remember us getting back to the hotel room. Which means we had a GOOD night.

Labels: best things, booze, Calvin, food, journal, Maine, photography, vacation

Posted by Laura at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments

Monday:

We couldn't have asked for better weather for just about the entire week we were in Maine - a fact that the "natives" were more than happy to inform us on a number of occasions. After having the Patriot's Day Storm just a couple of weeks before our arrival, the nice weather we experienced was considered to be "freak".

Calvin and I went to Eggspectations for breakfast on Monday morning. This was the place that I took Marie and her friend a few times when we were in Maine during my Sabbatical in '03. I believe they were more enamored of the waiters than the food. Suffice to say, the food was acceptable but no more. A strange occurrence when you consider the RHAPSODIES we generally had over our meals during vacation. Ih, what can you expect from a chain restaurant. The ONLY chain establishment we ate at the entire vacation, by the way.

After breakfast we drove through Portland's West End, which is occupied by many stately manors and old Victorian and Colonial architecture. We had to stop at the State Street Church for about a thousand pictures (okay, ten that I posted, but a bunch more that didn't make the cut).


Driving on we took the Casco Bay Bridge over to Cape Elizabeth for the traditional and required visit to the Portland Head Light and Fort Williams (here is an interesting article on the Forts of Maine). We lingered for several hours at the light, exploring the tidal pools among the rocks below. I just sat and breathed for a long, long time. It felt so good to be there, and when it came time to leave I kept stopping and looking around to try to infuse my spirit and mind with the peace I felt there. The whole trip was filled with moments like this, as I tried to take away as much of Maine as I could, not knowing the next time I would be able to be there again.


We spend a couple of hours after leaving the light, exploring around Cape Elizabeth and gawking at the OH MY GOD houses there. Multi-million dollar properties perched along the rocky cliffs, owned by old money and old people who probably have rat bastard children who don't deserve to inherit the properties.

Hmm. Moving on.

Our next stop was The Lobster Shack, situated on the edge of Two Lights Park in Cape Elizabeth. Some adjectives: "cozy", "quaint", "teeny", "delicious"... and very, very typical of a Mom and Pop establishment in Maine. Complete with attack seagulls that whisk away your popcorn shrimp if you so much as glance in another direction, if you happen to be sitting outside on the picnic tables. Which we did not, but were vastly amused by a shrieking woman who did. Damn flatlandah didn't know bettah.


Leaving Cape Elizabeth, we headed back to Portland for a drive around Bayside and Back Bay/Back Cove, then north a bit to Falmouth Foreside for some more gawking at some more houses that we would never in our lifetime be able to afford. I guess any homes right on the ocean are going to be like that, no matter where they are.

We had a lot of fun with our little Audi A4 (and Calvin was devastated to learn how far outside of our financial reach its big brother the R8 is). We both got some pretty wicked sunburns on the top of our heads from buzzing around with the top down. Who remembers to put sunblock on their HEAD, for godsakes? But the weather was glorious, the roads beautiful with the trees just starting to bud their leaves, the ocean everywhere you looked, and the smell of the crisp salt air tinged with green, growing things. The best smell on the planet.

We went back to the hotel in the early evening for a shower, dinner, and then bed at a reasonable hour for us old folks.

Tuesday:

Tuesday was another early starter for us - who wants to sleep when they're on vacation? Except for the times when that is the point exactly. Anyway, we again grabbed breakfast at 20 Milk Street before driving south a little ways to Old Orchard Beach. We were early enough (in the day and in the season, come to find out), that very few shops and restaurants were open. We were okay with that, though, as we were mainly there to walk along the sandy beach. I love the fact that Maine has rocky coastlines to explore and sandy beaches to walk along. I took my shoes off to stroll barefoot in the FUCKING COLD sand dampened by the FUCKING COLD ocean. And there were actually people SWIMMING. Or, well, running in, shrieking, running out, then running back in again. Whatever, weirdos. Our stay was fairly brief (I had to GO, SO BAD, and no restrooms were around and/or open), and Calvin and I were suddenly struck with weariness, so we decided to go back to the hotel for a nap.



A couple of hours later we were awakened by the hotel front desk. Apparently there was a leak (we didn't do it, SWEAR) in the room below us, and in order to get to it they had to go in from above the leak, and would we mind terribly moving to a different room for the rest of our stay? Well, since it meant a free upgrade to a suite (we were in a standard king room), we said "Hell, yeah," and packed in record time. We left for a hour or so for lunch at Sebago Brewing Company, and when we returned they had moved all of our belongings to our new room. We ooh'ed at the flat panel TV and the skylight in the bathroom and the general increased roomyness, then unpacked and made ourselves at home again.

Departing the hotel once again (and the valet guys made a killing off us that week, I swear), we set off to see if I could remember the location of "that really old cemetery off of Stevens Avenue". I must say that Calvin gave me some rather strange looks when I told him where we were going. I believe his exact words were, "You're going to take pictures? Of graves??? That's just creepy, Laura. Why the hell would anybody think to go to a cemetery for FUN??? Oh, wait, this is YOU we're talking about..."

Huff.

I've always liked the Evergreen Cemetery - it's enormous and just seems to keep on going and going. And it's way old, with graves from the late 1600's and early 1700's, all the way up through present day. I find it very interesting to read the inscriptions and look for family associations - mother to child, sisters, brothers, husbands lauded with fancy inscriptions while their wives get just a name and "wife of...". Lots of babies dying in their first year, lots of mothers dying in childbirth, many people in general dying at an age we would consider to be young today. Evergreen also contains a lot of monuments to historic people - Samuel Wilde, Henry Goddard Thomas, and the Wadsworth Longfellow's are some of the more commonly known.


The inscription portion of the photo contest still has yet to be won, by the way.

We left the cemetery after taking fifty million pictures (34 of which made the cut) and drove north to my old stomping grounds of Gray/New Gloucester. We had some time to kill and stopped at Cole Farms to satisfy another one of my, "When I'm in Maine I have to eat HERE," cravings. My mother worked at Cole's up until she passed away, and I spent a lot of time there when I was little. Plus it was a popular employer of the local high school students, and one of the few restaurants close enough to where I lived to warrant a mid-week visit if the craving struck. Calvin got himself a burger, and I ordered fried clams with french fries and a side of their house dressing. Dipping fries in this dressing (when I was little I called it "doodle sauce") is something I used to get cravings for when I lived there. Calvin ordered dessert just because he knew I wanted a slice of their chocolate cream pie (to. die. for.) but was going to deny myself because I was, once again and perpetually during this trip, full.

We moo'ed our way back to the car and drove "out Poland way" to visit my sister and her husband and four kids. Their driveway was inaccessible without a four-wheel-drive vehicle (which we DEFINITELY weren't driving), so we agreed to meet them all at her neighbor's, who kindly opened up the use of his garage (heh, a Maine thing) for us to congregate, drink, and be merry. It's a distinctly Maine trait to fix up one's garage/barn/shop before "finishing" the actual home.

Propane tank behind the garage - left side's ladies room, right side's mens.

Calvin and I took turns taking all of my sister's kids out for rides in the convertible, and I got to have a little bonding time with my niece, who is 14 and taller than I am. My sister is fond of accusing her of being, "just like your AUNT LAURA." As if that could possibly be a bad thing. She is a lot like me, though - same sense of humor, same sarcastic mouth, same inability to NOT make little zinging comments about everything in general. I love the hell out of her.

We hung out for a few hours just gabbing, reintroducing my sister and her husband to tequila, greeting my sister's friends who have known me since I was born (she used to drag me to her parties if she was stuck babysitting me), and gawking at the stars (which are SUPREMELY visible in Maine and nonexistent in Arizona). It being a Tuesday, though, we didn't want to keep everyone up when they all had to work the next day, so we excused ourselves at around 10:30 and made plans with my sister to go partying in the Old Port on Friday night.


Okay! Next part will be up sometime this weekend. And I have a TON more I could have written about this trip so far.

Labels: best things, Calvin, food, journal, Maine, photography, vacation

Posted by Laura at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments

I didn't provide too much detail during the week Calvin and I were in Maine, because, well, I wanted to be OUT DOING instead of IN WRITING. So you got your little drabs and your BIG amounts of pictures, which I hope helped to tide you over. That is, if you needed tiding. Perhaps you were completely and entirely disinterested. Who knows what goes on it that brain of yours, anyway?

Moving on.

The problem with going home is that at least two days out of every vacation are fully occupied with travelling. We left Arizona at 7:30 in the morning Arizona time on Saturday, and got to our hotel in Maine at 7:30 in the evening Maine time. That's flights, layovers, and the drive from Manchester NH to Portland ME. Coast to coast travel is a bitch, people.

Saturday, The Remainder:

The hotel (The Portland Regency, and I doubt we'll ever stay anywhere else, the place was AWESOME) was a MUCH WELCOME sight when we finally rolled in, even though we only paused long enough to shower up and change clothes, then we were out prowling the Old Port.


We stopped in the Armory Lounge, the hotel's bar, for some alcohol soaking food (Chicken Gorgonzola for Calvin, lobster salad on a croissant for me), and then went down the street and around the corner to Bull Feeney's, an Irish Pub that was packed and happenin' (and did YOU know that lobsters love Guinness? I didn't.).

I already mentioned the oddity that is Cinco de Mayo in Maine, with the Irish drinking songs and the VERY WHITE GUYS sporting very black fake moustaches and sombreros. There was "Fred", who loved everybody, and told everybody that fact repeatedly. There were these two guys that were wasted and standing, weaving, calling catcalls and encouragements to the live entertainment, and trying with little success to sing along. Calvin and I enjoyed ourselves hugely, drank tequila (which is per our standard, but the folks in the bar thought that was Very Authentic of us), got hugged by Fred about twelve times (who, it turned out, was just back from Iraq), and finally stumbled our way back to our hotel a little after 1:00 a.m.

Sunday:

Tequila = ow.

I already described how I woke up ridiculously early and how Calvin was forced to get out of bed against his will. How he could sleep through the constant calls of the seagulls was beyond me - they woke us up pretty much every morning. If I lived there I'd probably get sick of it, but at week's end it was still novel to me. The hotel is one street up from the harbor, and with all of the fishing boats coming and going, there was a lot of seagull conversating going on.

"Mine? Mine? Mine?"

We ate breakfast at Twenty Milk Street, the restaurant in the hotel. They had a very fancy-schmancy Sunday Brunch going on, but we ordered more standard fare. Calvin had corned beef hash made with actual corned beef (not those weird little Dinty Moore cubes) and poached eggs Benedict, and I had eggs over medium with bacon and toast. Good LORD people, can I just rhapsody a moment over the bacon? I don't know what they do to the pigs in Maine, but whatever it is makes the bacon taste like meaty strips of heaven.


You do know that this entry is going to be primarily about food, don't you? Maine is very VERY big on producing and selling locally grown produce, dairy, meats, and of course seafood. Very little (if any) of the food we ate was from "away". Except for the tequila (and some guy randomly told us in Bull Feeney's that there's a tequila manufacturer in Maine. I'm not sure I believe him. A cactus would never survive the Maine winters, even indoors.).

Anyway. We took the car out (valet parking at ten bucks a day plus a fiver tip every time you take it out) and drove "out New Gloucester way", taking the drive I used to commute every day to and from work (and whoever thought I ever would have wanted to do that for fun??). From there we drove the back roads to Freeport, stopped briefly at LL Bean for the required souvenier gifts for the gang back home, then wandered back toward the Old Port. Lunchtime rolled around and, utilizing the directions we got from the bartender at The Armory the night before, we went to the Amato's on India Street for my Mecca Moment. I tell you what, we had to wait for over a half an hour for those darned sandwiches - the folks behind the counter couldn't get their acts together and misplaced our VERY SIMPLE ORDER (one large regular, one small roast beef, guess which one was mine), like, three times. But we finally made it back to the hotel room with the Italians and the Humpty Dumpty salt-n-vinegar chips (an institution, and what an awesome website MaineGoodies.com is!!!), and the Sam Adams.

I think I ate that entire foot-long sandwich in three bites. Oh, the pickles! Ohhh, the bread. Ohhhhhh, the fact that I'm three thousand miles and God knows how many months away from having another one...

Ahem.

After lunch we went looking for a sports bar with a TV that would sport the Suns game ("The who? What game are you looking for?" ("Basket. Ball.") "Uhhh... the Red Sox are playing...") We walked into one place and turned around and went back out almost immediately, having assessed their TV-less-ness. A (rather drunk) guy standing just outside the door looked at us funny and said, "What'd you do that for?" Calvin bristled, still operating on Arizona Standard Defense mode, and said, "What do you mean?" So the guy slurred, "Why would you wanna walk into a bar, then walk right out again? Oh, you have a camera. You're trying to (hic) capture something..." I just laughed and pulled Calvin away, reminding him that in Maine, any questionable circumstance would most likely turn out to be well meaning but weird, instead of violent and confrontational.

We finally settled in the Old Port Tavern. There was absolutely nobody there (it being Sunday afternoon), and the more beer I drank, the sleepier I got.


Calvin got a little annoyed that I would want to take a nap (don't worry, the irony kicks in later). After about an hour of fighting it, I finally gave in and we went back to the hotel. I crashed in the room for ONE HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES, that's it. He hung out in The Armory to watch the game (and have two more beers, and a PORT, of all things). He came back up to the room at about 5:20, at which point I woke up and got up to get myself ready for another evening of prowling around the Old Port. As I was in the process of dressing and grooming my hot self, he FELL ASLEEP. Fully clothed. Watching the game.

So. I figured, okay. I'll let him rest. I needed a nap too, after all. I grabbed the camera and went down toward the wharf to take a bunch of pictures.


I was gone for probably an hour or so, taking my time and enjoying the evening and the weather and the light. I wandered back up to the room at about 6:30. Tried to wake Calvin up. Got a grunt and a snore. So I sat at the computer and photoshopped the pictures. Tried to wake Calvin up once every half an hour or so. Finally gave up at 8:30 and let Calvin sleep. For the rest of the night.

Ahem.

I went down to The Armory with my book (The Dreamhunter by Sherrilyn Kenyon, and I have to say I didn't particularly like the book), grabbed a burger and gabbed with the bar guys while they ROARED over The Family Guy. I don't get that show At. All. There was a random 10-minute sequence where the dad on the show battled it out 007-style with a man-sized chicken. For no apparent reason. And then just stopped. Again, for no apparent reason. Something was lost in translation for me, that's for sure.

When I was done eating I went to the Map Room (which I never actually took a picture of, but it's a lovely sitting room with leather and mahogany furniture and model ships and maps everywhere) and read for about an hour. Then I went back up to the room, didn't take too much particular care to not disturb Calvin (not that it would have made a difference because I would have needed a marching band AND an earthquake), and went to sleep.

Aaaaand obviously I can't "summarize" to save my life, so I'm going to post this stuff in chunks. More tomorrow! I'm sure your riveted.

Labels: best things, booze, Calvin, food, journal, Maine, photography, vacation

Posted by Laura at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments

During one of our days in Maine I took Calvin to see the Evergreen Cemetery in Portland. It kind of creeped him out that I would want to a) go to a cemetery for *fun*, and b) take pictures of other people's graves and tombs. I find this stuff fascinating, though, and eventually he did too. While Evergreen Cemetery is one of the oldest non-private cemetery in Maine, it is by no means THE oldest. The majority of graves were from the 17- and 1800's, but there are plenty of cemeteries all over Maine that have graves dating to the 1600's.

Anyway, while there I discovered a tomb whose inscription I couldn't fully decipher, and I thought it would be fun to make a little contest out of it for my readers. So, the first person to respond with the completed inscription wins a prize! Just send me an e-mail.


"A heritage of life
Beyond this guarded gloom
A kingdom - not a grave
A Heaven - not a tomb
Shall come to thee Our souls deep dreams
Our young affections have not (?) in (?)
Soon in (?) We shall (?) the (?) streams
And with the past be sorrow death and pain"

We also kept seeing these plants all over the place, does anybody know what it is?

Labels: Maine, photography, vacation

Posted by Laura at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments

More pics start here, or start at the beginning of the vacation set here.

Tuesday - an early drive to Old Orchard beach for a stroll along the ocean; a nap; poking around Evergreen Cemetary and taking pics of tombs and graves to freak Calvin out; fried clams, french fries with house dressing and chocolate cream pie at Cole Farms; then hanging out with my sister and her family.

Wednesday - a hangover; lunch at D'Millos with my Uncle, his girlfriend, my cousin, and her husband; laundry; a pub crawl of the Old Port that included Gritty's, Cake, J's Oyster Bar (with the best crab legs EVER), and 51 Wharf.

Today - a drive up the coast via Route 1; lunch at The Muddy Rudder, beers and tuna tartar at McSeagull's in Boothbay Harbor, a drive over to Fort Popham, and now we're back at our room about to head out to J's Oyster Bar again. Pics of today (with seals!) are forthcoming.

Labels: best things, Maine, photography, vacation

Posted by Laura at 3:47 PM | Permalink | Comments

Yesterday the weather was just lovely - high 60's/low 70's, sunny, breezy. We got up early-ish (early for US! 8:30 or so...) and went for breakfast at "Eggspectations" (hi, Marie!). After breakfast we decided to just drive around and enjoy the weather. We drove along the West End and enjoyed looking at all the OLD colonial architecture, and stopped to take about a hundred pictures of the State Street Church.



Then we crossed the Casco Bay Bridge into Cape Elizabeth for the required visit to Fort Williams and the Portland Head Light.



We drove all around Cape Elizabeth and came across Two Lights State Park and the local much-lauded institution, the Lobster Shack. We crammed into the tiny place and enjoyed our lobster roll (me) and shrimp plate (Calvin), then wandered around taking a few more pictures and enjoying the antics of the seagulls terrorizing a woman eating her food outdoors. After THAT we decided to head back North toward Portland, and drove around Bayside and Back Bay before heading to Falmouth Foreside, home of the OLD money and FABULOUS houses that we could never afford. Then it was back to the hotel for a shower and dinner before crashing again in our room.

More pictures start here, click the right arrow to see the rest of yesterday's pictures. Or start from the beginning of the set here.

Labels: best things, Maine, photography, vacation

Posted by Laura at 4:51 AM | Permalink | Comments

The rest of today's pictures are here.

Labels: best things, crack, food, Maine, vacation

Posted by Laura at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments

You have never experienced Cinco de Mayo until you have experienced it in Maine. The guys we saw at the bar last night would have gotten beaten up in Arizona, is all I'm saying. I bet the vast majority of the population here have never met a person from Mexico. And yet, they were celebrating their independence very enthusiastically. With Irish drinking songs. And sombreros.

I woke up this morning at 6:30 a.m., still a little bit buzzed, I think. I tried to convince myself to go back to sleep, but my internal clock didn't care that it was 3:30 in the morning according to Arizona. I just could NOT go back to sleep. It's 8:15 now, and I've showered, dressed, hair/make-upped, unpacked, got the wireless Internet access working (hi), found coffee, and am now typing this entry. Calvin, who only had trouble staying asleep this morning because I was making noise, is grumbling and in the shower as I type this.

The flight over here was hellish, of course. Calvin promptly fell asleep and stayed that way for almost all of the Phoenix to Philadelphia leg of our trip. I finished my book about 3/4 of the way through the flight, couldn't sleep, couldn't get comfy, and so sat dwelling on the fact that in a few short hours I would be HOME.

There was a scene on the plane before take-off in Philly - a church group of 28 members were missing five of their compatriots, whose seats were given away to standby after waiting for almost a half hour for them to show up. One woman wanted to stage a walk-out and get the other 22 members to get off the plane - "We all go or none of us go, are you with me?!?" I felt bad for the poor flight attendant, who was trying to get folks to sit down and shut up. Finally one of the church group members volunteered to get off the plane and stay behind to arrange another flight for their missing friends. You'll be glad to know that by the time we landed in New Hamster, it had been established that they caught a later flight and all was well.

I was darn worried, too.

I cried a little bit on the car ride from Manchester to Portland, my head and my heart singing "HOME HOME HOME". Calvin thinks I'm a little bit nuts. I think I might be, too. We do have a WAY fun little car that we're driving - An Audi something or other, zippy with a convertible top. That was a pleasantly unexpected upgrade.

The hotel is very elegant indeed. Lots of leather and dark wood. I keep finding pictures that I want to take and shall probably embarrass myself playing tourist with the camera always stuck to my face. There are so many angles, great arches and brick work, lots of old buildings and fantastic light. I hope I can do justice with this new camera.

Okay, I'm going to go ply Calvin with coffee and futz around and take some pictures. Innernet access on vacation is way kewl.

Labels: Maine, vacation

Posted by Laura at 5:09 AM | Permalink | Comments

A post about what's goin' on.

Calvin and I decided to make our Maine trip a total vacation trip, instead of spending half of it in a seminar. We've had some major stress over the past couple of weeks, with health concerns going on with both of us, plus work, plus the kids, plus plus plus...

The upshot is that we just really need a decompression break. A week during which there will be no thinking about serious shit - something that we have been doing waaaay too much of over the past couple of weeks. So there will be more time for walking on the beach, visiting the lighthouses, prowling around the Old Port, and hanging with the family. The seminar can wait when our mental well-being is much more important.

I talked to my girlfriend AB last Sunday night, and she (and her daughter) were so shocked that I called that I felt like a complete choad. If your friends are shocked when you call, that means that you don't call enough. I shall try to be a better friend from this point forward.

Speaking of which, I called my sister three different times and left messages, and she hasn't called me back. So now I think she kind of sucks and she's going to have to work to get back into my good graces. Buying me an italian sandwich and having a bonfire at her house comes to mind.

Whenever I "hear" Lucy's voice in my head, she "sounds" like Ivana Trump. Cheeto "sounds" like Bill Murray (ala Garfield). Gadget "sounds" like Hammy from Over the Hedge (Steve Carell). Gypsy "sounds" like Caroline Rhea. And Oz sounds like Stewie from Family Guy (Seth MacFarlane). My imagination is a very strange place.

Cheeto and Lucy have been thrashing around in their tank all morning long - chasing from perch to perch, Cheeto bobbing and Lucy waving, both of them traipsing through their veggies and creating general mayhem. Just a few moments ago Lucy crawled back under one of the logs where she's spent most of her time for the past few months. Bearded dragons brumate (a semi-hibernation) for part of the year - usually the winter months. Her clock must be off, though, because it's in the (fucking) 90's and sunny 90% of the time. I think maybe their tank is too small and she's sleeping a lot because she's depressed. That's what I do when I'm depressed, anyway - crawl under a log (or the covers) and sleep it off. I think we'll get them a rabbit cage to set out in the sun on the lawn for them to hang out in on nice afternoons.

Michael bought Calvin's sport bike off of him, and now he's (Michael) constantly pestering him (Calvin) to go for a ride. The boy is hyper. And today is his 24th birthday. Lilly called and put the boys on with their birthday wishes - Calvin got to talk to them, too. As it was, like, 6:30 in the morning, I was still unconscious. X(f) (Michael and Marie's mom, for those of you who haven't plowed through all of the journal archives) is taking Michael to a baseball game tonight. Marie was not invited. That kind of ticks me off. It has been several years, now, since Marie and X(f) have spoken. But X(f) speaks to Michael quite often. I don't get that woman.

I have been tanning, a couple of times a week, at this place that is exactly two minutes away from my house. At first I was totally claustrophobic in the TANNING COFFIN OF DOOM, but I got used to it after the first few visits. I started at six minutes, worked my way up to eight, and now I'm a total pro at ten minutes. I'm a hussy and I tan nekkid - I thought I'd give you that mental image as a bonus, just for being such good readers. I kind of like the process over laying out in the sun, since it's so much quicker and I don't have to expose anyone to seeing me in a bathing suit. The only problem is that you get weird negative areas in your tan, like under your arms and on your tailbone. I don't think I'll keep up with it for very much longer - my purchased month of "all you can tan!" is over on the first, and I doubt I'll go beyond that. It was just one of those whims I got one day when I looked at myself in the mirror and said, "Damn, girl, you are one pasty looking bee-otch!"

I got an MRI on Monday, looking for issues beyond the pancreatitis. THAT was an interesting experience. It was cold, noisy, sensory-depriving, and much less horrid than the CT-scan I got a couple of weeks ago (no IV! no needles! no problem!). I wore elastic waisted jogging pants and a t-shirt with no bra (woo-woo!), so I didn't have to further demean myself by wearing the svelte little gowns they give you. The scanner-man was very nice and encouraged me all along the way, asking frequently through the monitor if I was okay. I wore headphones that channelled 98.7 The Peak FM, which cut out every time he spoke to me. It seemed weird to call my "Yep, okay in here," into the air, but the MRI Tunnel O' Love had a microphone through which he could hear me. Then it was 35 minutes of "Deep breath in, blow your breath out, deep breath in, and hoooold your breath..." At least he told me how long I was going to have to hold it (16 seconds, 28 seconds, 22 seconds...), so I could do a mental countdown. During two scans - one eight minutes long and one five minutes long - I just had to lay still and breathe normally. All I had to do was listen to the "EEEEEHHHHHHHH... CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK... EEEEEEHHHHHHHH", which pretty much drowned out the music. Despite the noise I almost fell asleep, then had to rouse myself for some more "... and hoooold your breath." After every breath holding session, the scanner-man would be all like, "That was very good!" Uh, thanks? I've been practicing.

I got a message yesterday afternoon from the doc's, and the scan came back normal. I still want to look at it, though, and check out what my innards look like. I bet there's kittens and posies and sparkly things all up in there.

Labels: headspace, journal, Maine, vacation

Posted by Laura at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments

Last night as I was falling asleep I was struck with a craving so hard that my mouth literally watered.

A REAL Maine Italian sandwich.



Nobody outside of Maine understands what's with these things. I've forced them upon Calvin, Marie and Michael during our visits back home, and they're all, "And? So? It's a sandwich." To which I respond that I am never speaking to them again.

A REAL Maine Italian consists of a foot of soft italian bread split down the center (hot-dog style), topped with ham or salami, white american or provolone (depending on the meat), then sliced tomatoes, sliced green peppers, kalamata olives, onions, pickles, salt, pepper, and olive oil. The whole thing is wrapped up in wax paper and the only way to eat it RIGHT is to peel the paper away from one end a little at a time as you're eating it, so you don't drop all of the ingredients and get covered in oil.

The thing that makes the Maine Italian REAL is the bread and the pickles. The bread is a foot of soft chewy goodness. The pickles are TART and just spicy enough. I haven't been able to find either outside of Maine. Substitutes are tolerated NOT AT ALL.

Nearly everyone reading this entry is "from away" (that is, not from Maine). Go here for a unique, non-Mainer's perspective. Play the slide show. I go to that Amato's all the time... well, when I'm home. Which I will be in less than a month. I may cry. The tears, they are of joy.

Labels: best things, Maine

Posted by Laura at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments