Written on July 17, 2005.
So here I am in Maine. I got here Friday afternoon about ten minutes late, and met the spud and Brian outside security. We got my bag – the Portland airport has finally (THANK GOD) increased the size of their bag claim area so that more than three people can fit around the baggage carousel. My bag arrived, finally, and we went out to the parking lot where my mother was waiting in the car. We gossiped our way to Freeport – or maybe it was Yarmouth; I’m not sure where one ends and the other begins – and had lunch at a little roadside stand named Cindy’s. I had an excellent lobster roll, but the PRICE. My god, there was for sure not enough lobster to justify $12, those lobster must have dined on gold nuggets before they became lobster rolls, that’s all I can guess.
Then we went to my parents’ house, where we all went swimming for a while. I haven’t been swimming for quite a while, probably not since last summer when we were in Hawaii, so it was nice to lay on a boogie board and float around the pool.
I was tired from traveling and thought I’d go to bed early, but Liz called and we talked for a few minutes, then decided that she’d come pick me up and we’d go to Friendly’s (similar to Denny’s, for those of you not in the know) so she could eat dinner and I could eat ice cream. Then we stopped by her apartment for a few minutes. She moved from Portland to Lewiston a few months ago and I hadn’t seen her new apartment yet. It’s a cute little apartment, but my lord, her living room is TINY and hot despite the fact that she has an air conditioner.
How these crazy people survive the summer without central air, I don’t know.
I got home a little later than I’d expected, talked to Fred for a few minutes, and then went to bed where I slept like a rock. I always sleep like a rock in my parents’ basement. They’ve hardwooded the floors in the bedroom where I always sleep, and they’ve completely redone their bathroom so that it’s starting to look like a house different than the one I grew up in.
(Their shower has always driven me crazy, because the bathtub was so narrow that when I stood in the shower, it always felt like the shower curtain was attacking me. I’d have to peel it away from my ass to rinse, and I HATED IT. I could never have attempted to take a bath in that bathtub, ’cause I can guarantee my ass would have gotten stuck in it, and wouldn’t THAT have been fun to deal with. Now, it’s wide enough that I remain unmolested by the shower curtain, and I’m sure that if I wanted to, I could wedge my ass in the tub and back out again without requiring the assistance of the fire department.)
Saturday morning I woke up at 8, went upstairs to take a shower, and found my mother already up.
“I didn’t wake you up, did I?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. But then, I didn’t know what had woken me; just that I was awake.
“Well, I kind of stepped heavy in my bedroom, because I wanted you to get up, but didn’t want to come down and wake you up,” she said.
So I took my shower, got dressed, and we left to go pick up Debbie, and went to Cape Elizabeth. I’ve never been there – the reaction from everyone I’ve said that to, has been a shocked “Never? Really?”, like they think I’m a great big liar (like there aren’t better things to lie about) – to see the Portland Head Light and Fort whatsitcalled. We were walking around part of the fort, and the sun was so bright and hot that I started sweating, and then my face starting itching and I got hives on the lower part of my face, and I got so red that I think Debbie thought I was having a heart attack.
While we were walking around, we saw a woman with two very interesting looking dogs. Debbie asked what kind of dogs they were, and she told us they were wire-haired dachshunds. At some point, people cross-bred dachshunds with terriers so that they’d have the wiry terrier hair – and they ended up with the great big terrier heads as well. They had these tiny little bodies and great big heads, and I was surprised they could walk at all without tipping over.
And it must have been a day o’ dogs for us, because we also saw a big German Shepard over by the lighthouse with her owner. Her name was Bella, and she was a retired bomb sniffer who got back from Iraq last year, after she’d spent a year or two over there. Bella wasn’t friendly at ALL, and in fact if anyone got too close to her, she barked deep, scary barks at them. I’m not sure hanging out by a lighthouse where a lot of people pass by during the day is where she needed to be.
When we were done at the lighthouse, we got into the car and drove over to where there’s another part of the fort, and a small cove – that really made me want to go swimming – and an old mansion.
See all the pictures from Cape Elizabeth, here.
We left Cape Elizabeth and went to South Portland, where we had lunch at Olive Garden – the soup, salad, bread sticks, and mozzarella fonduda – and I don’t know about anyone else, but I drank two or three glasses of soda, because I was dying of thirst.
We left Olive Garden and went over to Fabulous Footwear, where I spent about an hour wandering around looking at shoes. I needed to get a pair of sandals to replace the ones I’ve been wearing for the last several years – ones I got from Land’s End and fell in love with, then they promptly stopped carrying – because they’ve gotten old and are kind of starting to fall apart. I have very picky feet and I need sandals with straps that won’t rub the top of my feet and make painful blisters. And I can’t wear sandals with straps on the back because they annoy me. And I can’t stand sandals with things between the toes, because that annoys me as well. So my mother and the spud were showing me sandals, and I was saying “No, those straps are too stiff” and “No, those have straps on the back” and so forth. And my mother started saying “I don’t knoooooooow how it iiiiiiis that I raised such piiiiiicky children”, and I said “I should buy shoes I won’t wear? Because I have PLENTY of those.”, and she conceded that perhaps I was right, but she wasn’t happy to admit it.
I ended up buying two pairs of sandals, and getting myself talked into signing up for the fucking Fabulous Footwear Rewards Card, even though I tried to get out of it by saying “I’m not from Maine, I’m from Alabama”, but the guy said “Oh, we have stores in Alabama!” and so I went ahead and signed up for the stupid-ass program, and you know where the Fabulous Footwear in Alabama is located? Fucking Boaz. Where I’ve been exactly twice in the almost 9 years I’ve lived in Alabama, and I for sure am NOT so full of love for the store that I’ll drive that fucking far to get shoes.
We went from Fabulous Footwear to AC Moore (which was right next door) and I talked to Fred for a few minutes while I looked at cross-stitching stuff and bought a few more cross-stitch kits that I probably won’t get to anytime in the next ten years.
After swimming and dinner at my parents� house, Debbie and the spud and I went to Auburn to go to K-Mart. I wandered around for twenty minutes or so, bought a big cup (my parents only have small glasses at their house), a pack of tampons, the latest PEOPLE magazine, and went out to the car to wait for Debbie and the spud.
I was very interested to find, while I was reading PEOPLE, that Stephen King’s son Owen has a novel out. Also that he apparently has father issues. I can’t wait to check it out.
(Other side note: When I said to Debbie “There’s a new book out, by Owen King. Guess who he might be the son of?”, she said “Angus?” Hee!)
When we got home from K-Mart, Debbie and the kids went swimming in the dark, and I talked to Fred for a while, read for a short while, and went to bed.
This morning I slept until 8:00 and we hung around the house until 11:30. Debbie came over around 11:30, and we headed for Freeport. There are a few stores in Freeport I like to hit every time I come – Cool as a Moose, Mangy Moose, and Crabtree & Evelyn – and we hoped that Freeport wouldn’t be too crowded. Ha!
We finally hit Freeport, which was packed as could be. We talked about going to LL Bean, but decided to wait for another day, hit a few stores, decided we were hungry and thirsty, and went to The Muddy Rudder, where I had a damn fine lobster cobb salad, and piece of blueberry pie.
After an afternoon of hanging out in the pool, I went out with Liz for thai food tonight. I’ve never had thai food before and Liz has been talking about it for ages, so I finally got a chance to check it out. We had chicken pad thai, pork fried rice, and crispy rolls (?), and it was really pretty damn good. I like Chinese food a lot, so I figured I’d like thai as well. And I was right!
After we ate, we took a drive down Lisbon Street, our old stomping grounds, and I was amazed at how different it looks. They seem to have cleaned it up a lot and it looks pretty good.
Liz told me that there’s a growing population of Somalians, which kind of amuses me. Because you travel across the world and end up in Lewiston, Maine? How does that happen? She also told me that for a while there was a massage parlor in Lisbon Falls, that was a FULL-SERVICE massage parlor, if you will, and the girls working there were illegal Asians. And I said “They traveled from their homes in whichever part of Asia they were from, to end up in Lisbon Falls, Maine?” I don’t know – how many people dream of living in Lisbon Falls, Maine, you’ve gotta wonder. Not that there’s anything wrong with Lisbon Falls, Maine, but you wouldn’t think it’s the sort of place where people dream of one day ending up.
But then, it’s kind of quintessential small-town America, so I guess I can see where the attraction might lie.
Our plans for tomorrow are to do some shopping. We had originally planned to spend the morning at the beach, but it’s supposed to rain, so I guess we’ll put off the beach until later this week.
Now it’s time to talk to Fred and get ready for bed. Night!
PS: I checked the shelter web page last night and found that everyone but Snoopy and Edgar have been adopted. I said to Fred, “You go get Edgar and bring him home! No one will adopt him, because he’s not cute! He should come live with us!”, but he wouldn’t do it. Bastard. He also said that if Oy got adopted, Edgar will too, but Edgar doesn’t have the crazy kitten eyes that Oy has, and just because he’s black and white like Oy doesn’t mean he looks just like him. I don’t get how Fred thinks that Oy and Edgar look exactly alike. Clearly the man is blind.]]>
7/26/05