the back end of a year

One should never get too smug about people being seasick. Just as Aunt Bette started to get better on the way to Santo Tomas de Castillo in Guatemala, I got covered with what looked like bites, but now appear as Poison Ivy or Oak. It is aggravated by being in the sun and wind, which I have been for the last two days - perhaps my favorite days of the trip.

At anchor in Roatan, we went ashore in our first Garifuna commmunities of the visit. Garifuna is the name given to the cultures of the Afro-Caribbean peoples, many of them escaped or mutinied slaves, many of them also pirates. They are a wild and colorful people, and a significant minority along the Caribbean coast of Mesoamerica.

But I, along with several friends, went to 'Fantasy Island,' to swim and snorkel. I had not been swimming until this day, so I looked forward to seeing the fish on this gorgeous Caribbean reef, and to just plain swimming around. It was glorious.

The next day we arrived in Santo Tomas de Castillo in Guatemala, which was also a total pleasure. I went to visit the Mayan ruins of Quirigua, and then on to Rio Dulce, a town at the mouth of Lake Isabel. There, we boarded river boats which reminded me of fibreglass versions of the river boats of the Mekong Delta, except the ones in Guatemala were much faster. On the boats we zoomed down the Rio Dulce, to a restaurant on the waterside. Under thatched roofs and on decks over the water, we ate whole fish and rice and beans, drank beer, and thought about swimming like the little kids that paddled around in their small dugout canoes. But the water was pretty muddy and I don't really like muddy water when I don't know what's in it, so no swimming yesterday.

After lunch, we got back in the boats, and went zooming off again, down through a dramatic river gorge, on past the village of Livingston and out into the sea and back to our ship. It was a glorious day, beginning with ruins and ending with a long boat ride.

Now it is December 31, and I am taking it easy today because my skin is telling me to go home, stop being so much in the sun and wind, that there is a reason I live in the cooler climes. So I'm not going ashore in Belize City to find an old friend Julie Babcock...who lives on Caye Caulker not far from here. I am letting myself recover from the days of sun and wind, getting laundry done, and letting the drugs the doc has given me do their work. I HATE feeling so fragile, but I guess I'd better get used to it.

Celebrating the New Year will go on for a while aboard ship, and I have no idea whether I'll make it to midnight, but I do not regret much of this past year, so I'll be celebrating both the finish of this year and looking forward to the New. In the meantime, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A Wild Ride!

It's been a wild ride from Panama to Costa Rica and now to Roatan, Honduras. Aunt Bette and John have both been seasick; Aunt Bette was the more serious. But we are now anchored off Roatan, in a calm spot and people are beginning to recover.
For those of us who don't generally get seasick, it's been kind of nice in that the ship is all of a sudden quiet and nice. To ride up in the 7th deck lounge, watching the horizon line appear and disappear, and playing games and reading, is pretty great if you're me, and I have enjoyed this as much as anything else really.
It has reminded me of another time, on another ship, the Queen Mary. Coming home from living in Paris, on the second day out from Southampton, as the Captain said: "Coming out from the shadow of Ireland...", and while everyone else on board got seasick, I bought myself a massage in the spa on board.
The massage itself was one of the better ones, rocking and rolling on the table with hot stones pressed into me. But it was followed by a time in the hot tub, which was really more like a small pool with a waterfall at one end, and a fountain in the middle, which I had all to myself. Swimming about in the hot tub with the water rolling and the jets gurgling, and the fountain spraying was about as luxurious as it gets, and I lasted about 45 minutes.
That will not happen on board here though. This is an adventure trip, sponsored by the Institute for Shipboard Education at the University of Virginia, and has been in general well-run, and fascinating, even after the "Arch" and his family left.Usually at each port we have a choice of going on an adventure expotition, a service trip or a cultural trip. Most of us mix and match, rotate, but there are some who just do one or the other. At the last two stops, in Porto Limon, Costa Rica, and in Cristobal, Panama, the service trips have been cancelled due to the POURING rain, so I've not been able to use my iguana puppet yet, but I will, somewhere...

PS I've had trouble loading images. Google says I have to buy more space in a Picasa album site, buit since I have no idea how to do that, here on board, the photos will have to wait until I get home and can figure this out. Sorry, as the Canal pics are quite interesting.

A Different Sort of Christmas

I woke up at 4 am this Christmas, but not from excitement over the getting of something. I was really excited about going through the Panama Canal. I tried working on some email, as it was really dark still, but the boys from Morehouse, who had been up all night and were tweeting while having drunk a fair amount over the night, kept me distracted, so nothing of import was written.
When it got light I went up on the 7th deck, to watch the approach to the Canal. The geography is very confusing. We were approaching from the Pacific side, but the sun was rising behind me as we came into the channel. As it goes from the Pacific side to the Atlantic, we go east to west with a little jig to the south as we go north. It felt very confusing, but the sun kept rising.
Panama City was another surprise. After the small port villages that we had been going into, in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, suddenly a city full of significant high rises appeared on the horizon. Panama collects funds from all over the Americas these days and has become a center of finance, hence the excuse for the high rise buildings. Plus they do not have many earthquakes, or any volcanoes like its canal competitor, Nicaragua. An obligatory Frank Gehry building guarded the entrance to the Canal’s channel.
The channel took us about 2 miles past Panama City to the first set of locks, the Miraflores. As locks in the world go, they are big, but so are the boats that go through now, and Panamanians have decided that they would like to build another set of locks that are larger, to accommodate even bigger container and cruise ships than is possible now. Beside the Miraflores locks, you can now see the beginnings of another dig, with new locks planned to be open by 2014. Nicaragua is planning, in conjunction with the Japanese, a’dry’ canal across the old route through Nicaragua. It will be interesting to see which happens first.
So we entered the first set of locks with all hands on deck, and learned that there are webcams beside each set of locks (there are 3 lock sets – two on the Pacific side, the Miraflores and the PedroManuel, and one set on the Atlantic side of the Gatun Lake, the Gatun). To see a video of our boat going through the locks, go to //Fs2.semesteratsea.net/public/panama_canal. It is one of those situations where a picture is worth a thousand words. The brilliant simplicity of the idea of locks is transformative, but hard to explain.
But I will try as it is a real challenge to understand why the French failed to build a canal at sea level, and why the Americans were able to as soon as they decided to build the locks. For several days now, I have been asking the question, “Why is the sea level higher on the Pacific side than on the Atlantic side?” That is the reason for the locks, but it has not been the simplest thing to understand – at least until someone finally said that it had to do with the tides. The tide on the Pacific side has to come way up into a shallow bay, and so is higher than that on the Atlantic side. That, in combination with the huge amount of water that flows down the Chagres River into Colon on the Atlantic side, makes for a more difficult situation than what occurred when the French built a sea-level canal at Suez, hence locks became necessary.
Nearly twenty years ago, I went with my son, David, his father, and some family friends on two small motor boats 20’ long, down Lake Champlain in Vermont, down the Champlain Canal and through small, 175 year old locks to the Hudson River, down the Hudson River to Troy, N.Y., up the ‘Mohawk Stairs’, - 5 locks rising 100’ up the Mohawk River, - out the River which becomes the Erie Canal, through dozens of nearly 200 year old locks on the Canal built for canal-sized boats. We hung a right on the Erie Canal onto the Oswego Canal, went through more locks and came out onto Lake Ontario at Oswego, crossed the Lake and entered the St. Lawrence River. Down the St. Lawrence we went, through the Thousand Islands and the Akwesasne Reservation, to the St. Lawrence Seaway and the locks there and on to Montreal. After Montreal, we continued down the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Richelieu River at Sorel, went up the Richelieu and through the tiny wooden locks at Chambly, and on up the River to Lake Champlain and home again. Wherever they are, locks operate in the same way – water comes in, gates open, the boat comes in, water goes either up or down with gravity and the boat floats up or down with it, the gates open and the boat floats out – whether the locks are small ones like the ones at Chambly, large ones like those on the St. Lawrence, and medium-sized, ancient ones like those on the Erie Canal.
Locks on the Panama Canal work the same as all the others; it’s just that they are bigger. Water flows into and out of them in the same way; ships float up and down in the same way whether they are 20’ motor boats or 1000’ long container ships. It is size that makes for the drama here. And it is size that is now the problem. As you can see in the photos, I hope, the scale of the container ships sooooo enormous now that they are beginning to dwarf the Canal; one false move by a tug or a hand on a throttle, could doom the whole project –even after 100 years. But the plans for the expanded locks are here. Is there a limit? Can we just keep building bigger and bigger things on our smaller and smaller planet? It is a dilemma. I’ll be watching to see what happens here in Panama. In the meantime, it was a very different sort of Christmas!

Upon editing, and with help from the techno wizard Rita on board, I know have some canal photos to share:

reading landscape

Three days, and three ports later it is Christmas and we are coming into the Panama Canal. These boats were at the port in Nicaragua, the middle stop on the Pacific Coast of 'Mesoamerica,' as I have learned to call the small countries of Central America. But I am up early to see everything to do with the Canal, and am surrounded by the kids from Morehouse who have had a wild and wonderful Christmas Eve apparently. So, I may be a bit distracted.

Guatemala was beautiful, fiercely proud, with extraordinary, colorful crafts...I went up into the highlands to a crafty village and and then on to Antigua, a lovely, old town with lots of language schools. I loved it. The reds of the cochineal bug are fresher and more vibrant here, I think.
Then we sailed overnight to Nicaragua, got on buses and went to Old Leon, protected by Unesco's ICOMOS program, then on to the new city(since 1610) of Leon. I got tired of seeing bullet-pocked cathedrals, but they have had it a bit difficult what with our own interventions. The poverty was dramatic, and everyone was dressed in American clothes.
Then it was onto Costa Rica, which was pretty Americanized, but the landscape is gorgeous - very steep, like Highway One from Big Sur to Carmel Highlands but with 5 times the number of bridges, and another thousand feet on either side of the road.

Reading the landscapes of the three countries suggests that Guatemala is rich in culture but not too much money, Nicaragua in pride and poverty, Costa Rica is rich in pride and immigrants with money.

I meant to be serious here, but I am in the middle of a pretty wild computer lab, so I'd better sign off.

Feliz Navidad!

Porto Quetzal, Guatemala

We have landed - finally - in a little, pretty industrial, fishing port on the west coast of Guatemala. There's not much here, but we will get in a bus tomorrow and go up to Antigua, a lovely city, at the height of Denver. Today we rested and shopped at the little market by the docks, in anticipation of the long drive up and back tomorrow...
We're right on the edge of the sea, and came gently into the dock courtesy of two tugs, just like the Moran tug being built or fitted out right now in East Boothbay. We pulled in just at breakfast time, and could watch and wave at the dockworkers. Cliff went off to a beach, while we shopped.
Semester at Sea does a great job of briefing everyone before we enter a port. Jill, the Academic Dean on Board, gave us a synopsis of Guatemalan history that was as clear and unbiased as one could wish. The US' role in its history is troubling as usual. Where did we get the idea that we should be the guardian of our concept of democracy? The Monroe Doctrine notwithstanding. That was 125 years ago, and our role here was expanded in the 1980's at the request of United Fruit, which did not want to give up its unused land at the price that it had been quoted and wwas paying taxes on. We upset a country that had been under some peaceful politics for a long time, and even now, you are asked not to go out alone, nor ride in an unauthorized taxi. The "banditos" are still very much active,- in rural areas.
But it's pretty peaceful here in port, although I have been frustrated in finding an ATM. We are told not to use any ATM unless it is in a bank, which does not exist here in the little port. So I have gone into debt to Nancy already, and we've only been in two ports.
We did have some fun in the Jade Museum though. We found a young woman with good English, who helped us find our Mayan 'signs.' Bette, and Nancy are the same - Owls, but I am a 'jaguar.' I like being a jaguar, a protector, etc., and have a little charm with the symbol on it....better than being a Bull (taurus). More later... when maybe the blog will import a photo or two!

well, I'm on!

Just when you least expect it, you can get on the Web here on board. And now, I've tried to put on a photo of Tutu, but the only way I can read it, it is in script. So I hope it comes through for you all.
Desmond Tutu gave us a sermon? a talk? on the first morning at sea - a rabble rouser with a very gentle message. It was wonderful, and he is a wonderful, modest man of presence. I have a good photo of him doing his thing, and will post it when I can. In the meantime, I bought his book, A Child's Book of Bible Stories for the grandgirls, and had it signed by not only the "Arch", as he is known by the kids on board, but his daughter, and even his 4 year old grandaughter, who was sitting at the end of the line, signing with crayons! It was fun.
The trip is full of many generations, which seems to energize everyone including the "Arch." Each day brings different interactions, with different people. There is a large group of kids from Morehouse College in Atlanta, beacuase of the Arch, a large group of high schoolers from NH, SoCal, and somewhere else, a group of Elderhostelers called the RoadScholars, and random people like us, all of who seem to have some relationship to Semester at Sea. I don't know how I missed it when I was in college, but oh, I forgot, I worked at Mystic Seaport.
On Dec. 24th, Aunt Bette and I are going on a Bridge tour as we as we approach the Panama Canal. I am quite excited about that as I seem to know a great deal about the Canal, thanks to David McCullough. Other than that, when at sea, I get up in the morning and go to yoga at 7. Yoga is usually on the floor or at most sitting, as the boat does rock and roll a fair amount. Once we tried a kneeling warrior, and the boat rolled and we all went over. Sometimes I go to lectures, other times I read my McCullogh book about the Panama Canal, and other times I stare at the sea and watch the sea turtles, the flying fish, and the sun go down.
We have bypassed Acapulco, "for security reasons," so now, after a brief day in Cabo san Lucas, we are into our second continuous day at sea on our way to two days in Guatemala. I have a day on the beach there, and a day touring Antigua and Guatemalan textiles. I am excited about both.
The last time I was in Cabo, was with David Smith and his friend John Carta. Fifteen years ago, there was not a whole lot of development along the shoreline from Cabo to San Jose del Cabo; now, it is solid development, most of which was empty while we were there. The weather however, was perfect, and taking Aunt Bette on a glass-bolltom boat ride out around the Cabos, or capes, looking at the fish was great fun. Then having her try Mexican food - real cheese quesadillas, was great, too. They went down well, and stayed down!
In the evenings, at sea, we tend to sit in the piano bar and play Scrabble, which I lost at per usual, and last night, I was reintroduced to Cribbage, which I won, unless there is Team Trivia being played. That really is fun, and we are not bad at it, though we haven't won yet.
I hope the photo comes through; if it does, I will post some more photos, now that I have done it. But I'm going off to be briefed about Guatemala right now. Who knows when I'll get on next? ciao

Limited connectivity!

Writing this blog, which I have been looking forward to, has become a real challenge. With only 50 lines available, a.d 800 leople on board, it is real trick to access the Web. I will try again later tonight, as we are leaving Cabo san Lucas right now...

learning life aboard

Dinner tonight was in a smallish room on the port side of this medium sized cruise ship,next to Desmond Tutu and his family. Aunt Bette said hello, and welcome. He waved back. It is enough already, but tomorrow he will speak if we can get seats in the too small Union room. But he will be around for a week, so there will be more times for real interactions...
In the meantime, we've been doing the life boat drill, and figuring out where everything is, and how to live in a very small space - us two old women who are used to living alone. The motion of the ship should be enough to put us both to sleep, but we do have ear plugs if either of our snoring becomes too unbearable.
Loading a ship like this, takes time and we have basically spent the whole day, waiting to board a bus, and then boarding the ship so it has not been very exciting - except for dinner - which was unforgettable.
(I'm still learning the best way, and what is the best machine on which to do the blog. - Yesterday's effort was on my new Samnsung Galaxy, but it is sooo sensitive, and I am so new to it, that I'm really liking the old time computer keyboard in the computer lab tonight!I'll try and figure out how to input photos tomorrow, while we're at sea, heading down the Baja coast.)

San diego fog!

Surprisingly, it is foggy here in San Diego, but not half as cold as it was in Boston this morning...though this is not news. The flight was easy and pleasant and I remembered how much I always enjoy flying across this country. Today there was a lot of snow in the sky, so not much was to be seen until we were over the Grand Canyon. And then we were over Bullhead City, and I started to think of the people I know down there.
They are old friends from early CSUMB days - Tom and Alida Fitzpatrick, Hank Hendrickson. Every other year, Tom comes home to Maine, but he worked in California most of his life. Last summer, Tom and Alida came to visit for a few days and I took them sailing during the Shipyard Cup races. (see Shipyard race blog) At Cal State Monterey Bay, he was the first Chief of Police, and when I walked into a room the first day I was there, he said,"Hi, Sally Giddings of Orono, Maine, I'm Tom Fitzpatrick of Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln, Maine." We actually overlapped in high school, though he was a big basketball dude, and I played the flute in the band at basketball games.
We became close neighbors- Maine expats on Fort Ord, now Cal State Monterey Bay, and lived in a small, tight-knit world for a few years. But I learned that day in 1995, just how small the big world is, and now, just how small it stays when you can fly across country, look down and remember all this.
(this is the new edited version!)

off I go!

At Thanksgiving, I took the girls some new winter hats I found at the Craft Fair at the Railway Village on Columbus Day weekend. Now I know that their little heads will be warm while I am off on a Semester at Sea 'Enrichment' cruise with Desmond Tutu to Central America! I was invited to go by the Adelmans, Nancy and Cliff, whose son Jon is a filmaker hired to make a film of this voyage. Nancy's Mom, Bette Taverner, who turned 90 last spring, needed a roomate. So off I'll go, and am pleased to do it!
I purchased a new toy, a Samsung Galaxy, (like an IPad, but better), so that hopefully I can continue this blog in a warmer clime. And get email, Skype and buy and read Kindle books - all on the same machine. It should be a treasure once I figure out how to use it.
I also purchased a quite adorable iguana puppet, who should be able to help me communicate with kids - even without any good Spanish. Perhaps I will find an interpreter for 'Toad', the horned iguana.

So off I go tomorrow, in the middle of a storm, to sunny San Diego, then Ensenada, then onto the M/V Explorer, headed for Cabo first, then Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the Panama Canal on Christmas Day, with one of the most inspirational leaders of our era. It will be a special trip!

The girls, I think, will survive without me for this one Christmas. East Boothbay surely will, though we all wait with baited breath to find out what has happened to Mr. Murphy, the owner of Lobsterman's Wharf. He was in a terrible accident recently, and is still in Maine Medical Center in Intensive Care. Let us hope that everyone recovers who was in that crash!

catching the sun's last rays...

Elizabeth Edwards died yesterday. I can't help but be grateful that at least I did not develop cancer as my husband drew away from me, and left. She lived what life she had left with more grace than anyone should have, and she set an example of openess that all of us who've been abandoned should share.

But back to East Boothbay where they are blasting away again. This time, though, it is for the new Bigelow Ocean Lab being built over on Farnham Cove. The big dump trucks rumble through between 6 and 6:30, and then the blasting starts around nine. My old house shakes with each blast, but so far nothing has broken or cracked except the hand-painted Greek platter which broke last year during the water main blasting.

That project did the Town Manager in. John Anderson, beloved supplier of the Camel during last year's blasting siege, took a job in New Hampshire, which of course, pays more. His last gesture for the Town was to put two speed bumps in the road by the Post Office and by the General Store. Well, you would've thought the world was coming to an end at the resulting hubbub. The big dump trucks had to slow down to about 20, and the shipyard workers had to start to work earlier to get to the yards by 7. Time was awasting! We even had some graffiti painted on the bump by the Post Office! So no sooner than John was gone, but the Selectmen in their wisdom, had the speed bumps dug up. And now we're back to wide open spaces by the Post Office and trucks careening around the corner by the General Store.

The only good news in this scenario - which is really not good news, - is that the General Store has closed for the season, i.e. until next May. It is very sad though all of us know that we alone cannot support the Store, and since the shipyards have put in vending machines, the guys spent less money in the Store anyway. But we miss Liz and Dom and little Sabine and Crystal and everyone else, and mostly pizza on Friday nights, and for breakfast. So for now, the trucks can whiz by without a pause - at least until next May 1. By then, who knows? Some of us old ladies might put a petition together to replace those speed bumps and even add another for the Camel Crossing!

I'll get an update on the steeple tomorrow night - the steeple which was trying hard to hold onto the sun's last rays tonight. It couldn't do so well as last year because it is still shorter. I'll let you know what's happening.

on Thanksgiving

After divorce, the holidays become a long series of elaborate negotiations about who will do what to whom and when. It is never a pretty process, and one that I have come to dread, even fear - that the fragile bonds of a fractured family will finally break.

So it was with great pleasure that I spent Thanksgiving this year with my oldest son, his wife and 3 daughters, up on the western side of Mt. Mansfield with ex-in-laws at their cabin in the woods. And we all had a marvelous time. Everyone contributed something, and we hiked up to the family's grave site, and said a prayer over my ex-parents-in-law.

The prayer started with a quotation from Eric Hoffer which had been sent to me on some site or other: "The hardest arithmetic we are asked to master is that which allows us to count our blessings." So we all counted, each in our own way.

One of us had lost an election that month; one was about to lose his mother-in-law; one had lost her father last summer; another of us had lost another election; I had lost a husband and friend to divorce. But each of us could feel up there on that mountain, that we had each other - regardless of blood line, marriage, divorce or whatever. They had been my family for nearly 40 years, and that was not to be lost.

So I counted my blessings, and they were all in front of me - the 5 in my immediate family, plus all 6 of my ex-in-laws. It is not an exclusive group, but it made for a very special time. I feel very grateful for that day and those people.

MassMOCA and the architecture of installations

I have loved museums since I was a child. I'd say it was mostly due to my mother who liked them, too, and would take me to them whenever we were in the vicinity of one. I like all kinds, but now, I particularly like visiting new ones, or new additions to old ones.

Last weekend, I went with a friend out to North Adams, Massachusetts, where the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art is renovating a set of old, brick manufacturing buildings as a setting for art installations. MassMOCA has been up and running for a few years, but money is not plentiful in North Adams, so only a part of the plan has been developed. But what has been developed is pretty interesting.
The buildings themselves are brick shells supported by massive wood posts and beams. The building housing the major art installations has been opened up with some nice engineering so that the spaces are quite large for a non-metropolitan structure. And the exhibits fill the spaces well.

A current special exhibit by Petra Coyne has a whole tree and stuffed birds flying around in one room, but lacks much visual challenge, though a pleasure to look at - more like elaborate stagecraft for an elegant party. The real pleasure comes from the more permanent installations on the second level of the building.

The first installation comes into view as you climb the stair. Fishline - of considerable weight I'd guess - is strung from one end of the very long room to the other, in the expanding shape of an upside-down horseshoe. A spotlight shining through the fishline to the opposite wall, creates an unexpected and visually confusing series of shadows. There is a quite real light created by the reflected light of the fishline, and then there are moving shadows on the wall. The effect is to confuse our sense of reality and space. You reach out to touch the fishline but it is a shadow; when you get inside the horsehoe shape made by the line, the reflected light changes shape as you move. It is a challenge to constructed reality as we normally perceive it. Such an installation is only be possible in this size room, and is effective precisely because of its size and the ability of the viewer to get into the shape and wander through it.

Another of the large installations begins as you wander into the next room. A red wall made of hemp rope tied in a kind of fishnet knot, hangs to one side and is bordered by two white walls. It is nice to look at, with good color and texture, but makes you question its intent. However, as you step past the far white wall, you realize that the red rope continues - smashingly - into the next room and falls out in spiralling piles onto the floor, filling the room with its curly legs. It has become a huge, red, fishnetted squid, bursting through the wall into the other room, with long tentacles spreading out in the far room. It has become a metaphor for the fearful power of sea creatures, but with some humor and challenge.

Beside the giant red squid, is a series of crunched, white, paper constructions, which in the context of the squid looks and feels like a kelp forest. There is little else to define its intent until you climb the set of stairs to the third floor. There the white paper crunches are transformed into tree trunks, twisting one way and another. MassMOCA has created an aquarium with a state park on the floor above. Only in such large, industrial spaces could such an effect be possible, and actually succeed. It was a wonderful installation.

In contrast to this uniquely effective use of space, in a smallish rectangular gallery on the first floor, was an exhibit of "Dr. Spock's" photography. In reality, Dr. Spock is Leonard Nimoy, who though living now in LA, comes from the North Adams area and is a gifted photographer.
His installation of photos of individuals' Other Selves, is a powerful and often humorous exhibit. It left the two of us smiling and thinking hard about just who our alternate selves might be.

The two uses of space - the gallery with Spock's photos, and the installations' space, - are opposing ideas of museum architecture. In the gallery space, the rectangle is used as an envelope for a flat, two dimensioned exhibit. People provide the third dimension. In the installation spaces, the architecture provides a volume inside which a 3-D art form is created. People become a part of the art, and move through and around it. Both kinds of spaces are useful, and it is a tribute to MassMOCA that it has allowed for the development of both kinds of art within its architecture.
It will be interesting to see just how Norman Foster's new wing of Boston's Museum of Fine Art allows for both 2-D and 3-D exhibitions!

Freedom?

There's a lot of talk these days about government restricting our freedoms. Against a backdrop of people without jobs, it's hard to see that government is the problem. But here's a solution.

The military is still looking for a few good people, and it has no unemployment problem. AND THE PENTAGON HAS NEVER BEEN AUDITED - EVER, so it can spend whatever it wants and know that Congress will approve.

So perhaps we should simply expand the military to include all of us. We could then:

1. all have good health care and a pension after 20 years of service;

2. rebuild our aging infrastructure with new roads, bridges, even trains and power lines;

3. keep our young people in line; and

4. continue to arm the world with our own weaponry, thus justifying the continued militarization of the country.

I am only joking a little bit. One of the most discouraging things about this year's election process, was the total lack of discussion about real issues facing all parts of the country. Of course, unemployment and foreclosure are a problem, but they are the direct results of overbuilding and the globalization of manufacturing. Rebalancing globalization with enlightened self-interest makes way more sense than dumping tea into the harbor.

And of course, that makes taxes all the more problematic. If you don't have a job, and can't afford your mortgage, it's tough to figure out how to pay your taxes, too. So the Tea Party had a field day. But so far, they've haven't even begun to deal with real issues. Continued demagogery will simply keep us on the path I've described above - the militarization of the country. But I will know that the Tea Party is serious when they start throwing beer in the harbor, instead of using the antique analogy of Tea, which no one in the Party has probably ever drunk.

In the meantime, when I want to feel free, I go sailing.

leaf peeping?

Back in Marina, California, I participated in developing a landscape plan for a new California State University - Monterey Bay. In initial discussions, we talked of remedies for the very flat landscape of dunes on the former Fort Ord, which was our campus. Since there were a number of giant eucalyptus in a couple of places on campus, I suggested we plant some more. The look of horror on everone else's face told me that I had just stepped in a major mudhole.

California has major issues with plants imported from Australia to stop erosion - ice plant, and to bring some shade - eucalyptus. When I asked what was wrong with eucalyptus - because I still think they smell really good -, I was told that they were "messy" trees.

When I asked what made them "messy," I was told that they dropped they leaves.

I was rendered speechless, while everyone else stared at me. I sputtered, and finally managed to croak that most trees in the East drop their leaves each year, and we love them. What's wrong with that? Nope, there was little comprehension of the magnitude of the gulf that separated us. Later, I came to realize that eucalyptus don't just shed leaves, they also shed bark which is quite beautiful, and drop round, golf ball sized seed pods, which really are a pain as you walk along.

I lost the battle to plant eucalyptus on the new campus. Perhaps time will allow more flexibility in the plan, but for now, the campus has gone - mostly - "native." In the meantime, back East, I find myself in another difference of opinion over trees. The whole world, I think, believes that the only thing that happens in the fall in New England is that the leaves of maples trees and oaks, birches and poplars, turn colors. Well, my favorite thing that happens in the fall in New England occurs when the pine needles drop. It is actually the needles of the white pine that fall in October and carpet the forest floor with orange; leaves fall off and turn brown. But when the needles drop, the world turns orange - a time when walking in the woods is most rewarding.

But it is also hunting season, so often we do not dare to venture out, and that's a shame. Between the politics of the season, and hunting, we are kept inside, holding our ears, unable to see the spectacular orange carpet under the pine trees.

the barn est fini!

Most of this summer, I have spent designing the new barn, watching the old barn come down piece by piece, and the new barn go up. And here it is. I am very pleased; - it is a long term dream realized.

The left hand side is obviously a garage, but big enough for a work bench at the rear, and to hold my canoe, too.

The right hand side is a studio - a place for me to make a mess and not have to clean up, a place that is heated with a very green, propane fired, efficient boiler feeding the plastic tubing underneath the concrete slab floor. It is quite toasty.

Upstairs is completely undeveloped, and everyone but me seems to have grand dreams for it. So far, no one has contributed any money though, so nothing will be done for now.

Some memorable parts of the barn, however, are inside. I could find no one who would say that they could save the old barn, but my contractor Bill Dighton was good enough to take it down piece by piece, saving what he could of posts, beams, and planking. In the end, not many of the posts and beams were worth much, though there is one that was 20 feet tall which we used in the stair well. Others were used at corners, under sinks, and for general support here and there.

The real treasure that we found was in the haymow, where the floor was just rough sawn boards that had been laid down perpendicular to each other, in two layers. These were all mostly 18-23 feet long, and had no nail holes. They had never been nailed down - virginal if you will. We used these to create the ceiling in the studio, and to line the stair well. They are gorgeous and make me very happy.

Another memorable thing are the stair treads. The old barn was in large part supported by a large white birch. Not thinking everything through very well, I had the tree taken down and sawn into boards - beautiful ones, too. But taking the tree down, and then pulling out the stump had the effect of removing one quarter of the sill of the old barn. The tree had grown into, around and through the sills of the barn, and the barn started to tilt. So it had to come down. But I still had the birch boards, and now they have been made into the stair treads of the new barn. They, too, make me quite happy.

But the most memorable part of the barn, really, is the weathervane - the subject of a prior blog. It was my father's, and now resides on my barn. Who knows where it will go next? Or where I will? Mostly though, for now, I am happy to stay right here, working in my barn, and staying warm!

the hole in the sky

Once upon a time, like 6 months ago, there was a steeple on this bell tower - with a codfish weathervane on top. It occupied a big place in the modest skyline of East Boothbay, and it was noticed by all of us here, on land or sea.
But the steeple was struck by lightning this summer, and began to burn. Luckily, the Fire Department - also of modest size - is very near, and they put the fire out before the whole tower was engulfed. But one of the 4 wood struts was completely burned through, and a resident engineer thought we should take the steeple down to fix it.

The insurance adjuster thought otherwise, - at least until Hurricane Earl approached.

At the approach of Earl, the adjuster all of a sudden gave us permission to take the steeple down. But of course, there wasn't time to do that before the hurricane got here, and we got lucky that Earl did not do us any damage.
Now, the steeple has been removed; the insurance company has agreed to pay $42,000 to rebuild and re-install the steeple, but has decided not to pay for lightning rod protection, estimated at $7700. I can't quite imagine the rationale, but it leaves our little Methodist Church with $7700 plus $1000 of the deductible to raise.

If anyone has any ideas about how our small community can raise nearly $10,000, please be in touch with Alan Lewis, 207-633-2510, in East Boothbay, Maine 04544.

taxes and statistics - help!

Right after 9/11, came 9/15, when individuals not affiliated with any institution or corporation, have to pay their income tax. I had a tea party while I wrote my checks. They were not large, unhappily for the state budgets of the world, but they were significant for me, and I wonder if they will be appreciated by the State of Maine and by the United States.

The current public dialogue about taxes drives me crazy. I believe in progressive taxation, to serve the larger needs of the community, and I do not believe we are close to a fair tax policy, either at the State level nor the federal level today. There are three things that governments can raise taxes on:
1. property - which is traditionally a local tax providing local services like education.
2. income - which is traditionally a federal tax, providing for defense and health care.
3. purchases(or sales) - traditionally a state tax for building roads, universities, etc.
Most governments have a mix and match scenario right now, but it helps to think about where we have deviated from traditional patterns when thinking about these things.

The income tax has been the most progressive, beginning with its 90% tax on high incomes in 1914. Today I believe the highest tax rate is 35%, which on an income of, say $500,000 would be around $175,000. I think that's a tad less than it ought to be and think we should not extend the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, or those with incomes over $250,000.

The sales tax is the least progressive tax by equally taxing those of all different income levels. Often there are exemptions for things like food and medecine. But soda is so much cheaper than milk that the intention of exempting things for health reasons is a bit obscure.

The property tax is somewhere in between the two, with some people choosing to be land rich and income poor, - like farmers, - and others selling land when they need to in order to retire.
California has so skewed the property tax system that it rewards farmers with federal crop and water subsidies, but has refused so far to reform the property tax structure to account for the extraordinary increases in property values. Anyone moving into California now, pays double or more of the taxes that a neighbor who was there before 1978, pays. The farmer pays on the land values of 1978 or before. It is painfully unfair and totally inadequate for paying for the state's very generous pension and health care plans.

If a state like California refuses to provide a fairly progressive tax structure, it borrows and borrows until today happens - when the banks that lend it money, stop lending. We really don't know what happens next. Does the Army take over? acting on behalf of the federal government?
Does the National Guard defend the state? But ooooops. I forgot. Most of our National Guard troops are over in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as they were for Hurricane Katrina and for the BP oil spill.

Congress' refusal to be intelligent and straightforward about the cost of these wars, and the Bush administration's blindness to that cost, strikes me as positively treasonous. And it is what has led directly to the rise in the Tea Party movement. Thinking of the Tea Party as a metaphor for a primal scream for help by the people, I am sympathetic. But they are not very smart about their solutions. Gutting State, local, and federal services - which makes this country habitable and the future livable, does not strike me as smart.

Looking clearly at where we are spending our federal dollars, as well as how we are raising our tax dollars makes more sense. Returning our military toward a more defensive posture, and our dollars to the local services where they are much needed - for infrastructure redevelopment and education, makes more sense, too. Reevaluating and redesigning our tax structures, and returning to a goal of fairness and progressivity, makes the most sense. Let's hope that not only Congress - in whatever shape it occurs, and all our State and local governments, has the intelligence, sense, and yes - courage - to do this, and soon - before the National Guard comes home and has to defend us from the Army!

Here's to water main redevelopment and property tax reform!

nine years later

I had not been paying attention to the date, nor the news, so when the offer came to go out to Damariscove Island to do some shore clean-up, I jumped at the chance. Damariscove is one of those places where people of European and native American descent have been visiting for over 400 years, and you can feel it. It belongs now to the Boothbay Region Land Trust; lobstermen love it that it's mostly public and they can use it as they always have.

Rusty Brewer took the Browns, the Palmers and Al Strauss and me out, and helped us haul over 40 smashed traps off the north shore of the island, off the beach where I went swimming nearly 50 years ago. Later, the traps were piled on the pier to wait for a rubbish barge coming on Tuesday.

And then I realized it was 9/11.

A bonfire had been built to take care of the wood and other burnable trash. Larry Brown and some others had found an old, torn up US flag, and decided we should burn it - the way you should when a flag is old and worn out. So a number of us stood around the bonfire, and shared where we were - nine years ago. Al Johnson and Dick Palmer had gone kayaking out to Damariscove, and hadn't known what happened until they saw their wives waving at them from the shore at Grimes Cove. Others had been glued to the TV, even at their jobs. I was glued, too, while I tried calling and calling my daughter-in-law, a 5th grade teacher at PS 234, the school right next to the Trade Center.

Her husband, Ben, was doing a medical internship in Farmington, NM, and not home in NYC on 9/11. So he'd called right away to me in California when he could not reach his wife, Torrey. We finally got through to her late that day when the computers got going again. Later that year, after many moves with her 5th grade class, she commented that in their writings, the dominant memory these 9 and 10 year olds had, was the sight and sound of the bodies falling from the sky.

Today, these young people are 19 and 20 year olds. I wish that I thought that we as a people could honor their memories in a better way than to fight endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No amount of rational terror - like a vengeful war - can erase the sight and sounds of those bodies falling from the sky.

Of Finns, hurricanes, and fish at the end of summer

The Finns arrived with friends George and Jane last Friday when Hurricane Earl was supposed to arrive, but did not. Pirkku and Simo, Markku and Raili, are from Helsinki, Finland and love to fish. Markku and Simo fished out of Lynn, Massachusetts, on their first day here. When they arrived in Boothbay, they were to have fished right away, but Earl decided to intimidate us all, and we postponed it until Labor Day. Priscilla came out of the water and then went right back in. So, on Labor Day, MArkku and Simo and George went fishing again, this time with Capt. Dan Wolotsky out of Boothbay Harbor. They caught 10 fish, a mix of stripers and blues; Markku had a battle with a seal over one fish and won the battle but lost the fish; and they brought home 4 stripers.
Later, we went for a brief sail, and then headed up to Castle Island Camps in Belgrade for some fresh water fishing.
Castle Island Camps is an old-style fishing camp - with small cabins and great views, and a dining room with a bull moose head and a big stone fireplace. I took Pirkku and Raili on the Great Pond mailboat while the guys went out on their own to fish. Great Pond is the place that the story and movie, "On Golden Pond," is based , and Capt. Norm of the mailboat was a wonderful storyteller. The guys caught some bass, we had a wonderful picnic and then I came home.

I can't remember when I've had such a wonderful time at the end of summer!

an 8th birthday and the Shipyard Cup

Three days ago, the Shipyard Cup was reinstated as a big boat race. The boats had to be 70' or longer, though an exception was made for Available, Tim Hodgdon's spec boat, because he was a major sponsor of the race. The weather was divine, and after a day spent taking Tom and Alida Fitzpatrick, friends from CSUMB days, out on Priscilla, I filled Priscilla up with more friends to watch the races on Saturday and Sunday.

It was magnificent weather, with a 7-15 knot breeze, and 6 big boats racing with the Weyant, a topsail schooner standing by. Us little boats just sailed in circles watching. This one here is Tenacious, owned by Southport people, the Bosarge's. She lost the first one and won the second race, though you can check the final standings on http://www.theshipyardcup.com/.
,
Then,
Sarah Katherine Smith turned 8 yesterday at the American Girl Doll store in Natick, Mass., with her other grandmother, grandpa Joel, her mother and her sisters, and me. It was a grand moment; the dolls got their hair done and their ears pierced; we all shopped, and the girls got to spend some of their own money. I am a very happy grandma!

c'est fini almost

The outside of the barn, it is finished, except for some doors. As the final touch, Bill Dighton, the contractor, put up the ship weathervane from my father's garage/barn. My cousin, Joanne Bass O'Connor, had climbed out on the garage roof in June of 2001 to get it when I moved my family stuff out of my father's house. I will never forget that, and always be grateful. Now it has a new home and it looks very grand!

I was going to let Joanne put the ship on the top of the 'vane, but the scaffolding is very high, and Bill was not sure he wanted to let her get up there. I know she would done it happily, but it is very hot here now and she is busy on Tuesdays, so he did it for her. I know Dick, her husband, will be happy that she doesn't have to do it.

It is very hot - we are waiting to see what Hurricane Earl will do later this week. But at the moment, he is keeping the cooler weather up in Canada, and we are sweltering as we rarely do. The carpenters are slowing down now that the exterior is done, and are quite happy that they don't have to work in the direct sun. I am not eager to see them go, to finish this job, but I know they are eager to get on to the next thing. And I am eager to move in, really. The barn represents for me, a place where I can make a mess and not clean up every night...where I can make big things, big drawings, paintings, constructs, and do some design, too...I hope. The design just came to me, and though George calls it Versailles west, it will not have chickens and pigs in it...and I like it. I haven't designed anything for a long time, but now I hope I can do more because I love it. There is simply nothing like imagining a 3-D space, a form, and then watching it develop and FEELing it when it is complete. It is quite wonderful.

So thanks to Bill Dighton and his crew, for making it all come out right!

a time warp

I should be sailing, but am not, so I started to work on catching up on art stuff, and found myself reading Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, a "blog before there were blogs" that is attached to my name and my website when you Google me. It is rather personal, but interesting, so I've decided to give it some context here on this blog.

These "chapters" of Mr Toad's Wild Ride were written in Paris while I was there and still married to Peter Smith, then Deputy Director General for Education at UNESCO. If they have a somewhat strangled flavor to them, that's because I was in huge denial about his affair with Letitia Chambers, his "consultant." But they reflect some of the events and adventures of my life in Paris, living in the 15th arrondissement at 76, rue du Commerce for a year and a half.

Essential to this story is understanding how important Mme. Emily Keast Donohue of 18 bis, rue Amelie in the 7th arrondissement was. Without Emily, I do not think I would have dared to move to Paris; and without Emily, I would never have found the apartment on rue du Commerce that was such a treasure. UNESCO wanted us to live in the 16th arr. or over nearer UNESCO, but I continue to love the International-style, 60's penthouse apartment that Emily and I found on rue du Commerce. I would move back there if I had any excuse at all, though now there is a gate and a real concierge; our concierge was never sober that I can remember, and never really did have a clue about who we were, or what we were doing there.

But I loved it, except for the personal part. I loved having to walk everywhere or ride the Metro; I loved meeting Emily and Joy, the dog, every morning for a walk in the Champs de Mars; I loved carrying my fold up, Orchard Supply chair into the Louvre every day for a Paris Sketch class; I loved hopping on the train to go north, south, east or west, or to the UK to visit the Rev Dr. Jennifer Smith, or to St. Jean de Luz and San Sebastien, Spain; or hopping in a plane and going up to Oslo, or east to Doha, Qatar, and then even Vietnam.

I travelled alone or with someone, especially Emily, here and there for a year and a half, and I'll never forget it.

And I miss it occasionally - the bay tree and herbs I planted on my street-side balcony beneath my kitchen sink view of Montparnasse; I miss my terrace with a view of la Tour Eiffel and the bonsai pine tree; I miss the free concerts at the American Church in Paris on Sunday afternoons at 5. I miss the wonderfully deep bath tub with shower and glass wall that overlooked nothing but rooftops. And, of course, I miss the food - at Cafe du Commerce, an authentic, old-style French restaurant where you took a jug, and they filled it up with cask wine. And I miss Cafe Constant, over near Emily, on the rue St. Dominique, where Christian Constant fed people reasonably in an upstairs cafe, next to his 3 star and down the street from his 4 star restaurants, one of which Obama dined at when he was lately in Paris.

And I miss the people - Mme. Emily Donohue, Jan Olsson who ran the most wonderful "stages" or drawing and painting workshops in her artists' studio apartment at rue Balard, and all my artist friends from there - Susan Grieg, Jeannette, et al.; I miss the cheese ladies in the fromagere just down the street, and the Vietnamese market ladies; I miss my friend Kara and her two little girls, Kara who works for UNESCO still, and Mme. Odile Blondy, who took me to the Police Station to file "Un Declaration du Main Courant," which you must do when a spouse abandons the household in Paris.

But most of all, I miss the spirit of Paris - finally and most dramatically experienced by me, when I came down the Ave. Motte-Picquet on the day after Peter left. The man behind the newspaper kiosk, just there by the Metro stop at Motte-Piquet, came leaping out from behind his counter to give me a huge hug, saying "Je t'aime; je t'adore." Whereever he is, maintenant, I will be eternally grateful to him for reminding me that I was a person, and a lovable one still. So, vive la Paris, et a bientot.

the barn leaps up

I can't keep up with it - the barn keeps leaping up and out, now even the roof is on, and the windows are going in. So I've had to spend the last few days ordering parts for the weathervane that my cousin Joanne rescued from my father's house when my wicked stepmother sold it years ago. The colors of everything have to be tinkered with, also, and I never finshed a lighting plan so that needed doing. And now a finish grading plan needs concocting.

So I haven't been painting, but I have been having a great deal of fun finishing off the barn. I even have ordered a slate sink from Monson, Maine, having coveted one since my grandmother's in the house in Wilton.

The big anticipation of the moment is the arrival on Labor Day weekend of my friends, Raili and Markku, Simo and Raili's twin sister, from Helsinki, Finland. They will be here in Boothbay for the weekend, and we already have reservations for the men to go fishing with Capt. Dan Wolotsky, and we will also go sailing on my Priscilla. Nash and Marion Flores will also do a cocktail party for them on Southport. And then we will all traipse up to Castle Island Camps in Belgrade for two more days of fresh water fishing, and a ride on the Belgrade Lakes Mail Boat.

The two men are big hunters and fishermen. The fishing I can deal with, but the only hunting allowed in Maine at Labor Day is hunting bear with dogs, and I just could not arrange that. Nor actually have I really tried. It's just not my thing. But I do wish there was a bird season around now, and the turkeys and geese - the two-footed kind - seem to be invading.

The leaves of the red maples are beginning to show signs of changing color. Nothing serious now, but I do have 5 ripe pumpkins and I canned the first tomatoes today. So fall is coming; lobster is getting cheaper; the winds are coming out of the north and west now as much as the south and east. Rides on Priscilla will get to be fewer and farther between now, but it's been a great summer all in all. There will be plenty of time to recoup after Labor Day. I actually can't wait.

where went summer?????

The Bowdoin and the Harvey Gamage

Several days ago, or maybe last week, I started to write a story about "Where went summer," based on a comment my oldest grandaughter had made when we moved away from California. She could not understand why, and she asked me, "Where went California?" One could ask that now and mean something very different about California, but here I am now in Maine, and I'm wondering, where went summer."

I started to write again this afternoon, but alas, the power went out. It was taken out by a runaway pickup that had been parked by the side of a house on a very steep hill, across the road from the Mill Pond. And you guessed it, the parking brake was not on. The truck nailed the power pole as if it were a bulls'eye, and carried right on, under the power pole, across Rte. 96, and down the hill, stopping just about two feet from the Mill Pond itself. It was quite a ride only there wasn't anyone in it.

Perhaps I'm not supposed to write about 'where went summer,' but it has been such a grand and glorious summer that I need to keep trying. Tonight I've just come from a Garrison Keillor type presentation of stories and music by Danny Beal and the Holy Mackerels. It was marvelous and somewhat more original than Tim Sample in that Danny has not been discovered, and allows an occasional emotion to show. But I haven't heard Creedence Clearwater music played so well in 40 odd years, and they led with Tombstone Every Mile - my mantra song at college.

Last weekend, I spent time thinking about 45 years ago, as I sat with Holly on Priscilla (see photo) all dressed in flags for the Boatbuilders' Festival here in town. We sat on her on Saturday night, having cooked,organised, and decorated, and ate pizza from our terrific General Store, drank a good Barbera, and watched the schooner Bowdoin come into the harbor, followed by the schooner Harvey Gamage. The Bowdoin is on its way to Halifax, on a summer cruise with Maine Maritime students; the Gamage does semesters at sea for the Ocean Classroom here the Harbor.

But it was the Bowdoin that sent me into the past. Admiral MacMillan who commissioned her in Boothbay 50 years ago, was an arctic explorer of some renown, and a good friend of my grandfather Bass.' He and his wife, Miriam, used to come up to Wilton before and after various expeditions, and I have childrens' books that Miriam wrote about Eskimo adventures. Even before my time, my uncle Streeter went with Admiral Mac to Baffin Island and Greenland on the Gertrude Thebaud in the summer of 1937.

The Bowdoin was also at Mystic when I worked there, but that was not such a happy time. The Seaport had no money to keep her up, nor use her appropriately. So she has found her way back to Maine, at Maine Maritime in Castine, and she looks very happy - workable and fit. Her people seemed pleased to be there also. It made me happy to see that.

At Boat Builders, I display art and work at helping children build boats out of odd pieces of wood. They are wonderfully creative - if their parents let them be, and I love doing it. It does tire you out though, and I admit to falling asleep in my chair in the afternoon when I should have been selling art.

It was a magical day though, 72 degrees and dry, just like the Fishermans' Island event for the Historical Society, and as the days have been when I've been out sailing with all the good friends and family that have come to visit. It has been as close to perfect as I can imagine a Maine summer being, and I suppose that is why every time I've sat down to write about it, something has caused me to stop writing. I was not meant to spend the summer in front of the computer, and I haven't. But it will take me awhile to pick up the pieces - the couch that came that wouldn't fit in the house, the Genoa jib that ripped - again, and the barn sink that needs ordering. Yet the barn keeps going up, and the puppy is turning into a dog, and I need to go to bed - even though the Holy Mackerels are playing at McSeagull's tonight.

90 year birthdays

Last week, my Aunt Bette turned 90 and had a birthday party at my house here in East Boothbay. She lives in Concord, Mass., but she wanted the party to be here, with all her clan in attendance. It is not a large clan, and she is not my real aunt, but we are all bound by the common bond of being only children, and we have made our own family.

Aunt Bette's daughter Nancy, grew up with me while her mother worked, and her grandmother took care of us. Now she and her husband Cliff, live and work in the education world of Washington, DC. They have two sons, one of whom is married, with twin 3 year old daughters, who all live in Minnesota. Their other son, John, is a videographer in DC, and he brought Aunt Bette up from Concord 3 days before the others got here.

None of us had ever really lived together - ever. I really barely knew the boys, let alone Nick's wife and the twins. But we had a remarkably genteel time together, including a large party of Aunt Bette's old friends and relations from Aroostook, Lewiston, and other odd and remote parts of Maine. I am quite proud of us all. It worked quite wonderfully for all of us, and especially the 90 year old at the top of the pyramid.

I can't say exactly why it worked so well, perhaps because all that was expected was that we interact with Aunt Bette, and have a good time. So we played a lot of cribbage and Scrabble and other new games, generally ignored the important affairs of the world, went for a wonderful sail on Priscilla, and ate some good cake but forgot the birthday candles. Oh well. What was important was that we were together with her to memorialize a big day. That was enough, and it was everything.

not your California water issue

Somehow, water main issues just keep popping up. I have been on Town water that comes up behind my neighbors' two houses and barns. It was a 3/4" line and did just fine as far as I was concerned. However, since I wanted water to go into the new barn, the Water District guys - who have still not finished the new Water Main work - decided initially that the barn could be serviced by that line, but that my house needed to be serviced by the new 1" line that they had put in from the brand new water main. The trouble is that the new line was in the diagonally opposite corner of the house from where the water services emanate.
That was solved by just putting the line into the house on the corner near the water main. So they dug down into my old stone foundation, found a hole to put the water line through, and did it. But then the Water District guys came, and decided that I should have the new water line go all the way across the front lawn and down into the barn so they can turn off the old line, which was not convenient for them to service - not that it had ever needed servicing. So now, I have a trench across the front lawn and down across the driveway - just in time for my little grandaughters to come and visit. The trenches are just perfect for them to play in and/or fall in.
So I have called Eric Wood, who is doing the dirt work, and suggested that I will be VERY unhappy if the trenches are not filled in by tomorrow, Saturday, when everyone arrives.
It is a classic, summer-in-Maine issue: outdoor construction work needs to get done in a limited time frame, and when the summer people arrive, the time becomes even more limited. I have never seen so many people working at such a frantic pace in my life. Boatyards are hustling to put boats into the water; dirt movers are loading things onto barges to take them out to islands. Dumptrucks included. Landscapers are distributing huge piles of mulch here and there on lawns, and bending over to spread and plant. It is impressive, and fun to watch except when it is on your own front lawn, and the grandaughters are about to arrive!

thank the Chinese

You've got to be glad the Chinese invented fireworks, I think. At the end of Windjammer Days, the Committee that puts the celebration on, bought a wonderful big fireworks display and ended the party. It was grand.

But there is nothing like sailing your own boat in amongst the big guys, as we did on Tuesday, in the Antique Boat Parade. While there was absolutely no wind except right up against the shore, motoring around is a lot easier in a parade than sailing - though I think we could have done it. Though maybe not. It's tough to back a big boat up under sail.

My person-powered fog horn was a great hit as we motored through the parade route, and since Priscilla was launched in 1965, we were right in the middle of a line of lovely power and sail boats. It was a short, but sweet event, capped once again by some dolphins guiding us back into the Damariscotta on our way home. I think it is mother and baby and perhaps a nannie or two. There were quite actively having supper as we passed on by.

The windjammer parade day was foggy at best until just at the beginning of the parade, and the then the skies lightened and you could see the boats. And, of course, it was clear for the fireworks - a wonderful omen for the summer!

midsummer's eve

Tonight, the Mary Ann Moran finally came out of the barn, i.e. was launched, and a more perfect evening cannot be imagined. Holly, Jack and I went out and cruised the bay until the moment came and with just a bit of effort by the little red tug here in front, the Mary Ann came slipping down into the water. Horns honked, and glasses clinked all across the River, as we had all felt badly for the tug that wouldn't come out of the barn.
The evening itself was doing its best to encourage the tug. For the first time in my memory, summer has arrived when its supposed to, and everyone here in E Bbay is pleased.
When all the trauma of the launch was over, we picked up two little boys and their grandpa, and di some more cruising around the bay, watching the sun go down and the half moon come up. Dolphins crossed our path for a while.
I can't think that this might not ever happen again, if the Gulf oil spill happened here. It must not, but we all must use less oil, and/ or find alternatives to it, and quickly!

A Week That Was

It's been a Sisyphean week. The barn moves along at its own pace - now it has footings and a frost wall. Next week, the hole will get filled in with sand, etc., and then covered with a new concrete pad for the floor of the barn.
At the same time, the engine on the boat decided to give me grief through a mis-communication with the guy in the Shipyard who was commissioning her. But after being terrified that I would have to buy and install a new motor in her, at some incredible cost, the Yard fixed it, and she's running smooth as a top now.
Additionally, this was the week to put together all the stuff, 21 items, for the Historical Society Silent Auction on Fisherman's Island. The stuff is all ready except for one pot and a baby basket, but it was my job to put together all the info and the bid sheets, etc.
But now it's all done and tonight cousins came over with their little grandson and his mother for pizza from the General Store, and fresh salad from the garden. Life doesn't get much better than that. Tomorrow promises to be gorgeous and hot - for the first time. Perhaps I'll check on the garden, then go out on the boat!
aaahhh, East Boothbay life!

a barn stew

Here's where we got today with the barn de-contruction:

Billy Dighton is taking my barn apart just the way I'd hoped he would. I got my building permit about a week ago, having decided to take the barn down and rebuild with the good pieces. It is quite fun to expose the old structure, and to see how it was done 'then' - whenever that was. Barbara Rumsey thinks it was in the 20's or 30's that the barn was built, and it was built out of other older barn pieces. So it had no post and beam integrity, but there are wonderful pieces here and there, which we will reuse.

The shed is a bit of a mystery though. It is a double - walled structure on the far end of the barn, and has been a real problem to break apart. We're not sure what it was used for - a milking shed? a cooler place? a pig pen? Who knows? But it is a definite challenge to bring down. Tomorrow , the frame will come apart, and we'll save the good beams, posts and knees.

The interesting part of the second floor was that all the boards had simply been mortised into each other, and laid down on the beam/joists. No nails were used, so we saved those boards to use as siding or finish somewhere. They are great.

More action tomorrow!

rain, finally!

(I just learned how to upload photos for the blog, so here is the Camel Crossing - about to be unnecessary, I hope)

Thunder and lightning just when the garden needed it! I think I could see the asparagus growing it's so happy to have real water to drink. I think it has been nearly a month since we had a decent rain though it's been raining in California. The irony!

Drought is uncommon here, and while I was never desperate for water for the garden, I was contemplating siphoning water out of the two old wells the old-fashioned way - by mouth. It felt almost necessary when I could smell the smoke from forest fires in Quebec as I worked in the garden. I didn't quite need to use it though, and I am grateful.

Memorial Day weekend was memorable for the rest of the Boothbay region, though not so much for East Boothbay. Because of the water main construction, the powers that be in the VA cancelled our parade, and people were quite upset. It has not been that good a season for East Beirut here. First there's been the construction which has been going on since December. Then last Thursday, Washburn and Doughty were to launch a new Moran tugboat on the new ways in their new steel building. It wouldn't go. A littler tug pulled and pulled for over an hour, and got the new tug about 1/3 of the way out of the barn. But she just wouldn't move any farther. So she's sticking out of the barn by about a third, and looks a bit forlorn. Best not to have a parade go by.

The good thing about Mem Day was that Whorff Construction finally laid some tar down on the gravel that has been creating all the dust, that caused us to become East Beirut. Now, with this wonderful rain we've just had, maybe I won't have to wash the house and the rhododendrons, which were sagging under the weight of the dust they bore. All in all, a cup half full.

Soon, a political event - the primary for Governor, plus a referendum on the tax reform bill passed last Legislative session.

forget camels, it's the garden, stupid!

So I've had it with the constuction. A rock came and bombarded me while I was in the garden the other day - they're still blasting on my corner. It hit the trees near me, but not me myself, for which I am grateful. But still. It needs to be over.

So while I've been obsessing about the constuction and the blasting, I've really been working on the garden, or gardens. I am starting an asparagus bed on the upper terrace of my property, and I'm quite excited. I've never thought I really had a chance for one until now, and it is quite thrilling in an odd sort of way, to have it come to fruition at my age. I had a neighbor come and plow up some old dairy land, near the old wells, then another man came and added loam mixed with manure, and now I've been shovelling manure on the 100 asparagus crowns that I planted two days ago. It rained in between, so some of the crowns have sprouted and it is quite gratifying to see the tiny sprouts coming up already!

The pile of manure is smelly and wonderfully steaming, so I'm sure it will produce great asparagus! But since there is so much of it - two full yards of it, I have also been spreading it around the corn patch and the tomato patch and the squash, beans and cucumber patches, so there should be a whole lot of produce this summer! - which is good because there seems to be a whole lot of guests, too. The boat is already in the water but it is not ready yet for sailing, and until the gardens are done, I'm afraid my head will not be into the boat. So it is...

more camels, crossing

last night, a local photographer, Bob Mitchell, held a powerpoint photo show called "So you think you know Boothbay?" at the local Opera House. He got up and told some wonderful stories and then showed some of his photos of both people and places, and asked the audience to identify the people and places and then we all got to telling stories. It was quite marvelous, especially when he showed the photo of "Camel Crossing" on my yard. (see prior blogs. )But the best moment came when he showed what looked like a wood sculpture of a penny with Benjamin Franklin on it. Some people knew where it was, but when he asked for us to identify who it was, a very deep voice with a very thick Maine drawl, answered, " I think that's my pool boy." - which brought the house down. So much for BF coming from Boston...we really know him! But perhaps you had to be there. It was a good time however you measure it.

more construction updates

Whorff and company are still blasting (whuffff is the sound!) around the village today. Yet more rock has been discovered to be in the way of the water main. But the weather has been decent, so the dust is not intolerable, and it is not uncomfortable to be only 15 feet from the road, as I am.

The signs to Kandahar, East Beirut, and the Oasis are still up, as is "Camel Crossing" - my own personal sign. But there are signs that the project is beginning to wear on everyone. While most of us have a somewhat passive fatigue over the disruption and we wave, and occasionally feed, the workers who are going as fast as they can, there has been a rumor of "an old lady in a red sports car" who gives the finger to the guys as she drives past every day. Even the guys in the Harbor hardware store had heard the rumor. And then, driving home from the hardware store, whom should I see, but the very same "old lady" in a red MG with the top down, giving the finger to the guys blasting. So she's real and feeling testy as she drives around East Beirut with her top down. I hope she has a garage to put the car in at night.

It has been a beautiful spring except for the construction. The forsythia has been in bloom for at least a month, as have the daffodils, and quince. Driving up river to Damariscotta, yellow clouds of forsythia are like Christmas lights in the gray green gloom of early spring forests. And now finally, it is May and gardens are getting planted, and weeded, and plants are getting swapped for others. Rhubarb is getting stewed, and canned, and there are fiddleheads in Hannaford's. I have been stewing about my barn.

My barn is a "carriage" barn, tall with a big tall door for a dairy wagon, and a hay mow. It was probably built out of scrap from another old barn as there is no post and beam integrity to the structure. But it still smells like hay and old barn. And the whole Northwest corner, really almost half of the barn, has a non-existent or rotten sill. So all the guys are telling me that it should come down and I should build a nice new one, that will do what I want it to do. I have just about decided to do that, but I am writing this down now, to see how it looks in writing, and to see how bad, or good, I feel about it. I have spent a good part of my life helping people save old buildings, or art work, and tearing something down just gives me the willies. But I think that in this community of exquisite ship builders and carpenters, that I can let them do their thing, and give me something that will be truly mine.

Then I will have a place to put my car, when, and ever if, I should be so testy that I need to give construction workers the finger as I drive by. As they say in California, NOT!

camel crossings

My house has a new sign on the lawn: Camel crossings! In response to the interminable water main construction project by the house, the partner of the Town's Manager has begun offering signs to home owners with a sense of irony? humor? She began with a sign reading: 'Welcome to East Beirut!' This was taken down, so she put another up:'Welcome Back to East Beirut!" This has remained. The General Store now sports : 'Welcome to the Oasis." Another reads: This is not a mirage. She offered me a sign, and I took "Camel Crossings." though I have yet to find a camel to go with it. Another has an arrow pointing toward Kabul.
The reason it is so dusty is that it hasn't rained in a very long time and what was once all mud and ice, is now dust. It gets in my nose, it covers my hair while I work in the garden. It has been endless. All this during the most glorious springtime in Boothbay history.
So yesterday I went off to the Harbor for the Fishermens' Festival...which is actually by, for and of the fishermen of the Harbor and their families. It was a glorious day in the 60's, starting at 8 am with the highschoolers' codfish race, an updated suitcase race involving boots, slickers and pants put on and then running around the block holding two large codfish. It was funny and looked like it was good fun. Then came the bait shovelling race for sternmen off a lobsterboat. This was serious and involved barrels of baitfish dumped on the street and shovelled into baitboxes.
But the best race of all was the trap race with 100 or so lobster traps linked together in a line and tied to a dock at one end and a boat at the other. Kids, generally between 5 and 12, then tried to run the gamut of traps floating in the water without falling in. Amazingly enough, several kids could run the whole long line of traps several times without stopping or falling in. Many others however, flopped on in and had to be hauled out by the rescue boat. Little ones were wearing life jackets, bu the water was cold anyway! It was heroic for those who made it, as well as those who didn't!
It was a truly wonderful festival with more things like a tug o war, fish frys, and donuts etc. Today the fleet was blessed in a parade passing by the Catholic Church, though several denominations were present.
So it's been a busy week here in East Beirut, but we are very glad that the Harbor is just over the hill, where we can go when the dust gets to be too much.

patriots' day in boston

In Cambridge today, it's cold, damp, and rainy - the usual weather for the Boston Marathon. No one I know is running MOnday, though I have known a few people, men and women, who have run this race. The last person I knew who ran, was Sara Donahue, who actually qualified for the Olympic tryouts last year, but didn't make the final cut. I think it is a remarkable feat for a young woman getting her doctorate in public health at the moment.

My races are not about running. I stopped running 15 years ago, when my body declined to be happy doing it. I walk now, 2-3 miles per day most days, but not today. This is weather to make plants happy, not people with arthritis. So I will forgive myself for not even walking today, write the blog, and tell this story on myself:

Two nights ago, I had dinner with Maine friends on the spur of the moment. We did get to having some wine, and eventually they asked me where I was going now? When I said I was going to Cambridge, my great neighbor and friend, Sam Stevens, said, "By gorry, Sally, you'e the only person I know who has a 10-room pied a terre in East Boothbay!" I guess it must seem to people that I travel alot, and I've been thinking about why that may be. I've not come to a conclusion, but rampant curiosity is part of the answer.

A bientot