Sunday, April 25, 2010

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.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

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

Sunday, April 11, 2010

a cardinal frustration

A lady cardinal sat on my car mirror this morning, attempting to get into the car - over and over again. She must have tried for 10-15 minutes. I figured she was just having an attack of vanity? or maybe curiosity? And went about my morning, which on the weekends always includes early morning conference calls between Cambridge, New Hampshire, Baltimore, and me - in various confirgurations.
However, when I went out to climb in my car and go to church (yes, I do that thing), the lady cardinal was no longer there on my mirror. But just inside my driver's window, a small, brown spider sat - looking very smug. I chased him back down inside the window well, but I imagine he will reappear at some point, to tempt the lady again, and perhaps to figure out why he was still safe from her. I hope that she has learned about glass windows, and won't hurt herself trying to get the little brown spider again.
I've tried to find the lesson in this - religious gender relations? vanity? frustrations? But I don't think I will share them here!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

silence before Bach

at the Harbor theatre tonight, I saw an old Spanish movie called 'the silence before Bach.' Aside from the rather affected videography, the music was wonderful. But that's not the story. My story is about Mitch Boucher, a kid about 14 now, from Edgecomb, who plays the organ sometimes at the Edgecomb UCC - a small church with an electric organ. Mitch also writes his own music on this organ. Mitch was in the front row of the movie.
I did not know Bach's music was not published until Mendelsohn's butcher started using music sheets to wrap meat in. Mendelsohn discovered the music 50 years after Bach died, and then it was published. Mitch would like to go to a school where he could play a real organ, but that's not easy to find in mid-coast Maine. Perhaps the Church can sponsor him somehow, somewhere. Let's hope. It would be a pity to let Mitch's music wait a whole century before it is played by someone else!
It is important to acknowledge talent when it appears, and to nurture it wherever we are.

PS the heavy machinery is right outside my windows, but the lilacs are intact!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

water mains

really, we need the new water main in east boothbay - to keep any more boatyards from burning to the water line like Washburn and Doughty did two years ago, and to service the new Bigelow Lab to be built on Farnham Cove. But they are right on my corner now, digging and blasting, and it's a bit consuming.
For those of you who don't know, my house backs up to within about 12 feet of Route 96 as it comes around the corner and down into the village. So I don't have a lot of give here. There is an old lilac hedge and a new canoe birch that keep people from driving right into my living room, and they better damn well stay there. Tomorrow will tell the tale.
The sign that called us East Beirut has come down, and that's really a pity as it probably means that someone has no sense of humor. Perhaps another will pop up. Perhaps I will make one. Probably it would be better for my plants if I made muffins and took them out to the guys working - like Chalmer Lewis has been doing. But I'm not much of a muffin maker. I'll let you know what happens.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Monday mornings, early, I walk the end of Ocean Point unless it's terribly awful. It was not today, and going along with the oddly gorgeous weather pattern, I saw rafts of Eider ducks, heard the mating calls of loons, saw two cardinals and counted seven lobster boats out. They're putting pots out; I saw orange and pink buoys mostly, whose ever they are. But the signs are good that it will be a long delicious spring.

Along with the wildlife, though, the water main construction guys are back by my house. The new sign in town says, "Welcome to East Beirut" and it feels like it somedays, like today. But if they weren't working now, they might this summer, and that would be disastrous, everyone agrees.
Still...it's a pain.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Easter Sunday

So this is a new one for me...writing for anonymous friends and known ones, too, as well as relatives! But people liked my stories from Paris until the disaster struck, so I'll pick up the threads - like I've picked up my life - and continue!

This Easter has been magnificent here in East Boothbay - in the 60's and 70's, and except for feeling blue about not being with any of my boys, I've spent a wonderful time with my wonderful neighbors and friends here. At dinner with Sam Stevens' et al., I couldn't resist telling the story of my conversation with Sarah Kate, aged 7, about jelly beans and Uncle Dave when he was 7 at dinner this afternoon. Sarah Kate had just finished telling me that there was going to be a jelly bean hunt this afternoon, when I was reminded of the time when her Uncle Dave found and ate so many jelly beans that he threw them all back up. Sarah Kate's response: " So what color was it?" I had to respond that it was all the colors of jelly beans, but it didn't smell like jelly beans! Yuck. Enough. I think she'll be a handful someday!