When you see the world, introduce yourself like a guest

The world is actually wonderful:

• The Italian For Dummies-type book behind the little La Mega coffee cart at the farmer's market
• Someone practicing the trombone at night, standing in a third-floor window
• Phoebe Bridgers playing in an exam room at Planned Parenthood
• A sign in front of an elementary school that said HAVE YOU USED MATH TODAY? TALK WITH YOUR CHILDREN
• In the quiet woods, I thought my stomach was making a really weird noise, but it was a drone overhead

Recent animals: 

• A fox! (But only Mark saw it)
• 8 geese very slowly crossing a busy street in a neat line, all cars and bikes patiently waiting for them
• 3 border collies I didn't meet but heard about from a friendly person at an apple orchard — search and rescue border collies that work with the Maine warden service looking for lost folks in the woods

Small things

There have been recent reports of people being bitten by rabid foxes — not here, but in a nearby town. This makes me so sad for the foxes, on the one hand, and has also caused me to rethink my emotional relationship to the foxes I (rarely) see in Portland. A couple of weeks ago, I was walking both dogs at night when I saw what was probably a fox across the street (Gus was barking his head off, so probably a fox), and instead of running off like they usually do, it just stood there. Which seemed odd, unless it was maybe a cat.

Not so long ago, I drove past a dead gull on the street. It was on its back with its little bird legs sticking straight up in the air, like a dead cartoon gull.

Even though I had to drive around the block twice and ended up parking blocks away, and even though I had to turn over my debit card to the tune of $100 for flea and tick tablets, and even though I completely forgot to make Theo an appointment for his yearly stuff, I had a great ten minutes at the vet today. Some days, the things that make Portland feel like a small town are so sweet. Todd the receptionist, who's married to Tommy, who owns the cafe where Isaac worked one summer, asking after him. And Ina the receptionist, who's worked at the vet forever and is probably the kindest person on the planet, asking how Gus's joints are doing. Small things.

I started training today for Crisis Text Line, and I feel like I'm in college.

My color's green. I'm spring.

Is it just me, or do things feel grim and then grimmer? Looking back at low times, dark times, politically bizarre times now — or times we thought were bad or weird — none of it seems quite so bad. Which makes me nervous about the future.

Mark and I embarked on Phase One of our summer fence project. Monday we tore down the old fence (well, most of it was down already, but we pulled up posts and yanked apart fence sections, and stacked everything tidily in the yard). Tuesday we rented a truck (a moving truck), and we filled that truck with fence and drove that fence to the dump. Eight hundred pounds of fence, give or take. We also threw in some large trash that we'd been hoarding in our basement. Then we drove the truck home and filled it twice more with brush that we'd been hoarding in a corner of our yard. Then we drove those loads to the dump.

The sad thing in this photo is the Big Wheel, not the boat.

Oh, how I hate the dump. Well, I like certain aspects of it, like the areas where like items are stacked, nicely categorized and organized like what you'd expect to find at a Montessori Dump. Hot tubs with hot tubs. Concrete blocks all together, tires neatly assembled, air conditioners with their air conditioner families. But the bulk of it is "mixed," like the above photo, and we were surprised that this is where our fence was meant to go. Also, any brush, plastic, or anything else that happened to ride along in the truck with the fence. Brush and other yard waste that was traveling solo was allowed to go in the "yard waste" pile. Horrifyingly, huge pushing trucks (front loaders? bulldozers? I used to know the names of them all, back when Isaac was a truck aficionado) would loom suddenly up right beside you and abruptly shove all the trash back into the trash mountain when you least expected it. 

The worst thing about the dump was a fox we saw there, slinking around, low to the ground, skinny and sad. Its tail was just so ragged and thin. It made me really sad.

We didn't get all the brush out of here, but we got most of it. Phase Two is erecting the new fence on that side. Phase Three, I regret to tell you, is identical to Phase One except on the other side of the yard.

On the upside, I have been making delicious smoothies with my trusty little mild-mannered blender (matcha, frozen banana, spinach, almond milk, vanilla protein powder yesterday. Frozen banana, peanut butter, cacao powder, vanilla protein powder, almond milk today. I think of this as "the Elvis smoothie" of course). We voted yesterday, and it was busy. I don't remember them loudly calling out your registered political party in the past, but they did yesterday, and I was shocked that there were several Republicans in line in front of me. 

Also on the upside, flowers.

Does anyone not like peonies? We once knew a lady in Kansas who pronounced it "pee OH nee."

She's my girl. My secret life's goal is to get her to love me more than she loves Gus or Mark.

10

“That’s another great thing about getting older. Your life is written on your face.” - Frances McDormand, 60, one of my heroes.

Also, Pause by Mary Ruefle, mentioned in the article above.

I love reading wise words about growing older.


This morning we looked and looked for the beautiful red fox we saw yesterday on Mackworth. We've done the Mackworth loop walk hundreds and hundreds of time (it's as much part of my routine as brushing my teeth or setting my alarm for 6:30), but we've never seen a fox there before. This guy was big and fluffy and magnificent, with his head held high (unlike the smaller, low-slung gray Oakdale fox). We looked at him and he looked at us. He only trotted away when we moved slightly closer and Gus barked. He looked like the fox I follow on Instagram.

Sometimes she snuggles.

Hey, we went camping last weekend! We drove farther north and east than we've ever been in Maine, so far up the coast our phones got confused and thought we were on Atlantic time.

I ended up with the warmer (borrowed) sleeping bag, and Mark got chilly and we both woke up from the fact that we were basically sleeping on the ground, and we were late getting to the camp ground in the first place and had to pitch the tent in the dark (of course). BUT, despite all that, it was so much fun. It's been so long since I've camped — we always talked about doing it with the kids, but somehow 25 years went by, and we never did it. I love the food preparation (hotdogs on sticks over the fire) and coffee drinking parts of camping, the smells and slowed pace and lack of screens, etc. And this was such an idyllic spot, right by the water, facing east for the sunrise. And both dogs were angelic, seriously. They snuggled up to us at night in the tent, and were happy to be tethered to the picnic table or to walk on leashes around the (empty) campground otherwise. We hiked too, and make great use of all our (mostly borrowed) camping gear.