naked

i've decided to reveal some identities on this here blog-o-mine. i don't know why, maybe it's the five year anniversary. i'm craving change. feeling daring. here goes.

my partner in crime, formerly the mysterious figure known only as "m," is actually mark.























my world-traveling seventeen-and-a-half-year-old daughter, known by many aliases but herein referred to as "bean," is really zoë.


















my sweet and funny almost-fourteen-year-old-boy "boo" is, in reality, isaac.























and "minnow," the dog named for a fish, truly is named minnow.























i really do, in real life, call them bean and boo. i have ever since they were born. zoë was a little bean when she was a baby, and it stuck. isaac was more of a baked potato (it was a hot summer in baltimore). i have no idea where "boo" came from, but there you go. i have never called mark anything but "mark." or "sweetie." i won't even start with the nicknames i have for my dog, because it would be a little bit humiliating.

my day, continued

more scenes from mother's day (or is it mothers' day? no, it's mother's day.). bean gave me a beautiful flower ring, and boo made me a lovely card. m, bean, boo, max, and i went to arabica for coffee and toast.


i told her i coveted it and then did my very best to forget i'd asked for it. she chose the color.























bean's hand is max's palette. it surprises me every time what a great artist he is.























hot chocolate on the orange sofa.























you should hear them laugh together.

date night

m and i met enoch at the movies last night (we did not see date night. we saw the runaways, which was pretty good, but probably not worth running out to see on the big screen. there were some obnoxious chatterers behind us and, before the movie started, a woman on the phone saying a bunch of weird stuff). but before that we had a mini-date at otto, the best place for a (non-vegan) cheap date in portland. i am in love with the (again, non-vegan) butternut squash and cranberry pizza. three dollars a slice, and yummmmmy. if you're lucky, you can sit in the window and watch people go by.

the way it's done

this is how easter goes, chez moi. first of all, the easter bunny changes into his white jeans in honor of spring.

























candy, silly putty eggs, and arabica gift cards on pretty liberty of london for target plates. so they're kind of 'easter plates,' rather than easter baskets.
























after a candy breakfast, bean, m, and i went to willard beach with a very happy dog.
























.m finally found a sand dollar, as well as nicely shaped shards of pottery.
























in the afternoon, i hiked on the cliff walk with m and the dancer.
























i went sockless.
























happy springtime from me and my rabbit friend!

1,3,7-trimethylxanthine

seventy degrees on saturday. i know, again with the weather report, but may i remind you that i live in maine? and that it is march?

friday and saturday were outdoorsy, with stops at arabica for coffee.
























m and boo went on long bike rides all weekend, and bean and i took lots of long walks.
























we were pleased by bard's sidewalk sign showing the chemical formula for caffeine.
























the low point of the weekend was when m, boo, and i went to see the ghost writer, which was okay, but not as good as i'd hoped (and left me with the nasty sensation of just having seen a movie directed by a creepy old man, not because of its content, but because i'd conveniently forgotten that it was a roman polanski film). and we emerged from the theater at midnight to find that our car had been towed. i'm not blaming anyone, but let's just say that i was not the one who was driving the car that night. we had a short mental list of people who might be available at 12:30am to drive us to south portland to retrieve our car, and number one on that list was bean's friend max* who just happened to be hanging out with bean and who gallantly came to our rescue.
























the above photo was taken inside the theater by boo. this current series of movie trivia makes me crazy: it is full of grammatical and punctuation errors, is bizarrely written ("thick-gummed"?), and check out that font at the top...










*i doubt i am permitted to say anything more about this.

summer in the light and winter in the shade

walking on willard beach with m and minnow. maybe winter really is over?

sunshine

this weekend truly felt like spring -- like spring in baltimore in fact, which is appropriate since we've basically had baltimore's winter this year, while they've had our winter. which is a-okay with me. on saturday, m and i went to see an education after we sat in the sunshine for a while sharing a latte from bard.
























and then on sunday, while boo was skiing with some friends (i can't tell you how weird it feels to say that, not being a skier myself. it's as if he were playing polo with some friends. or. something exotic and expensive like that), bean and i took a long, leisurely walk all over the place. we paused to eat bagels from the works in the sunshine. i could've fallen asleep.fifty-five degrees.
























and then it was time for our oscar party, complete with ginger beer floats and tiny samosas. if you haven't already watched this trailer for every academy award winning movie ever, i really think you should.

A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever -- powered by Cracked.com

wind

our portion of last night's monster storm was nothing but fierce wind, which was kind enough to pretty much leave our willow tree alone. our power was out for longer than we've ever experienced, but it was still only about twelve hours (midnight to noon, approximately). i'm sure our electricity is somehow connected to the traffic signal at the intersection right outside our front door, because we're never without it for long. m and i took the opportunity to get coffee at 158 and take a very short walk on a very abbreviated version of willard beach with minnow.

lucky me

not only did my valentime give me a brand new bottle of my favorite smelly lotion (as well as a bunch of goodies for the little valentimes), i also received this beautiful, beautiful print in the mail from my sweet aunt sooze:
























isn't it gorgeous? it's made by hollie chastain, who has an etsy shop i like to ogle. i bet i sent the link to sooze along with copious hints and reminders of how much i love crows. i don't know if you can see, but it incorporates not only crows, but public schools, letters, and trees. more of my favorite things.
























on the theme of valentine's day, i'd like to add that if minnow and i had entered this dog kissing contest we would have won, no problem.

red boat on blue water

as seen from willard beach, a joyful dog's eye view. i love walking here with minnow and m, especially on a cold-but-not-too-cold wintery day. there are moments when you realize how lucky you are, you know?

birch

in my continuing "christmas was so awesome" series, here is my gift to m. essentially, i gave him a bunch of bark -- a set of birch tubes from small stump, to be precise. i just knew he would love them (he has a thing for birch trees). they are inspiring us to move forward on our plan to paint the living room. a plan that we've been discussing for about eleven years.

two of my favorites

a soy latte and m.

one must have a mind of winter

we've been having beautiful, soft, constant snow for the past few days. yesterday m and i took minnow for a walk in baxter woods, where he assumed his snowdog personality, leaping around like a rabbit.






























after we got home he was transformed into a stuffed animal, apparently.
























his paws and legs were full of snow balls.
























i am ready to embrace this winter thing. for the moment.

nature

today while bean was in cambridge at her incredibly intensive, two-day, 18-hour long SAT prep class, m and boo and i went to the wells nature reserve for a lovely peaceful walk (sorry, bean!). it is an absolutely gorgeous place to stroll, with a picturesque old barn and paths through the marsh and woods. it feels so much like block island there, kind of open and breezy with a lot of low-growing foliage and the smell of the ocean just ahead. the trail ended at drakes island beach, a gorgeous stretch of soft, sparkly sand.
























it was an impossibly perfect day, too. breeze. sun. puffy clouds floating across the sky.
























a perfect day for a milo in maine photo shoot, actually!

life

a whole bunch of random images from my life this week, for you to either scroll past rapidly or contemplate thoughtfully, as you prefer.


billy mays died, but his commercials live on:
























enoch borrowed a projector, and for one blissful evening m, boo, and i were able to roll a ginormous katamari ball around on the wall of his apartment, until boo fell sound asleep on enoch's bed:
























i saw a pretty dragonfly on the window. this must've been when the sun finally came out:
























i'd been dreaming for days of this scrumptious meal i was going to make for independence day. and then i made it. and it was scrumptious. veggie sushi (my dream involved making a spicy sauce out of vegenaise and sriracha to put inside the rolls, and...yum):
























veggie sushi, five minutes later:
























my other dream, the dessert dream, was inspired by delicious strawberry shortcakes i've eaten recently at emily's and holly's houses. my version consists of vegan scones topped with local strawberries cooked a little bit saucy, and a dollop of vegan whipped coconut cream on top. oh. my. god:
























later we hiked up the hill to watch the fireworks on the eastern prom (and very briefly crashed a party at our friend lincoln's house). they were spectacular. ooooh:
























ahhhhh:

i don't see what anyone could see in anyone else

look what my valentime gave me for valentime's day!! if you're my facebook friend, you've no doubt gotten sick and tired of my status repeatedly involving me smelling myself...all as a result of a tiny sample of this lotion m acquired a while back and which i promptly fell in thrall to. it is blood orange and vanilla body milk, and it just smells so good. but it's all pricey and fancy, so i never expected to get a whole big bottle of the stuff (i've been making that little foil packet last, squeezing out tiny drops of lotion each day). mmmm, now i can smell myself all day long.

anniversary

m and i are so lucky to celebrate our wedding anniversary this time of year (as well as our birthdays). we usually have a beautiful fall day to enjoy right around october 19th. we had big plans involving a mini-maine coast road trip which we scaled down a bit, due to time constraints, into a mini-mini-maine coast road trip. our first stop, with a hungry boy, was hallowell (no, it's not on the coast, i know).
























despite the sign outside claiming that this was a coffee house (it had a picture of a coffee mug. and the word "lattes."), it really was more of a tavern. a smoky, empty bar. with nothing to eat. so we got a cup of tea to go and procured a bagel elsewhere. shopkeepers in hallowell seemed down in the dumps, to be honest.

we specifically drove to belfast to eat at chase's daily, only to arrive and be told that they stop serving food at 1:00 (but...i called first and they said 2:30!). we got a chocolate-banana muffin and a cheddar-scallion biscuit to go, and they were quite tasty. we'll definitely be back, before 1:00.



















so we wandered over to the belfast co-op and had really delicious melty portobello sandwiches on crusty 7-grain bread and vegetable soup.



















and it's a good thing we did, because then we hiked up mt. megunticook. it takes about an hour to hike the mile to the top, and it's pretty hard work. this photo is utterly deceptive -- most of the way it's like climbing an endless flight of stairs.



















but the view at the top, especially today with the trees all show-offy, is breathtaking. it might make a person like me cry, actually, if she weren't steeling herself against unnecessary weeping. you can see miles around, out over the ocean, across the tops of the hills and just the picturesque church steeples of camden poking up out of the trees. that's mt. battie to the right.



















edna st. vincent millay lived in camden and wrote renascence there, inspired by the view from mt. battie:

"The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through."

as a lovely coda to this story, i obtained a delicious latte, finally, at rock city books and coffee in rockland. i really love rockland, which is kind of like the slightly homely little sister to the more beautiful towns of camden and rockport. the people i've met there are extremely friendly, and cheerful... sort of the direct opposites of the ones i met today in hallowell (nothing against hallowell, i've spent a total of ten minutes there, but still...).
























and here, maybe you'd enjoy an illustrative map to accompany this tale:



View Larger Map



happy happy anniversary, m!!!