Your spine is a flower

Egad, that last post hath no title.

And today is Monday, so I'm in organized work mode. But I want to share a snapshot of morning work before I dive into blurbing these babies:

Okay, they're totally just making words up at this point to keep me employed?

And briefly, a highlight of my weekend was mishearing "Lancaster, PA" as "Cirque de Soleil," which made Mark and me laugh (I laughed harder). Another highlight was ice skating down a frozen river and around a large pond and not falling down. And a lowlight was seeing a full grown adult man in the Trader Joe's parking lot wearing a sweatshirt with a cartoon dinosaur that said in all caps DON'T BE A CUNTOSAURUS.

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.

17

We're going camping on Friday!

Mitchell loaned us this lovely big tent, and we practiced putting it up in the back yard. 

We used to camp, and we even owned camping gear...a tent, metal plates, that sort of thing. And we always talked about taking the kids camping. But then 25 years just went by somehow. Mark found our tent in a big plastic bin in the basement. It smelled terrible.

Our pal Mitchell's tent is all newish and color-coded, for nearly foolproof pitching.

We will see if we remember how to do it (camping, that is). "What if we get bored?" said Mark. But we're bringing things to eat and drink, a stack of New Yorkers, hiking shoes, and two goofy dogs.

I'll call this one "Indignities of the Flesh."

In medical news, all is well and mammography has gone 3-D.

Bonus

Although overall Zoë is healing up nicely after Wednesday's wisdom tooth removal, her mouth aches so badly at night that she's not sleeping well. She decided to stay at home an extra day before heading back to school on the bus, so we got a bonus day with her.

It was bright and warm, and we drank the very first iced coffee of the year. A snack on the pier, a walk on the beach. We met a many-toed cat and Zoë fell in love with it (it was mutual).

I hope she feels like she got a little bit of spring break this week, despite the fact that most of it was spent watching Hindi movies, eating soup, rinsing with salt water, knitting socks. It sure was nice to have her here. I thought, guiltily, more than once that I was glad she had to have oral surgery, so we could keep her captive! If she hadn't needed to do that this week, she might have gone off on some adventure instead...

different from what any one supposed

some birthdays happened last week! first mark's, featuring pumpkin waffles for breakfast.




















and then mine, which had more of a doughnut theme...

























there were many other celebratory events, in addition to the consumption of waffles and doughnuts. there was pie, for example. and a feast at asmara. my gift from cousin-uncle meiklejohn was like my very own make-a-wish dream come true: foley for a day on his latest film. not to mention sweet emails, tweets, cards, gifts, lunches with friends, and book-of-faces messages, which i love love love. also, now, i am an even number of years, my favorite.

and on saturday i got a second feast, this one with my mom and dad at green elephant, and then a birthday hike up my favorite little mountain. it was far more treacherous than usual because it was wet -- think 1300 feet of slippery rocks coated with even more slippery leaves. but as usual, it was worth it when we got to the top ("like childbirth!" said my mom).

 























maman et moi.


























mon papa.

























(mark was there too!)

as a little birthday present to myself, i bought this poetry app for MYphone. it's called poem flow, and it's free for a limited number of daily poems that flow "in a gentle reading application" which is actually much more wonderful than that description makes it sound. it's a really organic way to read a poem. the words appear on the screen sort of in the rhythm you might read the poem aloud. it's nice. i bought myself three months' worth of extra poems.


































(from song of myself by walt whitman)

back when wildflowers would come right up to your hand as if they were tame

apparently, while in some kind of fugue state, i requested a ridiculous number of books from the library (twelve? fifteen? something like that). now i've got a pile beside my bed as tall as a toddler and a reality show inside my head in which i have to read each and every one before they're due back at the 'brary. most challenging will be 2666, which i'm reading with my tiny book group, and which is 900 pages long, and which i've already renewed twice.

this morning i watched a bunch of little kids watching a worker who was standing in a deep hole wielding a shovel. i love how fascinating that kind of thing is to kids. i miss reading you can name 100 trucks!, even.

i love this dog, even though he barfed very quietly on a pile of my clothes the other night.

(above, his tiny serving of kefir, intended to stop the horrible gurgling sounds emanating from his stomach. it worked!) 

today is picture day at the learning shack. i think i've finally shaken off the parental guilt that comes with not buying the resulting photos. i used to order the very cheapest package every year, even though nine times out of ten the picture is just bad, one way or another (an awkward pose, a defiant refusal to "show some teeth" resulting in a weird grimace. etcetera).

i made my mom laugh recently by referring to the white satin-uniformed women in a feminine hygiene commercial during project runway as "menstrual scientists."

i moved some plants around and drew pictures so next year i (maybe) won't make the mistake of pulling up perennials and allowing weeds to flourish, fooled into thinking they're legitimate.

 























we have such nice dirt in our yard. it was pretty great to dig in it all weekend. also, i finally turned the compost!



October, by Don Thompson

I used to think the land
had something to say to us,
back when wildflowers
would come right up to your hand
as if they were tame.

Sooner or later, I thought,
the wind would begin to make sense
if I listened hard
and took notes religiously.
That was spring.

Now I’m not so sure:
the cloudless sky has a flat affect
and the fields plowed down after harvest
seem so expressionless,
keeping their own counsel.

This afternoon, nut tree leaves
blow across them
as if autumn had written us a long letter,
changed its mind,
and tore it into little scraps.

all overgrown by cunning moss

last weekend mark and i drove up to the josephine newman wildlife sanctuary in georgetown, where we walked past warnings about deer ticks and braved a field of poison ivy before taking a peaceful hike along a rocky wooded path. we saw so many mushrooms, so much brilliant green moss, but not a single other human being.

i sort of want to live in the woods.


all overgrown by cunning moss, emily dickinson

inside/outside

dog on bench.

dog in snow. minnow and i are getting kind of really really sick of the wintry weather. somehow i allowed the whole weekend to pass without going outside at all. until i walked out the door at seven p.m. sunday night with the dancer to obtain snacks and watch the oscars in front of her cozy wood stove.

uitwaaien

from a list of ten words that can't be accurately translated into english, uitwaaien is a dutch word that means "to walk in the wind," and simultaneously, "to take a brief break in the countryside to clear one's head." i love untranslateable words, and this one perfectly captures my weekend, which i spent walking in the wind on mount desert island with mark to celebrate our twentieth anniversary.

thanks to sweet jen, we stayed in this dreamy little cottage.

we also got great advice from her about how to spend our first day in acadia, and we followed her suggestions to the letter. first, we drove to the top of cadillac mountain, where amidst dozens of german tourists, i took numerous photographs of the orange tips of my gloved fingers (it was so windy, i was afraid my camera/phone was going to be swept out of my slippery hands). i did manage this picture of the village of bar harbor and my favorite nearby islands, the porcupines (bald porcupine is my very favorite).

after that we headed around the park toward gorham mountain, taking some extra time to clamber around the otter cliffs (mark's question: summit or cliffs? i like them both, but have a slight preference for the summit. he is a cliff man himself).

i see crows all the time at home, but the crows here were glossy and gorgeous. country crows, i guess. as we were hiking up gorham mountain, this one let me get pretty close so i could take dozens of identical photos of him.

we wanted to fit in as much acadia as we could, so we skipped lunch and walked around jordan pond instead. the sun started to dip down behind the mountains, and the light altered dramatically the whole time we were hiking - it was breathtaking.

as we drove out of the park, we realized we'd spent more than seven hours there! the next morning we got up early and explored a bit of northeast harbor, where we were staying. we checked out the asticou azalea garden, thuya garden, and the asticou terraces, which provide lovely views of the harbor below.

on our way home, we took a detour down the blue hill peninsula, another part of the state i've longed to visit for years. we stopped at the blue hill co-op for a delicious red curried tofu sandwich, vegan raspberry almond muffin, and coffee.

my favorite form of procrastination lately is browsing seaside real estate online, and a couple of weeks ago i found this sweet little antique house in deer isle. mark and i actually drove past it, down a long, ocean-side country road, and it was just as dreamy in real life (look at that apple tree in front of it!). except the roof looked like it was about two hundred years old. but beautiful! acres of woods, water access! sigh.

and just a little further down the road (at the end of the road, in fact, at the very bottom of the island) is the sweet harbor town of stonington.

meanwhile, we left zoë and isaac to their own devices for the first time ever. i found that i was a little anxious at night until i'd heard from them and was reassured that they were both home and safe and had locked the door and turned off the stove. but the truth is, they did absolutely fine without us. of course. i'm happy to be home with them, and portland is always nice to come home to, but i do sort of feel like we spent the weekend in a magical, beautiful fairy land. i can't imagine a better way to celebrate two decades with my sweetie.

common ground

we spent yesterday in unity, maine at the common ground fair. it only took us twelve years to make it there -- every september since 1999 we've mulled it over, and we've either had some legitimate conflict or the thought of driving up there and parking and dealing with the crowd was too overwhelming. i'm so happy that we finally did it (the crowd, the parking, the drive: easy). jason came with us, and he introduced us to the concept of the pie cone.

there were also lots of variations on fried potatoes (all of the potatoes involved were organic at this fair!).

friends at the fair, strolling through our favorite area, where there were fires being built in holes in the ground and donuts being fried over campfires. also, there was a canvas tent whose floor was lined with pine branches. it smelled so good, we all wanted to move in.

one of many many animals i wanted to bring home with me:

we ran into all of our farmer friends -- mary ellen and austin from green spark, and mary and john from little falls farm. there were border collies doing tricks, beautiful handmade things for sale, wool being spun, delicious indian food to eat, kids sledding down hills on cardboard and hammering nails into boards, banjos being played... i would seriously not mind living there.