Island Life
Today marks four weeks on the island in Maine. So what have we been up to? As it turns out, not too much.
We went with nephew Alden for a motor boat ride on a particularly windy afternoon and decided to sail home…
What else have we been up to on the island here in Maine?
Eating: Contrary to what you might think, we have not eaten lobsters and steamers and crab cakes every day. We have had local oysters, lobsters, crab cakes and steamed clams one time each, and all those things and more are on the menu for next week when our St. Louis visitors arrive. What we have been eating quite often is Alaskan salmon. Why? We have the good fortune of living with nephew Alden, who was salmon fishing in Alaska over the summer and is sharing his portion of the bounty (and bounty it was…). It’s funny what “local” means sometimes. We do miss our local food resource of Fair Shares.
Drinking: Beer is another consumable we were seriously spoiled to have such easy access to for so many years. with Schlafly. When in Maine, we’ve always sought out Geary’s, New England’s first craft beer, but have been hard pressed to find the standard (and in our opinion, the best) Pale Ale readily available around here this summer. Flight Deck Brewing nearby makes some fine beers, including a great sour called Breaking the Sour Barrier. Wish I had one right now…
Today we’re making ginger beer so we can enjoy more dark and stormies.
Catting: The cats mostly just lounge upstairs in their rooms–they do have an en suite sitting/dining bedroom with two twin beds and two litter boxes in addition to our large room with a king bed and great window views. They have full run of the house, but with Alden’s chocolate lab Luna living here, too, they stay upstairs when she’s home and only wander down occasionally when she’s away. Neither is particularly interested in making friends with the other, so there’s been little intermingling and no stress.
Mostly the cats stay in their rooms, probably smoking pot and listening to albums (just kidding, the turntable is downstairs).
Betty and Astro love the electric blankets. Tito can’t get up on the bed anymore and we worry about his crash landings when he jumps down.
For entertainment, Betty follows Astro and Tito around and does whatever annoying thing he can in an attempt to start a fight. At least we guess that’s his endgame…he must have been a younger sibling.
Diabetic old man Tito is having some issues, so I don’t think he’s smoking pot, but if I didn’t know better I would definitely think he’s been delving into the world of psychedelics. It may be a vestibular thing that’s making him walk in circles, drool and bury his face in his food, but his glucose levels are all out of whack and he’s requiring insulin twice a day, so I don’t really know which of the multitude of possible factors is the cause, and we’re just managing what we know.
For Sara, vacation on MacMahan does not feel complete without having done at least one jigsaw puzzle. This one started three weeks into our stay, so it’s a good thing we’re here more than a week
This table, where the Fair Shares Monday puzzle also is solved, is in the dining room, where only the cats have dined so far in our four weeks here. Family is arriving for the weekend, so the puzzle must be completed and cleared out in time for a dinner around the table on Friday or Saturday night.
The dining room is also a popular spot for yoga.
We’ve been sailing on the 23-foot Sea Sprite Hetepheres Stephen owns with his brother-in-law Ted and nephew Alden several times, but not nearly as often as we (meaning Stephen) would like.
The photo above of Stephen solo sailing shows why Sara has agreed to live on a catmaran and not a monohull. It’s called heeling, and some people find it fun to feel as if you’re going to tumble right into the sea, while others find it nerve-racking.
Here’s Linnaea, an earlier Antares model out of Portland ME that owners Josh and Kelsey converted to all electric engines. We had the family up to the house for dinner and boat talk. Here’s a shot of them heading south on their journey. It was fun to imagine photos of Sorella in the same spot next summer.
Stephen’s goddaughter Lucy came for a visit and convinced Stephen to actually swim in the chilly salty sea, as opposed to just taking the near-daily dip off a rock, a float or a boat.
Usually, his toes are still wet as his fingers are grasping the ladder to climb out.
Sara does not partake. She has been in the water twice here–once on her first visit in 1994, and the last (final) time about ten years ago when she was mislead into believing the water is warm at low tide on the mudflats. Liars…
We’re not near Kansas anymore, Dorothy. Pulling into the grocery store parking lot, we had to drive around the flock of seagulls who acted like a motorcycle gang daring us to cross into their territory.
Seagulls always make me think of that legendary headline in The Onion
One of the most satisfying accomplishments of our move was bringing our leather couch from St. Louis to replace the nasty old upholstered one here on the island.
After 30ish years of wet dogs and young children, nobody was sad to see it go. Sitting on it made one feel forever unclean.
Of course we didn’t.