Sisters

My sister Roberta and I, who are only 18 months apart in age, were lucky to have an older sister, Shirley, as we were growing up.

Shirley is 15 years old than I (and almost 13 years older than Roberta).

I've only recently begun to realize and appreciate the kind and thoughtful "second mother" she was to her two little sisters.

I didn't realize it was Shirley, not Santa or my parents, who brought me my beloved doll one Christmas, or my "ox blood red" shoes with zipper closure another Christmas. Once I was old enough to understand the truth about Santa, I assumed it was my parents who'd given me these gifts. Shirley's an extremely self-effacing person who would never brag to others about her motherly acts, so it was only recently that she confessed to me that she'd placed these gifts under our tree.

I met Shirley for lunch one day this past week. We don't get together often enough, and there's no excuse for it. We live only two hours apart, so it wouldn't hurt me to make more of an effort to see her more regularly.

As we sat down to eat at the Freeport restaurant, Shirley handed me one of her photo albums from the 1950's. She told me to go through it and take out any photos I wanted to take back home with me to scan.

I've been having fun looking at these photos and remembering the long-ago days of my childhood on a central Maine dairy farm.

Roberta and I liked to make "birds' nests" from newly-mown hay. Once our nests were nicely shaped, we'd climb into them and sit there. That was the extent of that particular game, I guess. I'm surprised that the itchy hay didn't drive us out of our nests, but I guess we were willing to sacrifice comfort for drama.

There were always baby animals of one description or another on our farm. Here's a photo of Roberta bottle-feeding a new lamb while I hold our puppy. I think the puppy might be our beloved dog Skippy, although Shirley's writing on the photo seems to say "Tippy." Maybe Skippy started off as Tippy.

My parents weren't wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but they funded piano lessons for Roberta and me for two or three years. How we both hated going to Mrs. Barnaby's for those lessons! Mrs. Barnaby was a crabby old lady who heckled us if we didn't know our lessons well. Each of us would be reduced to tears before the lessons ended, which would prompt Mrs. Barnaby to bribe us with a glass of orange juice before Dad arrived to drive us back home. I think she was trying to make us forget her ill treatment so we wouldn't tattle on her. Our piano lessons came to naught, I'm now sorry to say. If only I'd been able to tolerate Mrs. Barnaby long enough to learn to master the keyboard.

As I looked at this photo of Roberta and me at the piano bench, I was reminded of all the clothes Mum used to sew for us. The blouses and skirts we're wearing here were undoubtedly made by her. Anything "store bought" was a real luxury to us. I see we're also wearing the dreaded brown long stockings. We detested wearing the things, because none of our classmates had to wear them each winter. The stockings bagged and sagged and had to be held up with garter belts. It was a joyful day for us when tights came along.

This final photo shows Shirley holding us. I'm on the left, Roberta's on the right. I think it's a great symbol of the love and care which Shirley gave us. We weren't neglected by our parents or our three brothers, of course, but it was fun having an older sister to look out for us as well. We were two lucky little girls.

Our 40th, Part II

I don't mean to belabor a point, but there are a few more photos and comments I want to share about our trip to Camden last Sunday.

As I mentioned in my last post, after we left the Olad cruise, we drove to Camden Hills State Park and climbed (in the car) to the summit of Mt. Battie. On a clear day, as they say, you can see forever. Or practically forever. In this first photo you can see the village of Camden and its harbor. Farther down the coast a bit, you can see Rockland. If you could turn my camera to the left, you'd see Mt. Desert Island and the town of Bar Harbor.

I always make a point of stopping to pay my respects to Edna St. Vincent Millay when I'm on Mt. Battie. Millay was born in Rockland, grew up in Camden, and discovered for her poetic talent at Camden's Whitehall Inn, where a rich lady from New York heard her read aloud her poem Renascence. Renascence is one of the most beautiful poems ever written, if you ask me; its beauty almost moves me to tears. Millay, while still a teenager, was inspired by the beauty as seen from Mt. Battie when she composed this poem. A plaque commemorating this achievement sits in a rock on Mt. Battie's summit. It contains a passage from the poem itself.

After we left Camden last Sunday, we headed south, past Rockland, to Spruce Head. A friend had told us to be sure to stop for a lobster roll at Miller's Lobster Co. It's a good thing this place was specifically mentioned to us, because we'd never heard of it and certainly couldn't have found it on our own. Our lobster rolls made a perfect finishing touch to our day.

But wait!

One more point of interest awaited us: a blue lobster. Have you ever seen (or heard of) a blue lobster? They're extremely rare, like one in a few million, and until last Sunday, I'd seen a blue lobster now and then in news photos. Now I can say I've met one "in the flesh." This blue lobster resides at Miller's and seems to be happy with his digs. He won't be boiled and served to anyone.

A blue lobster is that color due to a form of albinism, according to my search on the web. I imagine he'd turn red if cooked, as all other lobsters do, but I'm not certain of that.

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy seeing the view from the top of Mt. Battie and meeting Mr. Blue.

40

Ken and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary yesterday.

I swear, if I didn't know for a fact that we were married on August 15, 1970, I'd guess we've been married 15 years or so. But nope, it's 40.

Since we spent our wedding night at the Snow Hill Motel, in Lincolnville, just up the road from Camden (with two elderly gentlemen sitting in the lawn chairs on the porch outside our room late into the night, exclaiming about the traffic "comin' up over the hill" on Route 1), we often go back to Camden on our anniversary.

We couldn't have chosen a prettier day to be there this year. As you can see from my photos, the sky was clear; what you can't see is that the temperature was just right.

I think Camden is my very favorite Maine coastal town. Maine has many pretty coastal towns: Kennebunkport, Ogunquit, Wiscasset, Boothbay Harbor, Rockport, Blue Hill, Bar Harbor...), but Camden is #1 on my list.

The plan yesterday was to arrive in Camden by late morning (It's a two-hour drive from our home.), visit some shops, sit on the public wharf and watch the harbor activity, then drive to the top of Mt. Battie in Camden Hills State Park for the spectacular view up and down the coast.

We went down to the wharf first, though, and our plans suddenly changed. As I ogled the many schooner and private yachts in the harbor, I mentioned casually, more to myself than to Ken, that sometime when we're in Camden, I'd like to take a boat cruise.

Ken got up, walked over to one of the schooner ticket sales tables, inquired about that ship's sailing schedule, came back to me, said "The Olad's next cruise is at 12:00 and there are two seats left. Want to do it?"

I actually hesitated for a minute, because this hadn't been part of the day's "agenda," but then I thought, what better time? What better weather?

Fifteen minutes later we were aboard the Olad, motoring out of the inner harbor before the first mate hoisted the sails and we were on our way.

It was a two-hour cruise among the islands in Penobscot Bay. We met several other sailboats, saw the Curtis Island Lighthouse, relaxed, and let the wind whip through our (thinning?) hair.

The captain and his first mate obviously enjoy their "job," if you want to call daily sailing trips a job. The first mate, Matthew, came to Maine originally to attend Bates College, graduated from there and went to San Francisco to work as a well-paid chemist. He hated that job because of the daily monotony, so this past spring he quit, applied to be first mate of the Olad, and loves what he's now doing.

The Olad was built in 1927, so she's no spring chicken. She's well taken care of, though. Each fall she's pulled from the water and every square inch of her is sanded and lacquered. This the captain does, and that part of schooner-ownership must surely be a job.

Once we got back to the harbor we drove to the top of Mt. Battie, then stopped for lobster rolls in Spruce Head, then fought the traffic on Route 1 all the way home.

It was a great day.

Sweet Tomato Relish/Ode to Fannie Farmer

I made four pints of Sweet Tomato Relish yesterday.

I hadn't made any relish in a year or two, due to lack of tomatoes in my garden, but this year I have a bumper crop, so I figured I could use a few green tomatoes for the relish.

I've used this particular relish recipe for probably 35 years. It comes from my beloved Fannie Farmer cookbook, the cookbook I bought my first year of teaching (1968) when I discovered, much to my horror and amazement, that I didn't know how to cook.

I'd grown up watching my mother cook and bake, day in and day out, and I'd forgotten to take note, I guess.

So I bought a Fannie Farmer cookbook, and it helped me stay alive those first years on my own.

I still use this cookbook a lot, although I have fancier and prettier ones now. But it's this one which contains the Sweet Tomato Relish recipe that I like, and the meatloaf recipe that Ken likes, and many other good, practical, no-frills-or-exotic-ingredients recipes.

I never think to buy mixed pickling spices, so I always have to mix my own and put them into a cheesecloth bag. The spices include celery seed, cinnamon sticks, ground mustard, whole cloves,...and the recipe for this comes from my Joy of Cooking book, which isn't nearly as old as my Fannie Farmer, but it's far from new, too.

The green tomatoes are chopped and put through a food grinder; onions and green peppers are added, then some sugar and salt. That's about it.

The mixture simmers for an hour or so, put into canning jars, processed in my small pressure cooker at 5 lbs. pressure for 10 minutes, and voila! A tasty relish for hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, or whatever floats your boat.

Meet the team: Laura, Aaron, and Larry

We were so pleased when my nephew Larry, an Air Force officer, was in Maine to visit his parents (my brother and sister-in-law) and said he'd like to come down to see us, too.

We hadn't seen Larry or his children for three years, so while Larry looked pretty much the same, his children had changed a lot.

This is Laura. She turned five in mid-July, and she starts school tomorrow. She loves animals, so she and our Molly immediately became close friends. She's also a gymnast and has been moved up to a class of 7- and 8-year-olds. I wish I could see her perform her gymnastic routines. I think it's great for young girls to take dance or gymnastics or swimming, etc., so they'll feel less self-conscious and more confident with their bodies as they mature.

Laura loves to spend as much time as possible outdoors. She and I had been outside wandering around, investigating this and that, and I decided it was time we went back inside to join the others. Laura looked crestfallen as she said, "But I wanted you to stay outside with me." That's all it took. She and I stayed outside and used sidewalk chalk to write and draw in the driveway.

She matter-of-factly wrote her name, for starters, then branched out to drawing faces.

Since I hadn't seen Larry's children in three years, I'm sure my jaw dropped when 11-year-old Aaron got out of their car. For a second I wasn't even sure this was Aaron! I couldn't imagine who else it would be, though, so I said, "Aaron?" and he replied. He had grown a foot taller in three years and is, as his father said, in that awkward "Do I want to be a kid, or do I want to be an adult?" stage.

Aaron loves music, has played the piano for several years, and now takes guitar lessons. He takes lessons on another musical instrument, too, but I've forgotten what it is. When he visited us in 2007, he startled me by asking if he could play our piano. I was startled because we don't have a piano. Then I realized he thought our roll-top desk must be a piano.

The thing that amazed me about these two children and their dad is that Larry's wife, their mom, is deployed to Iraq. She's been there since May and will return home "sometime in September." You might think this would result in insecure children and an over-extended husband/dad, but they are very calm and matter-of-fact about the situation. Lisa, their mom, can call home regularly and had, in fact, talked with Laura and Aaron in the car as Larry drove down to our house.

It's sad to think that Lisa won't be able to see her little girl on her first day of school tomorrow. Larry is up for the challenge, though, and I suspect things will go smoothly. He said he doesn't "do" pigtails but he can create a pretty amazing ponytail with Laura's long hair.

They flew from Maine back to Illinois today.

Aaron's not actually balancing a cushion on his head in the photo below. It just looks that way!

Metamorphosis

From this

To this

To this

To this

To this

in one swell foop.

How to Be Alone

This video is worth watching. It's a beautiful poem with a great reminder.

Vermont wrap-up and summer nemesis

I took the header photo one of the evenings of our recent Vermont excursion. I took it from the window of our hotel, the Hilton, which overlooks Lake Champlain.

The sunset was beautiful that evening, but I need to say a word or two about the Hilton. WAY OVERPRICED. Their usual room rate is $299 per night. We were able to take advantage (reluctantly, I must admit) of the conference rate of $199/night. I'd never stayed at a Hilton before, I don't think, and I wasn't happy to pay $199/night, but I thought we'd at least get a luxurious room and maybe even (dare I say it?) a breakfast buffet. Wrong. The room was small and basic, much like a room at a Holiday Inn or Comfort Inn, and breakfast was strictly on our own. And the hotel couldn't justify the rate by saying we were paying for a Lake Champlain view, since the ladies across the hall from us had a parking lot view and also paid $199/night. I suspect the conference planners took some heat for selecting the Hilton as our location. After all, we're an organization of teachers and retired teachers, and the last time I checked, teachers don't tend to be millionaires.

So, unless I come into a huge inheritance, which I don't foresee, I'll never again stay at the Burlington Hilton Hotel.

Now, on to yarn and Ben and Jerry's.

My friend Lynn and I knew we must, if at all possible, go to the Kaleidoscope Yarn Shop in nearby Essex Junction while at the Burlington conference. Our husbands were off on a full-day excursion of the islands in Lake Champlain, so if we were going to get to the yarn shop, it would have to be on our own. We pondered, looked at the busy conference schedule, and decided we might be able to squeeze in a quick trip to the yarn shop, by bus, after the sales tables closed (We had our chapter's sales table to oversee) and before the final banquet.

We mentioned this to two sorority sisters from another Maine chapter, and they quickly said, "Let US work at your sales table for you. We'll be happy to do that."

That's all we needed to hear. We dashed up the street to the bus station, bought our tickets, and headed to Essex Junction. Lynn had never seen this particular yarn shop before, and she loved it. She bought yarn for two baby car seat blankets; I bought yarn for an afghan for my living room sofa. We have a new Oriental rug, so I want the afghan to pick up the key colors of the rug. The sales clerk worked with me for a good half hour or more, selecting the colors from the digital photo of the rug, which I showed her on my camera.

We left the yarn shop pleased with our purchases and wishing we could have stayed there longer.

But it was time to head back to Burlington and, besides, it was now 3:30 p.m. and we hadn't had lunch.

We decided an ice cream cone at Ben and Jerry's would qualify as "lunch," so we sought out the shop on Burlington's Church Street. While looking at the list of ice cream flavors, my eye caught sight of something called the "Waffle Cone Special, $4.20." That sounded perfect. It looked like a large waffle cone filled with two scoops of ice cream.

Wrong. The Waffle Cone Special is a large waffle cone with two generous scoops of ice cream plus a topping choice chocolate, strawberry, or caramel sauce plus a large dollop of whipped cream plus a choice of sprinkles, M&M's or heaven knows what else. I chose the chocolate sauce and M&M's and I was one happy customer as I strolled out of the shop. As we walked back to the hotel, madly gulping down our ice cream, the sun was hot and a spirited breeze blew off Lake Champlain. Not a good combo when one is trying to consume a huge, melting ice cream. But I worked away at it and chatted with Lynn the entire distance.

I guess Lynn hadn't turned around to look at me behind her since we'd left Ben & Jerry's, because once she did, she burst out laughing and grabbed my camera. You might need to double-click on the top photo to get the full effect. I had to sneak through the hotel's front door and dash up to my 6th-floor room before anyone other than Lynn saw what a mess I was.

We left for home last Saturday morning, giving strict instructions to our chauffeur, Ken, that we wanted to stop at the King Arthur Flour Baker's Store and Café in Norwich, VT, on the New Hampshire border.
We grabbed shopping carts and had a great time browsing the shop for various baking ingredients and supplies. Lynn and I each bought some scone mixes, and I've already made the Blueberry/Sour Cream scones. To. Die. For.

We also had lunch at the Baker's Café, wonderful sandwiches on freshly-baked bread.

So that was our trip to Vermont. It was now time to return home and...check out my garden. I'd been away for almost four full days, and all manner of disasters can occur in a vegetable garden when one is away even one day, or even when one is home for the day.

I'd been thinking about the dreaded, dastardly tomato hornworm while in Vermont, but I consoled myself by saying it doesn't appear before mid-August. I'd forgotten that everything in the world of plant-growing and harvesting has been early in Maine this year. I went out to my two vegetable gardens and soon found tell-tale signs that the hornworms had blown into town: huge poop on the tomato plants' leaves and several branches stripped of their leaves. Although hornworms are huge (see photo of one I'm holding), finding them on a tomato plant is no easy task. They're perfectly color coordinated and simply don't stand out. As I scrutinized one plant with the unmistakeable tell-tale signs, I suddenly realized that a hornworm was sitting on a branch right at the end of my nose. My eyes crossed when I focused on the darned thing. The "horn," by the way, is on the tail-end of the beast. It's rather hard to tell, looking at the thing, which end is which.

My method-of-choice for getting hornworms out of my garden is the water-and-ammonia-in-a-jar technique. I simply pull the creatures (which are actually quite pretty when you study them objectively) from the tomato plant stems and drop them into the jar. Their little feet have suction cups, apparently, so getting them loose from the stems can be a bit of a tug-of-war.

I bagged three ginormous hornworms and one smaller hornworm and feel my hornworm hunting season was successful. My tomato plants are producing ripe tomatoes each day now, and I'll soon be happily canning several pints and quarts of tomatoes for next winter's soups, barring any future tomato plant disasters.

And while you may feel that dropping an innocent hornworm into a jar of water/ammonia is cruel, a friend sent me a link to a video of a gardener ridding his plants of hornworms...with scissors. He simply snips the creatures in half as they rest on the tomato stems. I don't think I could bring myself to do that.

So I've run the gamut here, from hotel rates to yarn shops to ice cream dribbled down my shirt, ...to hornworms. The End.

Strange coincidence

I've just spent the past four days in Burlington, Vermont, attending the Northeast Regional A∆K Convention. The city was beautiful, the weather was perfect, the convention was enjoyable although hectic.

Something strange happened at our final night's banquet, though, that made the convention especially memorable and kind of, well, weird.

We 250 attendees were assigned at random to tables set for eight or ten. My table number on my banquet ticket said "23," so I promptly made my way to table 23 in the huge banquet hall. I was the first to arrive at that table.

Soon a lady arrived and sat on my right. We introduced ourselves. She told me her name is Margaret. I said I've always liked that name and, in fact, have a niece named Margaret. She went on to tell me her name is an old family name: her grandmother was Margaret, her mother was Margaret, even her mother-in-law was Margaret.

Then the lady who would sit to my left arrived. She said her name is Elaine. I said I"d easily remember her name because my best friend, K through 12, is named Elaine.

The official photographer for the convention arrived at our table once it was fully seated. After the photographer had snapped a group, she passed around a sheet of paper for us to sign, so the photo would have the proper names attached to it.

(Meanwhile, Margaret, realizing she was actually assigned table #22, not 23, ditched us and left in search of her correct table. The tables were not arranged in chronological order, which made Margaret's task that much harder, I'm sure.)

The paper was passed around the table. Finally it reached Elaine, to my left. She signed her first and last name, then passed the paper to me.

I gasped. Elaine had written "Elaine Spencer."

Elaine Spencer was the first and last name of my best friend, K through 12.

I've owed the childhood friend Elaine an e-mail since April. I can't wait to tell her I sat next to her, or a lady claiming to be her, at the A∆K banquet!