Us: We are going to the Bookstore! Do you guys want to come?
Children: NO! (They didn’t even look up from their computers.)
Us: If you’re sneaky, you may get to see your Christmas presents!
Beta: I don’t want to see them. If I do, they’ll turn into underwear!
Us:
Beta: I know that’s not true, but I don’t want to risk it.
Category: Family
Pimples
[The kids are making pancakes and watching them cook]
Alpha: Ugh, they look like pimples
Beta: No, they look like zits because they pop!
Maine 2015
Backstory: a long time ago as the ice sheets from the latest ice age slowly receded, an island was carved out of the Maine coastline. My father purchased a few acres of land shortly before humans showed up in North America to jack up the prices, intending to build a vacation home when modern building methods were developed.
A house never materialized but we made annual treks to the island, called Islesboro, for years while I was growing up. After my parents lost interest, I occasionally went there on my own to go camping until finally I, too, got busy with life and stopped going.
Fast-forward a couple of decades, to last Sunday night in fact. Meghan and I got to talking and we realized that we’re really only a short drive away from Islesboro nowadays– only about 3 ½ hours from door-to-ferry slip. Why don’t we go? So we booked a room for Friday night and started rearranging our schedules.
A little more backstory: When I used to go up by myself, I generally spent a my first night at a little motel on the mainland, just a mile from the ferry slip. This motel was about as bare-bones as you can get: little cabins with a clean bed and a shower, and if I recall correctly it was about $25 / night back then. They family that owned it made you breakfast in the morning (Best blueberry pancakes I’ve ever had.)
The hotel is still there, under new ownership and a new name but still relatively inexpensive – and still clean and comfortable. They also accept dogs, so we could bring Butter instead of trying to board her on short notice.
We left mid-day Friday, after I finished up my tasks and morning meetings at work — my employer offers some scheduling flexibility and I put in a number of extra hours over the course of the week to make sure my promised deliverables were deliverable (I have to explicitly mention this since some of my co-workers may actually read this blog).
The trip was rainy as hell on the way up. We detoured into Freeport to visit the LL Bean store — even if you’ve been to a L. L. Bean store, it’s not as big as the L. L. Bean store. The girl-folk went inside to procure winter jackets for the kids, while I took a nap in the car and walked Butter around in between squalls. (Did I mention I’ve been staying up late all week to get stuff done?)
We arrived in Lincolnville around 5:30 pm. The rain was still coming down and occasionally pouring, but the breaks were getting longer. After settling into our room, and letting everyone (including Butter) stretch their legs a bit, we headed back up to the road to downtown Camden in search of dinner.
We found a nice tavern, away from the main drag, called the Smokestack Grill. Not much ambiance inside — it looks a bit like a sports bar with large TVs over the bar — but the building is an old mill so there’s architectural interest. I had a jalapeño cream cheese and bacon burger, Meghan had calamari, and the girls split a fried shrimp dinner. The bill was quite reasonable, our server was attentive and friendly, and the food was delicious. Butter, sadly, stayed in the car and waited for us.
Afterwards we went back to our room and got ready for bed – except me, I stayed up until the rain stopped so Butter could get in a short walk — she is a princess and doesn’t like to get wet, and sleeping in close quarters with a wet dog is not high on my list of things to do. I didn’t have to wait too long, and we were all in bed early. There’s something about travelling that just makes you tired, even if you’re sitting in the car all day.
Saturday morning was sunny but really breezy and chilly. The kids were divided on whether or not to go to the island, so I cast the deciding vote: no, the seas are rough and I don’t want to spend $70 to have two seasick kids and a sick dog – we’ll come back for that. Lets go do something else this time.
Right up the road, between the motel and downtown Camden, is a state park called Camden Hills State Park / Mt. Battie. We drove in, paid our fee, found a place to park, and went hiking up the ‘Tablelands Trail.’ It takes you right up to one of the peaks, which overlooks both the Penobscot Bay and downtown Camden, from nearly 800 feet up.
After playing around on the peak for while, and after the clouds started playing peek-a-boo with the sun, we headed back down to find some hot chocolate in Camden to warm us up. The breeze was making us chilly even when we were ascending on the trail, so without the sun we got downright cold.
Camden starts to shut down before October, so while a majority of shops were still open there were a few that have already closed for the season. We window-shopped and walked around downtown for an hour, and hit the road for one last stop down Route 1.
For whatever faults the Maine prison system may have, they maintain an intriguing program of teaching trades to prisoners, including woodworking. The finished products are then sold to the public.
I’ve been stopping at the Prison Store in Thomaston for as long as I’ve been going to Maine. The last time I was there was in 2001, and the store was still attached to a working prison; in 2002 the prison was closed and subsequently torn down, but the store remains.
Unsurprisingly, we came out with some gifts for family and a few things for ourselves.
After Thomaston, we made a bee-line for Bath (home of the BFC – Big Friggen Crane – at the Bath Iron Works) and the interstates so that we would be home in time to make dinner.
All in all, it was a fun little jaunt, even if we didn’t actually step foot on the island. Next time I think I’ll try to just take the day off instead of squeezing five days worth of work into four.
Hot Chocolate
[Scene: I’m standing on a rocky ledge with both girls and Butter the dog. Meghan is above the ledge, refusing to come down to meet us.]
Me: You could be down here with your daughters and husband and dog.
Beta: That’s better than hot chocolate!
Alpha: Well… Hot chocolate is actually pretty good…
American Chop Suey
American Chop Suey is Meghan’s comfort food. It’s quick to cook so I can generally make it on short notice, when I know she’s had a really bad day.
The instructions below are meant for multi-tasking and making everything come together at the right time — an expression of an unplanned dinner made on short notice. 🙂
Ingredients
- 1 pound of small-shape pasta (elbows, mini-shells, or rotini are all good)
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 large green bell pepper, diced
- 2-5 cloves of garlic
- 1 jar spaghetti sauce, 15 oz or so, depends on how saucy you like it
- 1 or 2 cups shredded mozzarella
- olive oil
You’ll also need a large skillet and a 9×13 glass pan to go in the oven.
Steps
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Put on a pot of water to boil, and put on a large skillet on the stove with medium-low heat
- Dice onion and pepper
- When the water is very close to boiling, turn up the skillet to medium heat, add some oil, and throw in the onions and peppers
- When the water boils, add the hamburger to the skillet and brown it with the onions and peppers
- Put the pasta in the water and cook to al dente; strain. If the meat isn’t done yet, toss with a little oil to keep it from sticking.
- When the meat is brown, drain off the fat and mix in the jar of sauce. Put back on medium heat until the sauce starts to bubble.
- Pour the cooked pasta into the 9×13 pan, and stir in the meat sauce.
- Sprinkle (or if you’re like me, shovel) the cheese on top, cover with foil, and cook at 350° for 20 minutes
Magnus Chase
Alpha and Beta have been following the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan almost since the books first came out.
To kick off the latest series, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Mr. Riordan hosted a Q&A / talk in downtown Boston that Meghan and the girls attended. They got signed copies of the book, and some swag, to boot.
When I went to pick them up, there was no question I was in the right spot: as I watched, a sudden stream of very happy people holding ‘Magnus Chase’ foam shields appeared on the side walk. The event was sold out and the auditorium was standing-room-only.
Yet Another Eclipse Pic
A total lunar eclipse isn’t that rare, but one with perfectly clear skies is. We let the kids stay up until 10:30 (on a school night, no less!) to watch the moon get swallowed.
Star gazing is so much more stylish in a convertible so we drove down to the lake and bundled up under blankets with the top down.
Cold night, was about 50° F when we drove home.
Uncle Peter’s 80th Birthday
Not many words this time, just a photo montage.
My uncle Peter is turning 80, so of course there was a bash thrown in his honour. We came down from Massachusetts but our trip was minuscule compared to my uncle Curt and aunt Vera, who drove (drove!) all the way from California. They’re making a road trip of it, though, and taking their time getting back 🙂
In addition to Curt and Vera, the entire Eastern Jones Clan represented – nineteen people in all. We don’t do this enough, and as Kennon said, “This is the first time we’ve eaten someplace that doesn’t have napkin dispensers on the tables in like five years.”
Happy birthday, Uncle Peter! I’m sorry that I didn’t include twenty bucks with your birthday card — you know, returning the favor.
Our excellent dinner was at the Harbor House (Google Maps).
Storrs Adventure Park
Zip lines are fun.
We spent the day with our very good friends Sam and Joanne, and their child who will be identified in this blog as Mu. The kids all grew up together so they enjoy meeting up too.
In our absence, something new sprouted up in Storrs that Sam and Joanne wanted to show us: The Adventure Park. It’s an aerial park – meaning that you spend your time up in the trees. There are several courses of varying difficulty to choose from.
In order to climb, you’re strapped into a harness similar to a rock climber’s, with a couple of integrated carabiners and a zipline pulley. The carabiners can be locked-closed, and are linked via cable. In order to unlock one, you must lock the other, and the mechanism to unlock is built into the safety lines that guide you through the course – so you must always be clipped in. Once you start the course, you cannot get into a situation where you’re not clipped to a guideline or tether until you reach the end — very safe and difficult to screw up accidentally or intentionally.
The courses include a mixture of obstacles, ziplines, and lengths of high-wire dare-devilry. The staff is watchful and makes sure everyone is conducting themselves appropriately, as some bits can be a bit challenging. There is one course that, we are told, active-duty Marines have trouble with.
Sadly, I did not bring appropriate footwear. Flip-flops are verboten so I could not climb. The girls scrambled up without a second thought, however, and left me to take photos. I’m very proud of them! They handled themselves with grace, and without fear — even when they were forty or fifty feet off the ground and traversing a span like a tight-rope walker.
The park itself is remarkable. The trees are carefully trussed to hold up platforms and guide-wires with minimal damage — nothing is nailed in, instead the cables are wrapped and tied, and the platforms are help up with wedges to provide friction fits. Their business model works best when people feel comfortable that the space will not be damaged, so nature preserves and landowners will allow them to set up installations confident that the impact will be minimal.
Both girls ran into a bit of trouble right at the very end on some obstacles that were wreaking havoc with everyone else, too — a staff member was already up in the trees, having just helped extract the previous victim, and was on-hand to help. The obstacles were upright-‘L’ shaped logs that didn’t behave well when stepped on. The girls made me proud by keeping their heads, trying to extricate themselves before asking for help, and actively assisted in their rescue (rather than some other people, who just glumly hung there while getting pulled to the next platform).
We stayed and let the kids weave through the courses for a couple of hours, until the shadows started getting long and we had to start planning for dinner on the road. All in all, it was expensive ($70 for the two kids) but well worth it.
In Memory of Oolong
One of our cats died in our arms last night.
Oolong came to us as a kitten in a box almost 12 years ago, and Meghan took her in promising to find her a home. We were new parents ourselves, and not in a great position to feed yet another mouth, but after I got home and met her we decided to keep her.
She got her name because she was the color of pewter – like a colonial teapot. Besides her color she was remarkable for another reason: she didn’t much like human contact. As time passed only a few humans besides ourselves ever saw her. We had other cats, but Oolong was like a ghost.
Her kittenish hair grew out into long, fine, pewter-gray fur — bunny fur, as one person described it. She had lion’s mane around her neck, and a duster for a tail. Gray fur poked out from between the bottoms of her toes and a good brushing would leave enough fur to make a new cat.
She did acclimate to our house in Willimantic, and quietly became an indoor/outdoor cat. During the summer months we would sit on the front steps and, if the street was quiet and we were quiet and Oolong was feeling particularly social, we would be granted the pleasure of her nervous presence. During the winter she would live primarily in the basement during the day and come up to sleep on our bed at night — stealing away in the gloom of early morning.
After we moved north, our cats became strictly indoor cats: Mel because he has FIV now, and Oolong because we were worried that she would get lost. She was very afraid of the the dog, so her world shrank to just the upstairs of our house — three bedrooms and a bathroom.
This new living arrangement gave us a new cat. The formerly shy, quiet, anxious kitty that we had known for a decade quickly became a loving, chatty, snuggly cat that demanded attention and talked to me in the morning. Rather than chafing at her restricted living quarters she thrived. I really think she could relax for the first time in her life.
We noticed one day in 2013 that she was getting very thin — much too thin for the time of year. She didn’t show signs of stress, but she was getting downright boney to the touch. We took Oolie to the vet’s office, where they ran scans, scratched their heads, and suggested various medications. Her weight loss continued so we found a new vet, who ran more scans and pinpointed the problem immediately: her liver was failing. Her skin was orange, her eyes yellowing, classic jaundice. Her liver was swollen. He predicted six months to live, but prescribed daily vitamins that would support her liver in the meantime.
Pilling the cat became a daily ritual called “Mommy’s psycho time” where Meghan would (apparently) lose her mind and shove pills down Oolong’s throat. After waiting a prescribed hour to make sure the vitamins were absorbed, we would feed her and psycho time would be over for the day.
The first evening after the first morning, Oolong demanded love from me as usual — but wouldn’t come near Meghan. We quickly decided that only one of us would betray her tiny trust, so that she would always have someone to feel safe with. Eventually she would trust Meghan as soon as the pill was swallowed.
When one knows that time is limited, you quickly learn to make the most of it. We endeavoured to make her final months as pleasant and filled with love as possible. Our cat’s new-found personality found this quite agreeable.
Our nightly ritual began shortly before I climbed into bed: Oolong followed me through my bedtime routine, chatting at me to get into bed so she could demand love. No matter what else was in store for the night, life would stop so that she could be nuzzled, petted, scratched, and snuggled until she was done. In winter she would play cave cat under the covers.
We would maintain this nightly ritual for nearly two years — a year and a half longer than predicted.
Her end took a surprising turn. We expected a short period of listlessness, absent appetite, vomiting, and confusion from liver toxicity. Instead, she died from something different: a blood clot.
We are no stranger to blood clots in cats. Years ago we had Baker, so-named because he was a powerful kneader, and who’s heart mummer led to a blood clot that temporarily paralysed his hind quarters. We gave him aspirin for six months, hoping to avoid recurrence and educating ourselves on what to do. The best that medical science can offer is very little and the prognosis is universally poor. When Baker suffered another, more severe blood clot, we had to make a hard decision.
We have been saying goodbye to Oolong for nearly two years now, knowing that any night could be her last, but we didn’t expect her end to come this way. Oolong’s blood clot similarly affected her hind quarters, but with her weakened condition there was little the veterinarian could do to help except to make her more comfortable.
We sat in the exam room and said our final good-byes as she passed. The kids were away on a trip and didn’t know until afterwards; there was no time to tell them, it all happened so fast.
She will be missed.
