apple acres

it's that apple acres time of year again. zoë and i took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday (midway in a rainy week) and drove to south hiram for some hot cider and macouns. we sat there a long time just listening to the wind rustling the leaves and looking out at the rolling hills. then we drove home with a half dozen apple cider donuts for mark and isaac.*

*his boat arrived on schedule, and his movie screening went beautifully. my dad even made the drive from cambridge for a slice of otto pizza and the film festival! mark is now returning isaac to the morning boat.

sail through this to that

isaac is off on a kayaking/island living adventure this week with his school's freshman class. mark dropped him off this morning at the maine state pier, where we will pick him up friday evening. i predict he'll be wet and dirty.

he had kind of a terrible conflict, though; a few of his short films are going to be included in rated local, a screening of short works by maine filmmakers at the nickelodeon on wednesday. you know what's great? rippleffect, which is running the trip, is going to bring him back by boat on wednesday evening in time to get to the screening, and then pick him up again on thursday morning, so he'll hardly miss any time on the island!

here, you can watch the trailer -- look for a glimpse of isaac in a rabbit costume (sans head), getting shot while wielding a knife:

would you care for a beverage?

i don't know which one looks best -- you know how good pennywort drink tastes when you're really thirsty! but then again, there's nothing like a big swig of grass jelly drink (especially banana flavor).*

*this photo snapped in my very favorite aisle at hannaford.

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.

a love that won't be stopped

zoë's new hindi book looks awesome.

hey, did i mention the perks that come with her barista job? she brings home a pound of coffee every week, and most days she also obtains a copy of the new york times! she is not going to miss this job too much when she leaves for india, but i sure am.

the stars are his teeth

i have been to the pediatric dentist three times this week. the second time, i took this boy (seen below reading a berenstain bears book in the waiting room).

to get his braces snipped off!

unfortunately, the process also involves a semi-permanent retainer on his bottom teeth (zoë still has hers; it's to prevent the bottom teeth from going all crookedy as they are wont to do), and a temporary clear top retainer (also known as an ubby gubby, and i have my fingers crossed that minnow doesn't eat this one). next month he'll get the longer term real retainer, which he is pretty annoyed about.

i tried to get him to smile for some pictures, but he grabbed my phone and did some self portraits instead.

one of the stars has been lost

zoë and i had every intention of meditating this morning, but instead our feet took us on a long walk, and then to bard for a leisurely game of scrabble.

(she beat me.)

and then we made our way up the hill to say goodbye to the north star cafe, which is closing tonight for the final time.

it's sad to see it go -- such a lovely, comfortable, neighborhoody spot. we each had a melancholy cup of soup.

the inexorable sadness of pencils

there are many pairs of scissors in my life. i have been spending some quality time with them lately.

the dancer and i meditated with the buddhists last night and then visited zoë at work. i was so impressed: she looks just like a real barista! and she made me something very delicious (off the menu) to drink.

i've been "playing tennis" a little bit lately, with zoë and david m. and my leaping boy.

he could've been a ballet dancer if he wanted to.

sweetie

you know how you think
someone's crazy until you
meet her sister? yeah.

block party

space gallery hosted a block party last night on and off congress street, and it was pretty wonderful. the highlight was a steam roller making giant woodblock prints on oak street.

steamroller!

giant woodblock:

it was gratifyingly amazing to watch, and even better was the reaction of the surrounding crowd, which would collectively cheer and applaud every time the steam roller rolled over the blocks, and then again when each finished print was peeled up off its block and revealed. portland felt like the perfect little city last night.

there were other festivities: crazily quilted quilts, a band that was reputed to be brazillian (and whose keyboardist looked just like peggy olson from mad men), a giant office photobooth by nathan, veggie hotdogs with saurkraut and brown mustard from the baja dogs food cart, kids building towers of huge blocks and knocking them down (on 9/11. very disturbing to some of us), and finally, some dancing in the street by my boy and some friends:

my apologies for the tininess of that video. i clearly need to remember to film things in landscape (i.e. sideways). still, he's got the moves, doesn't he?

cheap date

zoë and i decided to check out whaddapita! today (oh how i hate the name. i can barely even stand to type it i hate it so much*), purely on the basis of its proximity to our oakdale 'hood and the fact that i had reason to believe that there were under-five-dollar options to be had there.





















it was true: zoë chose the zucchini vegetarian pita sandwich and i got the feta version. they are small-to-medium-sized pita wraps and they cost a mere $3.95. i did observe other diners buying two for lunch, and if you were really hungry you might want more than one (or perhaps a side order of fries or fritters or dolmades), but we thought they were kind of the perfect size. the pita bread is not grocery store pita, nor is it authentic homemade pita, but it is soft and puffy and pretty tasty. the vegetarian sandwiches are stuffed with zucchini fritters (or feta), tomatoes, red onion, creamy sauce and french fries. the only vegan options that i could see were a hummus pita sandwich or (for an extra dollar, for some reason) hummus with grilled pita bread. though i bet you could order one of the saucy wraps without the sauce (which i'm guessing involves yogurt).

it was nice to sit outside, even beside not-so-lovely forest avenue, and i was happy for the many usm students i spotted there, as there aren't too many options for interesting food close to the portland campus. there were many friendly people working there (nine that i could see, which seemed like about five too many). i am happy to have another five-dollars-and-under meal option to add to my (short) list. and they're open until ten p.m. every day!


*and can someone explain to me why their website's domain is "wrinkledpuppy.com"?

first day of school

yesterday i cried a little listening to this story about kids going off to college. i think it was because it was this kid's first day of high school. and he's my baby.

the sky was so strange after that.

too hot the eye of heaven shines

it's so boring to complain about the heat, particularly in maine where we get about seven truly hot days in an entire year. last week was the first official heat wave of the twenty first century here, though, so that's worth noting. maybe. there were a couple of days when i wouldn't even let zoë the walker-all-over-town go outside, because the air was bad (i heard on the radio). but mostly we were intrepid and marched down to the library many times, where we sweated copiously in the air conditioning. this bank clock exaggerates, but still.

below, the feet of my companion. we usually also obtained an iced coffee at arabica or bard once we got downtown.





















she's started training at her new job, but she had yesterday off so we drove up to freeport to take a long walk at our old favorite, wolfe's neck state park.

it was hazy and sticky, but cooler. we saw the most amazing bird, which we figured out later was a pileated woodpecker: it was huge, crow-sized, black and white with a fabulous bright red head. we stood there watching it peck a tree for at least five minutes, it was so gorgeous.

we drove up to brunswick after that, grabbed delicious three dollar grilled vegetable tacos from lola's taqueria cart (WHY doesn't portland have a taco cart? why doesn't portland have more under-five-dollar options for food in general?), and headed over to nest to visit my great friend emily.

this place is amazing; zoë and i could see the emily aesthetic all over the store, which is full of birds, mushrooms, rabbits, flowers, beautiful handmade things, gorgeous designs and fabrics... i haven't coveted so many things i don't need in a long time. like these bird shadowboxes:

i should have taken more photos there, but i was overwhelmed by it all. after chatting with her for a while, we stopped for iced coffee at gelato fiasco (recommended by emily), where we were also forced to share a dish of caramel sea salt gelato because it sounded so good (note: it was). before heading home, we stopped at estilo consignment shop (zoë got two silk scarves for a dollar), and the topsham goodwill (i got a red and white striped messenger bag for seven dollars). what a great day with my girl! she is so itchy to get going on her travels, but i am absolutely in love with this bonus time i get to spend with her.

cool off

here's today's tip for staying cool: listen to this song while eating slices of cucumber.

rabbit rabbit

try to remember the kind of september when life was slow and oh so mellow.