48 hours in Rockland

Thursday I took the morning off from work to take care of a few errands that need to be done during the work day.  First, I went to the DMV to (finally) get my Maine driver's license.  The office opens at 8:00 a.m.  We (David was with me, having the day off of work) arrived at about 7:55.  There were 3 other cars in the lot.  I was first at the door, and the number machine gave me number 001.  Within 3-4 minutes I was called to the counter.  Turns out I forgot to bring a second form of identification, so I had to go back home and get my birth certificate.  The DMV clerk signed my number 001 so I could come right back up when I returned.  Ten minutes later I was back with the birth certificate.  We went through the various forms.  Then she told me that unfortunately she wouldn't be able to complete my application at that time because their camera was "down."  It turned out to be "system wide" which meant it was a priority for Maine IT to fix.  She took my phone number and said she'd call me when it was fixed.

David and I went had breakfast at our favorite local cafe, went to the post office, where I had to wait in line behind two persons (the first who couldn't get it through his head that if he lives on Main Street in Rockport and has a house with an in-law apartment - #41 and #61a - he does NOT need to fill out a request to establish a Rural Route delivery in order to have mail delivered to the in-law apartment).  After the PO, we went to the vet's office so I could buy heart worm and anti-flea and tick meds for Ella.  Back home to a message from the DMV woman. Camera fixed.

I went back to the DMV, waited about 3 minutes for the clerk to finish serving another customer, and then went right up.  My photo was taken and I received a temporary license.   Done.  A typical example of what "bureaucracy" means in Maine.

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8:00 p.m., I take Ella for her evening walk.  It's raining, it's been raining almost all day, off and on.  Grey and pretty dreary, but cool.  Ella is doing her normal Cat Scanning, Squirrel Scanning action, but there's not a lot of targets, in fact none, as I guess all creatures are hunkered down wherever they can get out of the rain.  Suddenly as we pass a parked car, Ella stops, and then Zap!  A cat springs out from under the car and it and Ella face off.  It's a fairly small, normal seeming black and white cat.  I don't recall if it's a cat we've seen before (Ella and I know almost ALL of the cats in our neighborhood).  It does its arch-the-back and hissssss! thing.  

I'm holding Ella back.  She thinks she'd like to grab it by its little scrawny black and white neck and toss it around, but...   I start pulling Ella back, thinking that as we move away, the cat's back will lower and it will slink off.  But  no, that's not what happens.  The cat moves forward, toward us.  Of course, that makes Ella more interested.  It's a challenge!  Even more determined to rip its little head off, Ella strains at the leash.  I pull her back and start pulling her down the street.  The cat keeps coming toward us, it's chasing us, the little sucker.  An 8 pound pissed off cat is chasing a 74 pound dog and a woman down the street! 

The cat is not afraid of us, but truth be told, I'm a little afraid of it.  It looks crazed, like a cat gone mad.  I have a sudden thought - rabies!  I slap out toward it (not actually trying to hit it) with Ella's leash.  Doesn't phase it.  The cat keeps coming after us, and ends up chasing us 20+ yards down the street.  I'm laughing out loud, Ella is pulling back, wants to take on the little tough beast and best it, but I'm not a little freaked out.  Chased down the street by a cat???  

We turn the corner and I make Ella pass the next street because I'm thinking, what if the cat cuts through the back yards between its street and this one and comes after us.  Okay, I admit it's a stretch, that that cat chased us!  So we go a couple streets up and then turn back toward home.  Done.


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Next day, 5:00 p.m., David's home, I'm taking a break to start dinner before going back to work for a couple of hours, when there is a "thud" sound at the window that looks out on our little back "deck."  "What was that?" David asks.  I don't know.  He goes and opens the back door, "It's a bird," he calls.  I go to see.  It's a baby, most likely some kind of sparrow, tiny.  It must have flown into the window.  It looks dazed, but definitely alive, kind of standing with legs spread apart, the way a toddler does when he or she is learning to stand up, shaky but determined.  

I come in the house to get a little bird seed to put on the deck for it.  When I come back with the seed, it must see me and it flutters its little wings, rises wobbly into the air, lands on the edging of the window on the back door, which is still half open.  I have a sudden vision of trying to catch a baby sparrow flying around our house, and I move to pull the door shut before it flies INTO the house.  It takes off and flies up and into the thicket of trees in our back yard.  Go, baby, go!  Grow up, be well, thrive and come dine at our feeders!  Done.

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48 hours in Rockland.

Peace.

Summertime, and the living is...

Hot, humid summer weather - but usually with a breeze by late afternoon, early evening.  This past weekend included Friday day Kabalat Shabbat services and dinner at the synagogue, Saturday morning services and lunch at the synagogue.  Both Saturday and Sunday evenings, after David got home from work, we went to the North Atlantic Blues Festival in Rockland.  We sat on lawn chairs with six or eight thousand other people down at Rockland Harbor and listened to heart-felt music.  We learned about a good organization called "Raise the Blues" which works to get music and musical instruments into the hands of kids with problems - physical, social, and otherwise.  

I also worked in the yard and garden Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning - watered the garden, mowed the grass, weeded, put in some new annuals. We have baby cucumbers and tomatoes!  We're still waiting for the peppers, but I think I see buds.  And our carrots are coming up.

First cucumber! 

Heirloom tomatoes.

This Friday evening is the "open mike" poetry reading at Bell the Cat in Belfast.  I hope I have the courage not just to attend, but to read a few poems. 

Meanwhile, American Goldfinches came to eat at the refilled feeder :

All in all, a real summertime weekend in Midcoast Maine.

Except learning that George Zimmerman was found "not guilty".  What a world we live in - oh, wait, that statement no longer includes Trayvon Martin, does it?  Well, what should we do about it?  

I'm trying to keep in mind that while it is not my personal, individual responsibility to "solve" the world's problems, neither am I free to ignore them.

Peace.

Of Schooners and things

Friday afternoon there was a schooner race from Camden or Rockport down to Freeport, passing by Rockland.  I didn't get to the breakwater early enough to get the best photos but here's what I did get:

 The field passing by, low tide at the breakwater in the foreground

3 masted schooner passing Owl's Head Lighthouse

3 masted schooner passing the Rockland Breakwater Light








Yesterday afternoon and this afternoon there are "schooner open houses" and it is possible to "tour" several of the schooners at their docks.  We hope to do that here in Rockland this afternoon, after helping prep and serve at the soup kitchen.

Yesterday we went kayaking from South Bristol with a group organized by the Pemaquid Watershed Association paddlers - out in the ocean and around a small island, where we stopped and had lunch.  As we launched, I spied a luna moth that appeared to be dead, floating in the water.  I fished it out of the water with my paddle and layed it on the deck of my kayak.  Gradually in the warm sun, its wings and antenna dried and it began to move.  It wasn't dead.  Meanwhile we paddled further and further from shore out toward the island.  By the time we closed in on the island, it was crawling all around the desk of my kayak, my water bottle, my hand.  When we landed on the island for lunch, I carried it up to the vegetation and released it  I hope it lived.

A beautiful - if very warm - day yesterday.  Promising to be the same today.

Thinking of Bradley Manning in solitary confinement, facing life imprisonment, even death, not seeing schooners on the wide blue sea.  Remembering Daniel Elsberg.  Trying to imagine me in his/their place....

Peace.