Mary's Birthday

Happy Birthday!

For those of you born on this day, you will come to riches and be of good cheer.  Your home is your castle.  Your friends love you.

We have a neighbor who was not born on this day.  He runs a very loud pump without a muffler,

irrigating his nursery plants in the back acreage.

Research indicates our town has a noise ordinance, so an inquiry to the clerk at the town hall directed me to call the police. The pump became much quieter half an hour after the call.  Peace and conditional love return.

Six six eleven

The day began with a walk on the taxiway at the airport.

Then it proceeded to the weigh-in where I managed to score a key chain in the shape of a 10 for losing 10% of my weight. I immediately declared a carbohydrate-loading day, eating pastries, M&Ms peanuts, ice cream, foccacia cheese bread, potato chips, potatoes, a turkey sandwich and a banana smoothie.

Then it was lawn mowing followed by admiration afternoon, with the subjects of Clematis in the shade

and Daisy with the daisies that escaped the mower.

Jun 5

The day lilies are blooming!

The day lilies are blooming!

Whenever they bloom it makes me feel grateful to see them again, like old friends.

The old boat required CPR to get it from the launch to the dock, with continuous hand-pumping of fuel from the tank to the motor to keep it running.  Now, docked in view of the day lilies, maybe it will maintain its own pulse the next time it's started.

Jun 4

Opening the eyes this morning was like swimming under water and looking up towards the surface.  Wavery, shimmery like a desert mirage, otherworldly. 
Cataracts, the reasoning brain says.
Sluggish circulation, says the sleepy heart.
Transcendence, clarifies the haughty soul.
Clarify butter, orders the imperious cook.
Mmmm, butter, whispers the body to the good ear.
I push out of bed, leave all the voices in the bedclothes, and sing to the sun.

"...another sleepy, dusty delta day"

Pepper Power reminds me of my first homicide site visit with the Medical Examiner's office in Vermont.  The victim's bicycle was leaning against a three-foot wide pine where she must have gotten off to admire the view of the waterfall cascading down into the brook about 300 feet above the trailhead.  The roar of the water drowned out our voices and we had shout to each other what must have happened.  The perp grabbed her here by her necklace, drug her over there off the trail, see, you can follow the heel marks, and then covered her with leaves there.

One of the female attending physicians gave me a Mace cannister that night, and for a month I carried it when getting out of my locked car, running in darkness to the locked door of the solitary country house, fumbling with the keys.  After a month I put the Mace away in a box and purposely decided it was more calming to imagine the house surrounded by a beautiful protective light than to see attackers behind every tree.  Perhaps the new Pepper Power has already joined the old Mace cannister in the basement boxes.  It only took a day or two this time.  Progress!

And the moral is: Ahimsa pratishthayam tat samnidhau vaira tyagah.  In the presence of one practiced in nonviolence, all hostilities cease.

Jun 2

An eerie yellow-green sky last night accompanied by tornado watch and surrounding storm cells made the red Japanese maple and blooming rhododendron an unusually vivid scene at 8:30 PM, when it should have been darker.  What strange creature was about to emerge from the bushes?  Was it a glowing three-headed troll?  Or a winged and haloed angel?  Or an obtuse white angle?
Miracle of miracles, the storms passed, the air cooled and dried, and the sun rose this morning.

Rabbit Rabbit

There is nothing so rare as a day in June.

Whether up close and personal like this Chippie at the lakeside, already foraging seeds for her family, or

distant views of the Songo Locks that can fit at least 3 boats at a time to ease the transport from the Songo River to the Brandy Pond outlet,

may your June be spectacularly beautiful.

Trad Mem Day

Rummaging in the suitcase for summer clothes, I came across a fleece earwarmer and sweatpants.  In less than 2 weeks we have gone from fleece-cold to bug-hot.

We straightened the dock made crooked by winter ice and wind and found the water to be comfortable to warm.  And as a reward for successful dock work, we flew to the Seaplane base just above Gulf Island Pond to get airplane fuel.

The Gulf Island dam on the Androscoggin River spills the runoff of wet April and May from the mountains to the northwest.  The airplane spills the Social Security runoff.

Mem Day

In honor of Memorial Day I am reading Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer about "the art and science of remembering everything", and a "subculture of competitive memorizers".  Reminds me of medical school.

Our neighbors had a minidisplay of fireworks, a part of which I captured by video when I finally remembered where the camera phone was.

 The Lady Slippers are sneakily blooming in a patch above the lake house.  They and a million mosquitoes.

Happy Memorial Day

Thanks for the memories.

May 29

From Creepy to Home.

Yesterday I ran on the Mountain Division Trail that leads from Sebago Lake to Portland for more than 12 miles.  After a mile or so, the path went from paved to rocky to creepy on the back side of abandoned industrial buildings with busted windows and dark shadows beneath boarded doors and loading docks.

After one block of dangerous, dangerous, dangerous reverberating in my psyche, I turned around and ran back. Dangerous in Maine?  Come on!
At home the phone/DSL man was replacing something that was wet and kept interrupting the internet at inopportune times.

His bucket truck was a handy thing, worth coveting.

When he was done, he drove off, and I walked down the stairs to an airplane waiting on a more welcoming dock.

May 28

My favorite places are those where someone has purposely cultivated beauty, but anonymously.  Like tulips on the corner, or a lilac bush along the fence row.

The shopping adventure was successful except for the red bra.  No red for this summer season to come.  But the turquoises were sparkly.

At Cabela's I stood in line with my bug dope and the man in front of me was buying a nice fish pole and carrier on sale.  Too bad my hiking buddies quit fishing.  Last year on the trail those wild trout were mighty tasty.  Less than six weeks to a train trek north of Durango, jumping off the train and hike, hike, hiking.  Sssweeet!

May 27

The adventure of the day will be driving into Portland for a WW meeting, book shopping at Borders, red bra shopping at Vicky's and bug dope shopping at Cabela's in Scarborough.  That, a good chicken salad sandwich, and a martini should get me through the day adventurously.
But wait!  I've done all these things before.  The point of adventure is the newness, the freshness, the never-done-beforeness.  Okay, I'll do the above wearing nose glasses.

No.  Being adventurous does not necessarily mean being ridiculous too.

First Do No Harm

This morning's contemplation involved focus on things one loves to hate; the rafter who hit every rock in the river by his focus on rocks instead of the water route; the man who complained about his neighbor's ever-lit porch light, then brought the neighbor a package of light bulbs when the light burned out; the pilot who considered inviting someone he didn't like to go for a plane ride; and   overriding the principal of nonharming in the face of self defense.

Mosquitoes, Black flies, Ants, Ticks

versus

Primum non nocere, Ahimsa

Melinda's Birthday

Yesterday was a miraculous day.  The sun broke through the 9-day mist and we were able to move the airplane.  I won the coin toss and waited in the airplane for Jim to call from the halfway mark of his drive home.

The camera amused me more than the book I brought.  Had trouble starting the airplane, but it was operator error, not a mechanical malfunction.

I took a picture of our lake 8 miles away from arrival.  Taking pictures while flying an airplane is like texting while driving a car.

After a safe docking during the first float flight of the year, Jim took over, taxiing near loons

and flying around in the mildly bumpy air.

Here's a picture of our lake house from the crosswind leg of the touch down.
Today is Melinda's birthday.  She gets as many new songs as her years from mostly current artists.  I can write this because she doesn't read blogs.  I especially like Cee Lo's toned down version "Forget You", Jason Mraz "I'm Yours" and Mother Mother "Love and Truth".

Miracles

 

Driving to the lake house there is a hill that, once crested, reveals an apple orchard on the left.  Just now, every tree in the orchard is in white bloom, perfumed with blossoms calling to the bees.  Often the storms accompanying the month of May blow all the apple petals to the ground like a blizzard and the impressive, but elusive moment, passes without witness.  This year our breath-holding has kept all the blossoms intact.
"There is no order of difficulty in miracles. ...Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love."

"Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind, or a state of miracle-readiness."

I am ready, I am ready, I am ready.