A Very Cool Twenty Minutes

“We made it all the way to Maine because somebody promised us a free vacation, but nobody is here to pick us...no wait, there’s Dad!!”

Yesterday, something amazing happened. All four of my kids made it to Maine, with their luggage, with virtually no delays, cancellations, or invasive body cavity searches. We made it back to the house by 11 o’clock. It was nothing short of a travel miracle. At 7 am, all of them are sound asleep. For the next six days, we will all be here together. At this moment, we have nothing scheduled. Each day will be dealt with on its own terms. The weather will determine how we spend our time. If the forecast is to be believed, the next couple of days will involve a lot of indoor activities. But, yesterday’s forecast ended up being wrong, when the sun came out for four hours in the afternoon. So, who knows?

Yesterday morning, I experienced an amazing twenty minutes. For reasons that escape me, I woke up at 5:30. There was no point in fighting it...I was up. So, I brewed some coffee and slipped downstairs to walk down to the dock. When I emerged from the sliding glass door, I looked up and saw a magestic deer standing next to the Adirondack chairs, no more than 100 feet from me. She lifted her head, turned toward me and froze peacefully for a brief moment, her huge, dark eyes locked on me. One of her ears twitched, then she sprang off gracefully into the woods, disappearing in an instant. As I walked down the lane towards the dock, I heard the loud squawking of birds in the trees to my right, loud and frantic. The instant I stepped on to the dock, a bald eagle swooped down towards the lake in a majestic wide arc, as if he wanted to make sure I knew who he was. After passing right in front of me, he changed direction and headed around the bend. I thought...wow. Ten minutes later, a family of ducks swam by, paying me no attention whatsoever. As soon as they were out of sight, I heard my first loon call.

It was as if they were all saying, welcome back, human...welcome back to Maine.

Arrived

In the old days, when Pam and I were horrible parents, we used to lay the kids down in the floor of the van in their sleeping bags...with no seatbelts...while we made the 13 hour drive straight through the night. When we made our first stop on the New Jersey turnpike for gas, they would sit up briefly, bleary-eyed, and ask...Are we at Maine yet?

Well kids...yes, we are at Maine...

The green iron bridge over the Piscataqua River which greets you at the border was obscured by a blanket of fog and a light drizzle. Despite this dreary reception, the two day drive up this year was as uneventful a trip as we have had in quite some time. No long delays, no backups, and for thirteen hours on the road, we never saw a single accident...a first!

The weather forecast around here looks bleak for the next several days, something about which we can do absolutely nothing. The lake was fogged in yesterday, so the pictures I took outside don’t reveal much. I can imagine how delightful this property will be once the sun comes out...

It’s all there, waiting for the sun.

The house is another story all together. The downstairs looks and smells exactly like a Maine lakehouse, which is to say...perfect.

  

The upstairs is like a completely different house, decorated and appointed to within an inch of its life...

  

The bedrooms are huge and beautiful...

...with bathrooms you could double park a pickup truck in...

   

So, our home for the next three weeks will do quite nicely. Today will be a busy one. After breakfast, Pam and I will make the arduous 4 mile drive into the Damariscotta Hannaford’s for the initial grocery run. This is a very big deal, and something for which my wife is ideally suited by education, training and experience. She has her grocery app filled out, her iPad fully charged, and has that I’m on a mission, get out of my way look I have come to know and fear. By the time we are done, you could drop open any Julia Child cookbook to any random page and we will have every ingredient needed to make whatever dish happens to come up.

This evening, I will be driving into Portland to pick up Jon, Kaitlin, Patrick and Sarah who hopefully will have all landed without delays from Columbia and San Francisco. By the time we fall into our beds tonight, all six of us will be together, and at that point if it’s raining outside, it won’t matter.

Today’s To-do List

THINGS TO DO TODAY

- record compliance approved away message on my office phone

This is sort of a big deal. Whenever someone in my line of work is going to be away for any protracted period of time (two or more weeks), this must be disclosed fully to clients. You must reveal exactly how long you will be gone and give instructions for how you can be contacted in case of emergency, and also provide a back up contact. What follows is what I would like to leave as my away message:

Ok folks..for the next three weeks I will be away on vacation. You can leave all the messages you want, but I won’t be returning any calls until I return. I mean, I love you guys and all, but if you need to take ten grand out of your account so you can go to Atlantic City, you’re just gonna have to figure out how to do it by yourself. If the market happens to be in free fall, what in God’s name would you like me to do about it? I’m in Maine. Just chill out until I get back. Peace out.

My actual away message will be the picture of professionalism, and any actual emergency will get a prompt return call...cellphone service permitting...cough, cough.

- pick up life sustaining prescriptions at CVS

- cut grass

- pack for trip

This is a little harder than it sounds for two reasons. First, three weeks is a long time, and second...it’s Maine. Even though it’s summer, you just can’t throw a bunch of shorts and T-shirt’s in a suitcase and be done with it. When you wake up in the morning and it’s 52 degrees out, you’re gonna need a little something more than your Bank of Dad...a lending institution since before I can even remember...T-shirt. No, you’re going to have to pack for sunny day Maine and cloudy day Maine which means plenty of jeans and long sleeve shirts. The hardest part is deciding which outfit will be the designated camp fire outfit. That’s the one outfit you wear every night around the fire. That way, only one outfit ends up smelling like Smokey Bear after he hasn’t bathed in two months. But, as thorny as this can be for me, it’s a tedious ordeal for Pam. She agonizes over each and every outfit, every accessory, like its project runway or something. Of course her attention to detail pays off because she always looks great...while I try to explain to her why this striped polo shirt goes quite well with those plaid shorts.

- get haircut

As my Dad would have said...Actually, I think I’ll get all of them cut!

- workout

- get car detailed

This is an old habit of mine that makes zero sense. Before leaving on any road trip, I always take the car to a car wash and give it the works. I just like hitting the road in a sparkling clean vehicle. What I should do, of course, is wait until I get where I’m going to get it cleaned. Old, unproductive and illogical habits are hard to break.

- go by Hand and Stone for my monthly massage

In a master stroke of meticulous planning, I scheduled my monthly deep tissue massage for 4:00 in the afternoon of the day before a two day road trip. 

- just before drifting off to sleep tonight, whisper to Pam...Were goin’ to Maine, we’re goin’ to Maine.

Pam’s Birthday

Today is Pam’s birthday. It’s getting lost in trip preparation. She has firmly informed the family that there will be no gifts this year, no hubbub. All she wants for her birthday is for us to be together in Maine next week. Several times in the history of this blog I have published testimonials to her virtue on this day. I will refrain from such wife-bragging today. Instead, I decided to search through a thousand or so photographs to find my two favorites of her, which you see above. A word of explanation...

The first one was taken on the occasion of my 50th birthday trip to the Cayman Islands. We were on a thirty minute boat ride across the bay, headed to dinner at some restaurant on a smaller island when somebody volunteered to take this picture. I’m not sure if she has ever looked more beautiful. Maybe it was the sun, or that dress or her tan. She looks like a movie star.

The one on the right is a completely different story. This one was taken several years ago at one of her favorite places in the world...Riverducks Ice Cream. It’s a little hole in the wall in Camden, Maine that serves 12 different Maine-inspired flavors of ice cream. Each year, she makes it her goal to try all 12 before we leave for home. This was Sarah’s first trip to Maine. We were all so relieved that she fell in love with Maine, because if she had hated it, Patrick would have been forced to dump her. Anyway...just look at my wife’s face. Look at that smile. That is the smile of contentment and complete happiness. She is surrounded by everything that she truly loves in this world...and just about to devour a double scoop helping of Megunticook Mayhem.

Just a few more days, sweetie.

Happy birthday.

My Mom With a Stun Gun?

A couple of months ago, my sister sent me a text containing the following story. At the time, I was swamped in wedding prep work and didn’t have time to respond. But, some stories are just too good to ignore...

For all of you parents out there...who of us has not wished we owned a stun gun at times? Getting teenagers to wake the heck up can be like raising the dead sometimes, am I right? Here’s this poor woman, scrambling around trying to get ready for church...on Easter Sunday no less, and junior won’t budge. What’s a frantic mother to do?

Well, Sharron Dobbins of Phoenix, Arizona made a command decision...You talk about Jesus rising from the dead? I’ll raise your lazy a** from the dead right now! Zzzaappppp!!! After witnessing the incident, it took all of four minutes for Mrs. Dobbins’ other son and nephew to throw their suits on and report for duty, bibles in hand.

Unfortunately for Mrs. Dobbins, this sort of thing is frowned upon by local law enforcement who charged her with felony child abuse. In court, Dobbins explained...I only sparked that taser to get the kids up for church on Easter Sunday. I aimed it at his left leg. 

Hmmm...

My mother never owned a taser. Thank God in Heaven. 

Her technique for waking up her lazy children was to stand at the foot of the stairs at 7 AM on Saturday mornings clanging two large metal pans together and shouting...It’s 7 o’clock in the morning...half the day is gone!!

Aside from the sketchy math of this formulation, the ear-splitting racket caused by this ridiculous stunt was every bit as invasive and disturbing as a taser. It also served to remind us kids that our mother was borderline crazy and consequently not to be trifled with. The prospect of Mom owning a taser sends shivers down my spine even now, and she’s been with Jesus for four years!!

So, I read about Mrs. Sharron Dobbins of Phoenix, Arizona and I thank God that my Mother died before the mass proliferation of stun gun technology.

Trump and Putin

I don’t really want to write this blog. The subject matter gives me indigestion. I’m not an expert on the subject, just a guy with an opinion. But, that Trump/Putin news conference yesterday in Helsinki was one for the ages and to not even mention it seems like some sort of blogging malpractice. So, here goes.

When I was growing up, it was always the Progressive Left who couldn’t bring themselves to say a discouraging word about the Russians. Back in the late 60’s and all through the 70’s, the Left tied themselves in rhetorical knots making excuses for Russian behavior. The air was thick with moral equivalence arguments. In a way, this was predictable. In those days, the American Left was still enamored with communism and the great hope of Marxist ideology. The Berlin Wall was still standing. Whatever sins and human rights abuses the communist dictatorship in Moscow were guilty of were excused or ignored, because in the minds of many on the Left, it was preferable to the evils of capitalism. It was this instinctive hostility to America and our interest in favor of the Soviets that drove me away from the Democratic Party in the first place.

Oh, how the worm has turned.

Yesterday, I watched an American President with an R next to his name make excuses for a former KGB officer. I watched an American President with an R next to his name say that he preferred to believe a former KGB officer rather than the unanimous conclusions of his own national security officials. Then, this American President with an R next to his name trotted out his own moral equivalence arguments, placing his country on an even moral plane with Russia. It was an astonishing performance. If I were the head of the CIA, FBI, or any other National Security Post in his administration, I would have already submitted my resignation...because this President just threw me and my department under the bus.

To be fair, several high ranking Republicans have registered publically their disapproval, closing ranks behind the American Intelligence community. Democrats, on the other hand, have finally found a Russian leader they despise. Better late than never, I suppose.

This is just so freakin weird. The self proclaimed great deal maker, got played like a Stradivarius by a two bit thug, a man who has spent his entire life nurturing contempt for the United States of America, and working for its defeat and humiliation. But, there they were, on a stage in Helsinki, short dumpy Putin in his cheap suit and heavy jowls looking like he had just eaten a dissident, standing next to the tall, hulking, red-tied manchild, who looked exactly like a casino building developer who was double parked, wishing and hoping that one day he could be like the short dumpy man in the cheap suit.

I have officially now seen everything.

Getaway Week

Today marks the beginning of getaway week, a week spent preparing for Maine by disentangling yourself from the thickets of your life. Leaving that life for three weeks is no small feat, as it involves a clipboard full of check list items that run the gamut from lawn care to a compliance-approved away message on your business phone. Here’s just a few of the items I have so far...

-get prescriptions filled

Ok, this one irritates me since it used to not be a thing. Now that I’m 60 and in a more advanced state of physical decrepitude, making sure you don’t run out of cholesterol medicine while you’re gone is of crucial importance. One more example of the ignominy of ageing.

-meet with dog sitter

This trip to Maine is to a house that is not dog friendly, which means that Becca, the dog whisperer, must be dealt with. She recently stayed with Lucy while we were in Nashville and did a great job, so we were lucky enough to get her to do the job for this trip. She already knows Lucy, understands her idiosyncrasies and seems charmed by them. But since this is a three week gig, she will have more stuff to do...like water the grass, protecting my tomato plants from critters, etc... 

-inspect and inventory floats

Without question, this is my most crucial assignment of the week. Making sure that we have six fully operational floats is essential for a successful Maine vacation. I will need to get them out of storage, make sure they are cleaned, identitify any leaks or potential leaks, and above all else, make absolutely certain that we have an ample supply of D batteries for the inflation machine. Any failure in this protocol will result in great tumult and lamentation by the women in my family. A defective float is an unthinkable contingency too horrible to even imagine. Why, the mere possibility of a float failure is one of the things that haunts me during getaway week. When four o’clock in the afternoon arrives and it’s time for the group cocktail float, the last thing you want is to be the man responsible for a float failure. That’s why this particular list item is written in ALL CAPS and red ink.

-study route

This may seem like a strange item since this will be at least the thirtieth time I have made this drive. One would think that I would have the route memorized by now. No..no, this drive is a two day, white knuckled, bowel churning, spittle-flying nightmare where you make one mistake and you’ll find yourself in the middle of Brooklyn in a driving rainstorm during rush hour. In addition, in recent years we have gone to great lengths to avoid I-95, crafting an entirely new western route which takes us through western Pennsylvania. Miss your exit out there and the worst thing that can happen might be getting caught behind an Amish couple out for a joyride. So, yes...I will be poring over the Apple Map directions with excruciating care.

-wrap up loose ends at work

By “loose ends” I mean get everything I’m working on to a point where I can leave for three weeks without returning to a hot mess. This isn’t easy, but it’s made infinitely easier by my intrepid assistant who communicates with me via email and the occasionally snarky text, to keep me up to speed on developments while I am away. So far, no catastrophic geopolitical event has taken place while I’ve been in Maine, no freakish stock market free fall, or client death. (RAP,RAP, RAP,TAP,TAP,TAP...)- that’s me knocking on wood!!

Ok...let getaway week activities commence!