A Lobster Roll Picnic

A wonderful July 4th experience was had on the lake yesterday. You know you’re in Maine when your Independence Day cookout features lobster rolls…

Here’s how this worked out. The folks who own the camp we’re staying at right now,( Summer Dreams), Matt and Sharon, invited us to a picnic at their other camp on the lake (Piper Cove) which happens to be next door to Loon Landing. Next door to Piper Cove is another great camp owned by Gill and Charles. The folks who own the place next to us here at Summer Dreams (Matt and Tuesday)were also invited to this picnic. It was a crowd of wonderful long time camp owners on Quantabacook…and us.

So, Early yesterday morning Matt drives into Lincolnville Beach and picks up a bunch of fresh caught lobsters directly from a lobster boat, brings them back to camp and cooks them up. Then, the indomitable Carolyn May (owner of Loon Landing) spent hours picking all the meat from these lobsters. Pam along with Matt and Sharon provided a salad, a bunch of snacks and adult beverages and of course Carolyn thought to bring a dozen or so oysters on the half shell. We ate this feast at an outdoor table just steps from the water as the setting sun splashed its reflection across the lake’s surface. Pam and I listened to their stories about lake life with great interest and just a twinge of envy. Around 8:30 or so we heard the first explosion of fireworks from the north end of the lake which was our cue to head back to camp to comfort poor Lucy. We found her curled up in a ball in the tiny bathroom, her nose scrunched firmly under the bottom edge of the vanity. This morning she seems to have recovered…

I approached Matt at the party and asked him where and how he managed to find that really cool Maine-shaped rock  right at the entrance to the dock at Summer Dreams. He looked at me with a confused expression—“What Maine-shaped rock?” I said, “You’re kidding me, right? The one right near the dock!” Nope, no recognition at all. I told him that I would take a picture of it and text it to him so I did this morning. You guys be the judge…

Here’s the State of Maine…

And here is their rock…

I think its a dead ringer!

July 4th Observations

Happy July 4th, everyone. Here on Quantabacook there will be the famous July 4th Boat Parade. Then a cookout with some homeowner friends where lobster rolls will be served. After that poor Lucy will have the worst night of her life trying to endure the fireworks show! Pictures will follow from all the fun.

So, yesterday something popped up on my Facebook wall from someone I didn’t know, probably a friend of a friend sort of thing. It was a 4th of July meme thing and it said—Chose wisely in November or this might very well be the last time you will be able to celebrate the 4th of July. 

STOP! For the love of God, just stop.

This type of political hyperbole is the bane of my existence. It infuriates me what politics has done to us, worse than that it infuriates me that we have given politicians this much power—to turn otherwise rational adults into blithering idiots. This particular poster did not tell us who she or he supports for President, so it could have been either of them. It doesn't matter because in either case this message is complete horseshit. I will here and now declare without equivocation that next July 4th I will celebrate our nation’s independence with great enthusiasm regardless of who wins the election!! And, so will you!!!!!!

Here’s the thing, people. I have been in the financial advisory business for over 4 decades and every Presidential election year its the same old story. Maybe 10% of my clients are what I would call political partisans, the sort of people who are really into politics.(not that there’s anything wrong with that). They are roughly evenly divided by party affiliation. Every election its the same story—“Doug, if candidate A wins this election I’m going to sell everything I have with you because if he/she wins the country is finished!!” I spend days, sometimes weeks talking them off the ledge. Oh, the horror stories I have heard from these folks telling me what was about to befall the country if their candidate loses. The economy was going to be destroyed, religious liberties revoked, gay people dragged from their beds, homeschoolers arrested, and microchips implanted in every brain in America. I have been warned about the nefarious intentions of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Al Gore, Tipper Gore, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris. Everyone of these people was going to usher in the four horses of the apocalypse. Oddly enough, the only President and First Lady that got a pass from these folks was George H. W. Bush and Barbara. Go figure. I shouldn’t have to point this out but in none of these cases were the dire predictions true. Not even close! All of these Presidents enjoyed booming stock markets and largely thriving economies.

The question I have always anted to ask these partisans is a simple one…Has any American president in your lifetime had a major negative impact on your life? Here’s my answer—no. Republicans come and Republicans go. Democrats come and Democrats go. My life continues on its merry way, its quality almost entirely dependent upon my actions and my decisions. Do Presidents have any influence? Sure they do. Some policies that have been enacted over the last 40 years have not been my preferred prescription for how to run the country. This is also not to say that politicians cannot do major harm to the pursuit of happiness. They can and do from time to time. But every election year I listen to the dire warnings, I take note of all the people who promise to leave America of so-and-so wins the election but without fail—they never do. Somehow they just can’t bring themself to quit America. And neither will you!! 

So, just knock it off with your doom and gloom. This nation has survived much worse than either Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Turn off your TV. Shut down your computer. Go for a walk. I’m betting that there’s another Barbara Bush in our future.

Hard Choices

I have been informed by my creditors that I will not be given a six week grace period on paying my bills, this after intense debate with them over the fairness of charging me for electricity while I’m not even living in the house. Unfortunately, Big Utility won the argument so I must spend the morning paying them along with a host of other unused products and services I continue to be billed for while I am away. The struggle is real.

In other news, yesterday was our most glorious weather of the trip and today promises more of the same. High temperature 79, very low humidity with sunny skies and diminished winds. Ideal conditions exist for fishing, kayaking, swimming and anything else it is possible to do legally while out of doors. The only thing that will be missing are our kids. Kaitlin and Jon aren’t here because this summer is their 10th wedding anniversary and they have a big trip planned to the British Isles in store for much of July. Meanwhile, Patrick and Sarah just celebrated their 6th anniversary spending a long weekend in Philadelphia. They plan to visit us when we are up here for four weeks in the Fall. So it turns out that our kids have lives of their own. Although this revelation has been disappointing to us we are told that it is totally natural and in fact healthy. Whatever…

At some point very soon Pam and I are going to come up with the resolve necessary to actually drive into town for dinner at a restaurant. One would think we would have done so already. First of all, we’ve been here for eleven days now and second of all, Camden and Belfast are packed with so many fine eateries, an embarrassment of culinary riches. All it requires of us is the effort it takes to come inside, take a shower, get properly dressed and pick a restaurant. So far this has seemed like a daunting task to us. It sounds like such hard work and it would require pro-active decision making on our part. This isn’t nearly as easy at it appears at first glance. Feel like Italian food? Well, there’s Ports of Italy and Delvino’s. Try making that decision! Or maybe you’re thinking seafood. There are only a half dozen great places to decide between. Good luck. Then, there’s the lake. If we leave here to go into town for dinner it would be just like Quantabacook to put on a light show of a sunset while we’re gone, and we would miss it! Either that or a dozen loons would show up in our cove and perform an hour long concert in our absence. I mean…do we risk it?

Here’s What We’ve Been Up To

Now that we are firmly ensconced into Week Two here in Maine it would be a fair question to ask—What have we been doing? Well, aside from an unscheduled emergency room visit, things have gone swimmingly… see what I did there? When you’re up here you have lots of time to hone your dad joke skills.

So, there have been a few highlights. First, our introduction to a new place to get fat—Ruckus Donuts in Rockland, Maine.

These babies take five hours to make from scratch, taste like heaven, and the owners promise to give you 25% off your first bypass operation.

Last night Pam and I had a delightful sunset paddle. It’s been quite windy here since we arrived but last night the breeze tapered off just in time for a sunset show.

We even got a glimpse of a rainbow.

As sunsets go here on Quantabacook, this one was nothing special, but it was so peaceful out there on the water watching the changing colors, listening to the loons and watching Pam in her element.

Of course, Lucy and I have had many long conversations about life…

She does this a lot. She will see me seated in a chair and immediately plop herself across my lap where she expects me to tell her what a good girl she is. After I have sufficiently extolled her many virtues for ten minutes or so she plops down and goes about her business. We also take naps together…

Yeah, so that about covers it. We eat delicious food, we spend lots of time in and on the water, we take naps, read books, fish, Pam does cross-stitch and we talk about things.

Just living the lake life.

This Time it was my Turn at the ER

This one will be hard to explain without sounding like an idiot. But any blog worth its salt can’t be all self-promotion all the time. Every once in a while you have to admit to incompetence. So, this afternoon I spent an hour or so in the emergency room with a three-pronged hook submerged in my forearm…

It’s not really a long story. I was on the dock casting one of my favorite lures when on my backswing it got entangled in Lucy’s collar. When I turned to unhook her it released on its own and flung itself at warp speed right into my left forearm. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt at the time so I couldn’t see how deeply it was hooked. I sat down and began trying to yank it out like I’ve done many times before, only this time it wouldn’t budge. Instead, each time I yanked it seemed to hurt more and plunge deeper. At this point I managed to walk to the cabin where I thought it might be wise to cut the sleeve of my shirt off so I could see what I was up against. That’s when I learned that the hook had embedded itself rather deeply and the tip of the hook was coming out of the skin a quarter of an inch to the side. This explains why it wouldn’t come out. At this point I thought it might be wise to call Pam’s cellphone to let her know about my predicament. She was in Belfast buying our dinner at Hannaford’s. I completely botched the explanation on the phone—something I’m quite good at, she told me later—but soon she was driving me to the Pen Bay Emergency Room, where one of the doctors actually volunteered to take my case because she was dying to see how somebody could hook themselves with a fishing lure that required a doctor to remove. Dr. Lu was quite impressed with the wound and showed up armed with wire-cutters and a pair of pliers. 

My first words to her were, “Doc, do you think you can save this lure? It’s one of my favorites” She smiled broadly, numbed my arm and sat about clipping the hook in two then sliding the jagged edge out. After a tetanus shot and an antibiotic prescription I was on my way back to the lake, the Dunnevant family’s second adventure at Pen Bay in less than a year.

Unfortunately I ruined a perfectly good long sleeve shirt and that lure is going to need some work.

Lake life is not for the feint of heart.

The Presidential Debate Debacle

Ok, so last night there was a presidential debate that I didn’t watch because, well…ewww. Look, I’m in Maine and there are certain privileges and responsibilities that come with it, primarily the fact that you never intentionally expose yourself to things that have the potential to inflict mental, emotional, existential or physical trauma to either you or your loved ones. At the very top of the list of such things would be presidential debates. So, Pam and I abstained. Instead Pam busied herself with her cross-stitch project while I tore into a paperback I found in the house library entitled The Couple Next Door. Two chapters in it dawned on me that I had already read this book a couple years ago, sprawled out on the exact same sofa! It was Deja-vu all over again.

While all of this excitement was happening the wind began to pick up. The gusts seemed to shake the house. The weather people had been calling for a clear but (very) windy day on Friday, so maybe the wind had arrived early, I remember thinking right before going to bed. When I woke up this morning at 5:00 it was still howling. The thought occurred to me, maybe it’s an ill-wind that blows across this lake. Perhaps something terrible has happened somewhere and this howling wind was our warning. The next thing that popped in my head after the “something terrible” thing was—“wait, there was a presidential debate last night!”

After brewing some coffee and trying to summon up some courage, I decided to do my civic duty and find out how the debate went. Maybe one of them had a heart attack on stage. Maybe Trump spontaneously exploded in the middle of one of his outrageous whoppers, or perhaps Biden wandered off the stage asking why he wasn’t given any bingo cards. 

To educate myself I travelled the slow internet to several different platforms that I barely trust and a couple more that I don’t trust at all but each had the same basic theme—“the president bombed” Sure, Trump told one laughable lie after another. One fact-checker counted 30 from his Orangeness, while tallying only 9 from Biden. But the big story was that Democrats are left in full panic mode over what to do about their nominee. 

Then I made the grave mistake of watching some video highlights of the event. I’m not sure I will ever recover. Something close to a miracle will be needed to rescue our Republic from the coming unprecedented election debacle. The world’s most powerful economic and military power is about to have an election featuring a congenitally lying convicted felon vs. a doddering, slack jawed old fool who can hardly string one coherent sentence together.

This country needs to be placed in Time Out. The Republican and Democrat parties need to be sent to their rooms and told that they will not be let out until they have nominated two new candidates, neither of whom can be over the age of 60. Maybe something like Marco Rubio v. Gavin Newsome or Ocasio-Cortez v. Marjorie Taylor Greene. As terrifying as those two contests might appear to be at first glance, none of those people have criminal records and none of them are on Social Security and all four of them will actually have to live with the consequences of whatever half-witted laws they inflict on the country while in office, unlike either Trump or Biden who are neither very long for this world.

There. That’s my take on our politics. Now I will have to figure out how to deal with 25 mph gusts whipping off this lake all day. I knew I should have packed those long sleeve shirts!!

Never Give up on a Sunset

There’s a lesson that this lake teaches us every year…be patient. Considering how many years we have been coming here you would think we would know it by now. But there we were last night, in class again.

Pam headed out for her sunset paddle too early. Our neighbor, Michael, took this picture with his real camera. That’s her out there with the sun still over an hour away from slipping past the horizon. 

But then it got hazy and the clouds started to thicken. By the time she returned to the dock we were both thinking that the sunset would be a dud. Suddenly, just as we settled in our chairs for the evening we noticed a brightness in the room…

None of the pictures I took were able to capture it. From this point it began to expand north and south. Multiple colors began to arrive, painting the cloud layers with new light, setting the lake on fire. You’ll have to take my word for it, or come see for yourself. 

Looking at these two photographs, its hard to believe they were taken on the same evening, on the same lake. A mere hour made that much difference. We are always surprised by this. We shouldn’t be. We watched this unfold from about 8:15 until 9:00. Every time we looked something had changed, something we hadn’t noticed before, something new and astonishing. 

The experience has gotten me thinking, sometimes a dangerous thing. How often have I given up on something prematurely, some thorny situation, a difficult project, even another human being? Suppose I had just stepped back and given the situation time to grow? Would a bit of patience have rewarded me? Living on this lake forces you to be patient. There is no other option. The weather changes on a dime, so you wait until it blows over because it always does. Yesterday started calm, turned windy, started with clear blue skies only to have a torrential downpour rumble through for 30 minutes in the middle of the afternoon, then clear out again. By nightfall, the lake was once again as still as glass. Patience.

Back home I tend to want everything five minutes ago. I have a difficult time waiting for anything. Why should I? Nearly everything a human being could want or need is available to me after a two minute drive. I have become accustomed to instant gratification. FedEx and UPS are on my payroll and my internet is as fast as lightening. But not up here. It takes time to do anything. There are two photographs in this blog. It will take a while to download. Might have to try several times before it works. The result of it all is that I am slowing down. Step by step my pace of living is starting to match my enviroment. This morning I will finish my second Kristin Hannah novel in the four days since we arrived. My screen time has plummeted and with it what feels like a burden is lifting.