My father - Marshall Kitchener Smith

My father was born 97 years ago today in St. Just, Cornwall, England.  He was the fourth and last child of Robert Leslie and Mary (Nicholas) Smith.  He came to the United States on the ship "Imperator", arriving in August of 1920.  The picture is of my parents, Marshall and Lois, my brother Brian (being carried) and myself between my parents.  It was taken by Rebecca Lepkoff.  All but myself are dead and I wonder if there is anyone alive today who will remember that it is Marshall's birthday-- my sisters?

Thinking nervously today about the decision on "Obamacare" about to be handed down by the Supreme Court.  I wish I could be confident that the court will rule according to law and precedent, sadly I am not.  These are my various pill bottles but only one is something I am prescribed that I take every day-- that is the Diovan for blood pressure.  Also on the shelf are naproxen, an OTC pill for pain, antibiotics just in case I have a URI, Loratidine for allergies, Lisinopril that I don't take because it doesn't work and D. Mannose that I also don't take.  Not bad for a nearly 65 year old woman!  On the other hand, these are things I am ignoring:  my feet, full of growths that make walking painful; my left knee that has a frequent sharp pain like an electric shock, often when I am doing nothing; finally, my stomach that produces acid every time food is ingested.

My good deed for last Monday-- I worked with Francine and Irwin Brown and John to get out the annual appeal for the Belfast Bay Watershed Coalition.  We followed up with lunch at the tiny Thai place down by the waterfront-- love their yellow curry with tofu.

Rainy Weekend at Mt. Blue

Our tent is ignominiously upended as we pack up to leave the Mt. Blue State Park.  Rainy hike, crummy trail, no views, mosquitoes, rainsoaked campground...why does this feel like we had a great weekend.  The other side?  Spending time with Margaret and Andrew-- a hike so bad that it was good, a fabulous dinner at Brian's Bistro in Rumford when rain drove us from our "dampsite", a superlative night's sleep in a rainy tent.  What's not to like?  And why upended?   Partly to empty the puddles of water that had gathered INSIDE! and partly just to dry out the bottom of the tent.

Sure didn't feel like 1.6!  Maybe they got the numbers reversed and it was actually 6.1?  The picture looks lovely-- a gentle trail beckoning one to walk on.  The reality was not so nice, lots of rocks, no switchbacks and much steeper than the picture shows.  Never a view to be had and just as we reached the top, the clouds rolled in, the rain pelted down and we huddled in a half finished building hoping that the rain would cease (it didn't)

Brian's Bistro in Rumford was a great discovery for us campground refugees.  A five star restaurant in a most unexpected place. Looking very damp and disheveled, but warmly welcomed in spite of this, we were really happy to find a delicious alternative to the marinated grilled tempeh burgers that we had planned for the campsite.

Here is our excellent camping dog, Darby.  He was slightly dubious about the whole thing at first but stayed right in camp even when we let his off his "string".  His first night on my cushy new air mattress was also something of a concern to him-- for much of the time he pressed very hard into me for stability-- the next night he was an old pro and curled up happily at the bottom of the mattress

Margaret and Andrew - before we got soaked

John's Birthday

When we first came to Maine I transplanted some Siberian Iris from a vacant lot nearby and over the years I have divided the original clump several times.  Now I am deciding that I don't really like the plant-- it has a short bloom and each clump expands outward but dies in the center.  They are tenacious plants, however, and have to be wrestled out of the ground with great heavings and choppings of a mattock-- These are many that I moved this spring and planted beside the ditch that springs from the perimeter drain.  They like wet feet and seem very happy in their new home.  They have done a great job dressing up the ditch and if I get more ferns in with them I think I will be satisfied.

Every morning at eight I meet my neighbors to walk our dogs around the circle.  Darby and Winston are off leash but Angus is deeply traumatized and kept on leash. It is alleged that he was never out of a cage from birth to six months when he was "rescued".  He is terrified of almost everything and even though it has been a year since he has been with Norm, he has never become comfortable with me or Karen.  He cringes from any attempt to pat him and refuses to take any treats.  Darby and Winston get regular doses of dried chicken as we move around the circle-- a treat that insures their close presence through the walk.  Angus is a handsome dog and has a lovely prance.  

These are the pale pink poppies planted near the porch.  My camera or the lighting or just the amateur nature of the photography in general give a poor representation of how beautiful they really are.  I will try again at dusk and see if I get better results.  

Today is John's 67th birthday.  My only presents for him are a rhubarb pie and a strawberry shortcake.  I was up very early this morning and finished all my newspaper puzzles in time to start the piecrust at 6:00 am. We are camping this weekend at Mt. Blue State Park in Weld so we will have the shortcake tonight and the pie for breakfast.  Andrew and Margaret will join us.

Joan had an upsetting meeting with her oncologist yesterday.  She is supposed to go on a maintenance regimen of chemotherapy and has learned that it will cost $3000 every 21 days (with a seven day break between) and that insurance will cover none of the cost. Her doc said she would need it "for the rest of her life".   This is, quite simply, impossible and I have spent many hours thinking about solutions.  It is incredible to think that she is being told, in effect, that she can buy some indefinite period of life for a cost that seems exorbitant-- they might do it for a year or so if they beggared themselves but what sense does that make?  

Mac n cheese times three

Listening to an audiobook a day or two ago a (male!) cook was described as making a complicated dinner and keeping the kitchen pristine throughout.  This is my ideal and I almost never start cooking without thinking that I will "clean as I go".  The reality, every time, is illustrated above-- I have got to be one of the messiest cooks going.  This was a bechamel for Rachel Ray's macaroni and cheese with smoked cheddar.  The actual dish was superb-- one of three mac n cheeses at the First Annual Macaroni and Cheese Event held last night in Northport.  Joan Herrick made a tex-mex version and Angela Maniac (that can't really be how her surname is spelled but that is how it sounds) made a classic.  They were all excellent, much nicer than they look in the picture below-- it must be the tablecloth...

Loved this book-- laughed and cried!  If you read it, try just skipping the first chapter about aliens-- it made no sense to me.  The book was full of sentences that I wanted to read to someone-- Eliza, perhaps, who is actually pregnant and Viney who is also pregnant but in such a precarious situation that we can't count her chicks for perhaps the next six weeks.  So I told Eliza to read the book and perhaps later will give the same advice to Viney.

Smoothie Failure

My first smoothie

What a spectacular failure!  I wish I had had the presence of mind to take a picture while the smoothie was oozing all over the counter and the blender-- but the mess was so yucky that my first impulse was to scrape it all into this plastic tub.  Then, demoralized as I was, a nice calm bowl of cereal seemed a good idea for breakfast.  This smoothie had pineapple, ginger, spinach, coconut milk and almond milk but I never did taste it.

This is one of the mini quilts I made last week.  The strips were one inch before sewing.  It is basted and ready for quilting-- ultimately the white bits around the edges will disappear and I will bind it.  I also made another that I don't like as much--

I regretted the choice of the striped fabric for the inner 1/4 inch "frame".  It should have been a darker color, perhaps a blue.  I have more of the tiny four patches so I will make the same thing again with that variation.

 
Yesterday was Darby's fifth birthday so John and took him up Bald Mountain in Camden...this is the obligatory husband and dog picture that I take on so many mountain tops.  Bald is a great hike and we should do it more often.  The views after you get half way up are plentiful and the top is spectacular-- that splendid combination of ocean, islands and mountains that I love so much.  Lots of granite as the picture shows.  I also love the view from Bald Rock in Lincolnville but the hike requires a long walk on the "multi-purpose" road that is very hard on my feet and I dread it for that reason.  Bald Rock has no views until you are nearly at the top--

Catching Up

My everyday blog has just experienced a big lapse-- while I was away in Hanover and Greenfield I could not summon the equipment or the energy to post.  On the 4th of June Joan Herrick, Deb Small and I left Belfast en route to Dartmouth-Hitchcock.  It was a jolly road trip with a stop at the Busy Thimble, Keepsake Quilting and the knitting store by Keepsake.  We also had lunch at one of my favorite places, the Route 104 diner some place in New Hampshire.

Joan and Deb in waiting room at DHMC

We were still jolly at the hospital the next morning and laughing over duplicate copies of People (and yes, there is such a thing as a homely baby!) but our cheer turned to gloom fairly quickly as the procedure to harvest stem cells got going.  Not much good to say about the next couple of days for Joan in the hospital.  Except that we had a very comfortable stay with Sue and Don Foster-- as K.T. says, the are riding high on the "love drug" and a more kittenish pair of newlyweds would be hard to find.   We had a rollicking family get together at Kate's on Tuesday evening with both of her boys making an impressive show of how wonderfully they have matured.  The experience was tough for Joan, however, as she was quite exhausted from her five hours of apheresis and when we all went out with Sue and Don on Wednesday, Joan and Deb stayed behind.  Viney fetched me on Thursday and ferried me down to Eliza's-- the good news is that Viney's IVF is so far successful-- the bad news is that there are three.  So much can happen in the next few weeks that we won't dwell on that.  Eliza Cooney hosted a small summer luncheon in Williamsburg to celebrate Viney's graduation from nursing school -- very cosmopolitan, eating al fresco with good food and lively conversation.  Andrew and Margaret joined us to complete the group.

Viney at Eliza Cooney's

Dereka, Eliza and Will at Eliza Cooney's lunch

We were surprised when Eliza announced that she had experienced "an unexpected development in the uterus".  It turned out that it was not all that unexpected since they were taking no precautions.  Her phrasing was designed to counter my displeasure since I have been telling her not to upset the apple cart with another baby.  My attitude underwent an instantaneous reversal when I heard the news-- they are both delighted and I can readily share their happiness.  Will will be over two years old when the new baby (Juliet?  Peter?) arrives and I expect he will cope admirably.

John and I left Williamsburg in a rush to arrive belatedly at a Frontier reunion (an informal event marking 47 years since graduation).  I took no pictures being distracted trying to put names with faces, figure out who were the spouses I had never seen before in my life and talking to the few people I actually recognized.  There will be a 50th on 13 June 2015 and I have promised to do the bios.

Site of public school on Catamount Hill

On Sunday we roused ourselves reasonably early and headed off to Catamount State Forest in Colrain-- the plan was to hike up to the site of a former village called Catamount Hill-- notable as being the first public school in the U.S. to raise the American Flag (1812).  Nothing left but stone walls and cellarholes but a couple of hundred people lived there at one time.  I spent my walk uphill pondering on this-- envisioning the men and boys hauling rock for the walls and the children walking on forested tracks to the school.

Rock Wall on Catamount Hill

Our picnic site on Catamount Hill
Dereka, Darby, Michael, Eliza, Buffy, John, Andrew and Margaret
William is hidden on Eliza's lap

Without any worries we split up after lunch-- Eliza, Michael and John to make a quick side trip to some caves and Margaret, Andrew and I to walk slowly back to our cars.  Remembering only a straightforward walk to the lake, I was confounded to encounter several choices of footpath and eventually realized that we were completely lost.  Still no worries-- we would just give Michael a call.  What, no service?  Yikes!  Michael, Eliza and John all had smart phones that were working in the area-  Margaret and I had left our phones behind and Andrew had only a "dumb" phone that wasn't getting a signal. We were up the proverbial creek.  Meeting another group, I was forced to fess up-- they questioned us closely and determined that we were probably parked on "Stacey Road", the main access point for the area.  With their directions and much examination of their maps, we walked out to Stacey Road, quickly realizing that we were NOT parked there.  A couple passing us in a pickup truck suggested we hop in the back and they took us down to Route 112.  Once there still no phone service.  At this point the man suggested that he drive us around until we saw something familiar-- a few miles down the road I recognized a bridge and then the road we had really parked on so he drove us up to the cars.  A huge relief except that no-one was there! John and Darby appeared shortly and the others soon after.  Michael had walked back up the trail searching for us but since their phones were working Eliza was able to retrieve him reasonably quickly.  A nice dinner of tempeh burgers back in Greenfield, two rounds of pinochle and so to bed.  

Thanks DOT!

The agenda yesterday was to take a good long bicycle ride-- 25 miles through Searsport and Swanville and back to Belfast.  This is how Mt. Ephraim road appeared when we turned onto it-- freshly laid blacktop as smooth as a baby's butt.  We took advantage of one of the very few nice days weather wise-- everything was just as it should be.

Although I had told Wayne twice that we planned to take a ride on Friday morning, he turned up as usual about nine, inquiring if I were busy.  Since I was already in spandex, the answer was easy.  I told him we would be back after lunch but that didn't seem to please him and he said he would take a cab.  Just as we were about to drive off with the bikes, however, he reappeared and allowed as how he would wait for us.  Knowing I had my knitting group at two, we hastened on our way.  

Upon my return I took him to the bank (the third time this week), the hardware store and, as always, Jack's Grocery.  I was feeling exhausted from the bike ride (I took my blood pressure pill the night before and probably shouldn't have done because it makes me feel weak and woozy when I exercise), so I let him buy me a cup of coffee.  He always wants to do so because it feels like some recompense for my being his personal driver but I usually don't get it in the afternoon.

Rushing to drop him off and drive back to my knitting group, I found that Liz and Rick were on their way over with a bunch of shrubs they had pulled out and wanted us to plant.  So I gave up on the knitting and we all worked together to get the things back into the ground.  In the process I cleaned out the ditch where I had been throwing weeds and plant refuse-- something I have been planning to do for days.

In the evening we went to the wine tasting and there met a man named Skip who has recently moved to Belfast.  He has lived for years in Vienna and maintains an apartment there.  He is an avid cyclist and was full of interesting information about trips he has taken-- highly recommended that John and I go self-supported along the Danube and told us where to get the necessary guidebook and maps.  Also, although he prefers riding by himself or with a friend, he went on a bicycle trip through the Croatian islands where they spent the nights on a sailing ship and cycled on islands each day.  He thought it was a great trip.