Tuesday. Sunny, light breeze, coolish.
Waiting for the painter, who will be doing what he can in terms of painting trim and replacing rotten boards on the garage. First mug of tea is brewing. Will shortly be toasting an English muffin in preparation for a pb&j.
I. Had. So Much. Fun yesterday, of which I will speak in more detail after breakfast.
Today, I need to call the vet on Trooper’s behalf. I’m hoping this is not the Last Visit, but I’m . . . I don’t know. deep breath
I also have an appointment with the chiropractor, possibly a stop at the homeless shelter (turns out they do need pillows), and this evening is sewing at the library.
What’s everybody doing today?
#And the vet is closed. Or, somebody forgot to take the machine off the phone.
Will call back in an hour.
In the meantime, the painter is here, but the wood is not.
#Let’s see . . . yesterday.
Chapter OneWatercolor class was a one-off presented by the events coordinator of Waterville Creates, who is herself a talented watercolorist. She was there, not to teach, but to encourage play, and also to sell the Schupf Center programs, including the Thursday Art Making (which has another name that escapes me at the moment), which is free to everyone.
Since my life has of course been unremittingly frivolous, I didn’t feel that the call to play was necessary on my part, and I would have welcomed more structure. However, viewing the results produced by the majority of my classmates (this was a VERY well-attended session), instruction would possibly have been superfluous.
So, I played with my colors and the water, and got frustrated, as I always do with art, because I can’t make things round, dammit — what I want to do is reach into the paper and push this bit back, and pull this other bit forward, but the trick of achieving dimensionality with flat materials continues to elude me.
Maybe I should look at Youtube. God She knows I have colored pencils — I’m not particularly wedded to watercolor as a medium, though it is forgiving, in its way; I quite liked the way the spiky purple flowers came out.
Anyway, I managed to ride out the frustration and dropped into — “I Wonder What Happens if I do This” land — and mostly had a goodish time, with what results you may see below.
After class, I came home, provisioned the car, chatted with the next door neighbor, who has been away for some time, and got on the road to Bath.
#Chapter TwoI arrived in Bath around, eh, twelve-thirty-ish? Drove to Front Street, parked in the lot, and ate my chicken nugget sandwich in a pocket park, then went for a walk.
I wish to report that, in Bath, Maine, there is a large library and FIVE bookstores on Front Street, alone. There was also a large Maine Craft store, where I had a lovely chat with the proprietor, and a Reny’s where I got my Reny’s Passport (remember that?) stamped, and joined a very odd conversation.
A man had just concluded a sale when I got the counter and was quizzing the two cashiers about the amenities of Bath, which — I’m guessing the accent was Jersey, and apparently he was looking to relocate, and you could tell he was struggling with idea of Bath as a, um, city. He phrased it more circumspectly than this, but, basically, he wanted to know where the stuff was. (From my perspective, there’s plenty of stuff in Bath downtown, plus extensive suburbs, but, no, it’s not Baltimore (punch line: But what is?)
He said “they’d” been to Waterboro the day before, and there wasn’t much there, and produced a quiz about Phippsburg, which the cashiers admitted was nothing there though the fort and Popham Beach were worth seeing. He asked me where I was from, and I admitted to Waterville, throwing in the three colleges for a tease. He was briefly interested until I also admitted it wasn’t on the water, then turned back to the cashiers with the notion that if he was looking for the stuff, he’d probably be looking to Portland, then? They shared A Look, then one glanced back at him, and allowed, very seriously, as how that was probably so.
I took my package and left, walked up to the top of the street, avoiding the temptations of both ice cream and the cooking store (something to do on another trip!), walked back down the street, got in my car and headed for the Maine Maritime Museum.
#Interlude: Reached the vet, left a message for Trooper’s doctor.
From yesterday’s mail — the new property valuation, from which I learn that this house has nearly doubled in “value” since we moved here in 2018. Which, of course, means that everything else has at least doubled in value, so moving is Not An Option. Not that I was looking to move, but it’s sort of expected that a Person of My Age and Condition will be Downsizing, and — nah.
#Chapter ThreeI had never before been to the Maine Maritime Museum; I expect I will go back. It’s sited on the land that used to be occupied by the Percy and Small Shipyard.
(I am reminded here of the fellow at Reny’s and his inquiry after the stuff; Maine used to be full of stuff; and Phippsburg, where there’s “nothing much” but the beach and the fort, used to be a shipbuilding mecca, as well as an ice harvesting center — Kennebec River Ice was popular in Europe. Bath was an international seaport. This was a repeating theme of the day, including on the tour, where we were reminded of history, along with wildlife, sea, and lighthouse lore.)
There is a museum building, but I opted to spend the time before my boat left touring the grounds and some of the outbuildings, which is well worth the time. I particularly liked the display of lobster floats, which reminded me (I think I had known this at one point), that each fisherman had a distinctive float attached to their traps (yes, exactly like brands on cattle), so if you were filching lobster, you knew who you were stealing from.
Mostly, though, I just enjoyed being outside. It was a glorious day — warm, but not too warm, breezy on the land, but not windy. I chatted with a couple of other tourists, and when the time came, I was first on the boat, and climbed topside.
(Metaphysical notation; feel free to skip. I hate ladders. I can go up ladders, but not down. Prudence therefore dictated that I stay on the lower level and watch the river go by from behind windows.
(But I didn’t wanna. And as I was sitting on the dock, waiting for boarding, I had been weighing Prudence against Adventure, and during that conversation with myself, I heard Steve say, very clearly, and as he had done on numerous previous occasions, “I’ll do down first, and you just follow me; it’ll be fine.” He had never let me down before, and there was no reason to think he would let me down this time — and nor did he — so, top deck. Best Choice Ever.)
I had noticed, when I was sitting on the dock that it was, er, cooler by the water, so I’d put on my Bug Light sweatshirt (which is winter-weight) — and that was a good call.
I sat on the backest bench, portside, and that was also a good call, as I could turn around and see the whole of Merrymeeting Bay behind us as we progressed.
We had a full boat — 50 passengers. On the upper deck, we were all grownups; I can’t speak to the passengers below. (The tour before mine did have at least one very small boy, who had a screaming tantrum when mom told him they were leaving now — speaking to the point made by someone that taking a small child on a river tour would be silly.)
Just as we got underway, a huge fish broke water — I was apparently the only one who saw it, and I had no idea. “Salmon?”, I thought (no fisherman, here), but our guide later told us that sturgeon leap, and if we saw a big silver fish come out of the water, that was a sturgeon.
I can’t begin to do justice to the experience. The wind had come up, so it was … a little … choppy. I was not uncomfortable, and my fellow top-siders seemed comfortable, as well. We saw Doubling Point; the Kennebec Range Lights, Squirrel Point Light, Pond Island, and (from a distance, the only ocean light) Sequin Light. We saw seals, bald eagle, cormorants, heron, house and woods, and passing towns. It was worth far more than I paid for the experience, and yes, I will be doing it again.
Ten stars out of Five. Highly recommended.
Wrapping up: I can’t remember the last time I spent a day almost completely outside. Must do that more often.
Also, one of the reasons I took this particular (2 hour) tour was to try to get a handle on if I could, maybe, tolerate (physically tolerate; bench seating is not kind to bad backs) a whale/puffin watch, which I’ve been wanting to do forever, and no time like the present. My back does hurt a little today, and I’ll talk with the chiropractor when I see him this afternoon.
I talked to a lot of people yesterday; just casual conversations. Usually, I didn’t talk to people — Steve did. See metaphysical note, above.
Yes, I did take millions of pictures, and I’ll post . . . a few, as time allows. Here’s a couple: Doubling Point Light and Seals at Rest:
Here ends my tale of yesterday’s adventures.
Addendum: Information about the Kennebec Estuary, and the six rivers that run together to the sea.
