i must go down to the sea again – Sharon Lee, Writer

The Adventuring of Yesterday

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.

Distant Early Warning

All righty, then!

God, She knows what I did today. Research, that’s it. And laundry. And staring. Can’t write a book without staring, and that’s just a plain fact.

Tomorrow may well be a Writer’s Day Off. I see that high tide at Old Orchard Beach is at 9:54 am, that it’s not supposed to rain there, or here, until after sundown, and! I have nothing except Ashley and ASL on my schedule next week, which in theory means I have All That Time to write.

Ah. Another thing I did today was tune my magic headphones. It’s more than a little lowering to note that I can’t hear four out of ten tones (in each ear) AT ALL. But, no worries! says the magic headphones, we can make the music sound better by adjusting the tones you can hear. I was, I admit, dubious. But dern if it didn’t work — music is brighter, and if I can’t hear what I can’t hear, then I don’t guess I’ll miss it. Or something.

Having washed and dried everything that needed same, and a couple things that didn’t, I give the new appliances high points. I have to negotiate with the dryer a bit in re how dry I need my socks to be, but that’s only learning the proper buttons to push. Also, I was not left a manual for the washer, and I find that I have Questions, so I’ll have to seek that out on the internets tomorrow, or, hey, Saturday.

I am not at all prepared for ASL class this evening, but it’s too late to remedy that particular error, so — I’ll be heading out in twenty minutes or so.

Everybody stay safe.

I’ll check in as can, tomorrow.

The History of The Stuffed Animal Tea

What went before: So, I decided to take advantage of the nice day, and drove down to Belfast. There was a surprising amount of traffic — I forgot it was Maine Maple Weekend — and when I say “surprising amount of traffic,” that’s for Maine values of traffic.

The public landing was full when I got there, so I parked in the lot on Prospect Street, and had a walk around town. Bought a meat mallet to replace the mallet Steve got rid of (I don’t remember why, and because when I had to pound the chicken breasts, I used a can, and that didn’t work out well for the can) and a set of measuring spoons at The Good Table, and some jewelry cleaner at Coyote Moon.

I love Coyote Moon; it’s been in Belfast since we first drove into town, and probably longer. This is not the timeline where their clothes fit me, but they also stock a sufficiency of Interesting Other Things, which makes it a fun place to visit.

Had a sandwich and a cup of tea for lunch at the co-op, and bought a bag or Bob’s Red Mill oatmeal, because I’m almost out of oatmeal, and I can’t find Bob’s reliably in the Hannaford. Also bought some dried pineapple rounds which is a treat that I love beyond reason. I was sad to find that they no longer carry the Lundberg black rice, which had (briefly) become a favorite of mine.

This was the first time I’d been in the co-op since they FINISHED finished the make over. It’s now a very handsome, well-lit modern facility that still retains an air of the older space. Very well done. I spent a good bit of time just wandering around, admiring everything. VERY much appreciated are the updated bathrooms. She said prosaically.

The shopkeepers were all happy to see customers and chatty — the proprietor at Yo Mama! showed me pictures on her phone of the snow they had in Belfast yesterday, instead of our torrential rains. I wandered around the Green Store, and the alpaca store (full! sized! plushy! alpaca! in the window (not for sale) and! I managed to resist buying one of the very much smaller ones that were for sale).

So, anyhoot, I’m home again, have eaten a scone, and need to do some minor chores, like emptying the dishwasher and taking the cat litter that was delivered to the garage yesterday downstairs, after which I believe I will — read.

Yeah — a Compleat Writer’s Day Off. How daring.

Sunday. Sunny. Chillier than it was yesterday, as we prepare for tomorrow’s snow.

My subject this morning is The Stuffed Animal Tea and how it came to be.

It started, then, with Lord Black Cat.

Steve and I were at Boskone (which Boskone, you ask? It was during our Very Busy Traveling Years, and was in fact the Boskone where Robert Silverberg came into the dealer’s room during set up, saw me behind the Meisha Merlin table and told me that he hoped I wasn’t going to be selling books. This has been years ago, and I still can’t figure out if he was kidding.). We were in fact in the dealer’s room, talking to a group of people, and Steve was saying that he missed the cats. I happened to look aside, and there, on the table right next to us, was a cat stuffy. I picked it up and brought it over to Steve, who immediately demanded to know where I’d gotten it and if it was for sale. And it turned out that the owner of the table was among our group of idle chatters and she sold it to him on the spot.

Steve arranged his new friend in his camera bag, so the cat could look out, and off we went to the con.

Many people stopped us to admire the cat, which did not yet have a name, and, I confess that we didn’t know we had a particular cat until a fan stopped, eyes on the cat, bowed, and said, “Kuroneko-sama, welcome to Boskone.” (Number Eight Million Twenty-One on the list of Why I Like Fans.)

We were quickly put into possession of several facts: Kuroneko was from a manga called Trigun, and his name roughly translated was Lord Black Cat.

So, now the cat had a name.

We continued our conly rounds and duties, and people stopped us every so often to say hello to the cat, and were introduced, and pretty often said, “I miss my cat/dog/hamster/parrot.” So, we got to asking people if they hadn’t considered bringing a stuffy with them.

This is where it got interesting. Most of the people we spoke to said that they had a stuffy in the room. I started to ask why they didn’t bring their friend with them, and most said something on the order of “Oh, well, they’re shy, and there’s nobody for them to talk to, anyway.”

On the way home, I remember saying to Steve, “You know? It would be really cool if there was an event for the stuffies, so they could meet each other and not just be by themselves in the room.”

Fast-forward a bit and we’re invited to PenguiCon 4.0. And they want us to do an “event.” An event? And Steve said, “Well, what about your idea of the stuffed animals having a party?” So, we told PenguiCon that we would like to host a Teddy Bear Tea.

Now, it happened that the Looney Lab folk were also Guests of Honor and unbeknowst to us, Alison Looney traveled with several bears and hosted Teddy Bear teas at cons. So, our first Stuffed Animal Event was co-hosted.

It was notable for a few things. One was that someone who had gotten married at the con the day before had donated what was left of her wedding cake to the tea. The other was that the Event was held in an open lobby space directly across from a room being used for readings. The Stuffed Animals, I’m not sorry to say, were a little, um, loud, and the acoustics of the space were what you would expect of a hotel lobby. I’m going to say it was John Scalzi, and he will of course amend my memory if it’s wrong, who was reading, sent one of his listeners to find out what was going on. Said listener came out, asked questions, was given a piece of wedding cake, and went back to report that it was a reception.

So, as it is truly said, In Fandom, if A Thing happens once, it’s a Tradition, whenever Steve and I were Writer GOHs, going forward, and if we were asked to host An Event, we said that we would be pleased to host a Stuffed Animal Tea.

It’s been a lovely tradition; so beautiful to see the stuffies bloom as they’re introduced to each other. And it’s also been interesting to see how the various conventions have interpreted the concept of “Tea” — from a panel room with an electric tea pot, some paper cups and tea bags on the back table with the water, to full-out formal teas, with cucumber sandwiches, and scones. In Pittsburgh, our hostess pulled out her mother’s china and tea service and we had homemade cookies and tea cakes. At — I don’t remember where, and I’m sorry for it, there were tots of sherry on offer. At Heliosphere, we had The Works.

Here ends the history lesson. Below, a picture of Lord Black Cat in his camera bag, and from his attendance at the PenguiCon 4.0 tea.