Talk of the Tuckered

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

It’s the day after my “milestone” birthday…it must have been all the pie and cake I ate because I woke up from one of those “trying to scream” nightmares, all tuckered out.  If only I had stuck to the saltine cracker regimen my brother recommended at an early age.

I’m zipping off to see a decorator show house at Harbor Lights in York, Maine today, part of my energy revitalization plan.  I’m sure I’ll have something to say about it next week.

The First SunflowerIt’s a fantastic day in Maine…everything is coming up sunflowers.

I wish you were here!

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Maybe it was the Pie

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

On a typical Wednesday in Lisbon Falls, if there were still party lines, you might overhear this conversation:

“Hi, Mom, what are you doing?”

“I’m making your birthday cake.”

“Oh, good!”

There’s an awkward pause and then I say, “Do you think I could come over at lunch?  I just want to ask you a few questions about the day I was born, get all the details clear in my mind.”

Lunch for three; it’s a new recipe my mother is trying out. Something with Swiss chard from the farm share.  Not bad.  Helen will make it with kale the next time.

We’re finishing and I bring up the topic.  My mother neatly puts her cutlery on her plate and begins.

“Your father was working eleven to seven that week and we’d just finished dinner.  The Earle’s stopped by, Bill and Connie.  Connie was a nurse and she looked at me and said the baby looked really low.  Dr. Spear had told me my due date was August 18 and I didn’t have any reason to think I’d deliver early.”

“The Earle’s left and your father took a nap before going to the mill. He left for work at 10:00 p.m. and I was hungry.  Aunt Anna had sent over her homemade blueberry pie and I ate a piece and went to bed.”

“Not long after going to bed, I started to feel sick.  I thought maybe it was the pie.  Then, my water broke and I called the mill.  Your father had just started his shift and he left to come back home.  We dropped your brother off at Aunt Anna’s and went to what was then called Central Maine General Hospital in Lewiston.”

“Dr. Spear was on vacation and Dr. James was covering for him; he arrived at the hospital and you were born a little bit after 3:00 a.m.”

I never get tired of hearing this story.

I asked my father what he thought about me.  He said “you cried a lot.  You were a crybaby.”

My mother said I used to sleep all day and cry all night.  She’d get up and rock me in the bassinet and then she’d slip back to bed only to hear me crying again.  It was a long three or four months, what with my father working swing shifts.  Everyone was sleep deprived.

And what about my brother, Jim?  What did he think of me?

“He was a little jealous at first; that’s normal,” my mother said. “Then, we found out he was putting crackers in your crib.  Saltines.”

No wonder I’m a cracker junkie.  My brother was stuffing them in my crib.

So there you have it.  Fifty years ago today I was born, following a late-night snack of blueberry pie made by my godmother and aunt, who was also born on August 7.  In honor of blueberries, aunts, and crying babies, I bought two pies at Grant’s Bakery.  If you’re in Lisbon Falls today, stop by and have a cup of coffee or tea and a slice of pie…blueberry, of course.

Fifty Years Ago TodayIt’s always a good day for a party!

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The Frog in the Garden

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Yesterday, one of my friends shared my Market Basket post with her friends and said “I loved reading your blog.”  I was flattered she considered my words worthy of sharing.  For a blogger and aspiring writer, that’s a wonderful compliment.

Thank you, friend.

The words “aspiring writer” conjure up images.  Margaret Mitchell allegedly wrote Gone with the Wind while recovering from an ankle injury.  Others, like the journalistic types sitting at the Algonquin Roundtable, met for a witty lunch every day before filing their newspaper articles.  Then, there’s poor old F. Scott Fitzgerald, smoking and drinking himself around the French Riviera, only to end up dying in Hollywood at age 44, shacked up with gossip-columnist Sheilah Graham.

Writing…it’s a glamorous life.

This morning, nothing but a writer’s block here.  In between scrambling eggs, running up and down the 14 stairs to my office, and blaring Maria Callas’ greatest “hits,” I’m punching the keys in vain.  Dot and Breezy must wonder what’s going on over here.

Last year around this time, I wrote a funny story about a man on a train.  Click on the frog in the garden if you’d like to read it.

Frogs in the GardenNo frogs were injured in the writing of this blog post.

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My Worumbo Cousins

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Oh boy…6:42 a.m. and I have soundly overslept. Today’s blog post is a crazy-quilt of words lodged in my brain behind half a cup of coffee. It’s Monday in Vacationland. Tired rusticators are either grudgingly home or racing madly south on the Maine Turnpike, their cars and their minds speeding faster and faster the farther they travel from the way life should be.

It’s a thankful wonder they don’t spontaneously combust.

On Sunday afternoon, happy motoring against this tide of travelers, I made my way to Georgetown Island, the home of my beloved Reid State Park, by way of Bath, the city of ships. Many of Bath’s quaint shops close at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoons, so the homeward bound rusticators were in a frenzy of souvenir snatching before departure. The “from away” men and women in Lisa-Marie’s were babbling about the places they had gone, confusedly recalling day hikes and lobster dinners.

“Yes, it’s a little day hike, about forty minutes from here…I can’t recall the name of it, Mount Katahdin, I think.”

“No, no, you’re thinking of Cadillac Mountain.”

“Not Cadillac, Katahdin!”

I put my birthday cards on the counter and winked at the pleasant woman behind the counter.

“I’m not a tourist,” I whispered.

“I know,” she said.

We quietly agreed it was Mount Agementicus and I bid farewell.

Dinner and Georgetown Island called me.

On the IslandMy hostess and I are cousins by a stronger bond than Six Degrees of Ayuh; some day when I’m not late for work I’ll explain Six Degrees of Worumbo and map out some of the descendants. A few drops of Worumbo blood and an ounce of Moxie in your veins and you’ll never be a rusticator. For now, let’s just say that Maine is the place for family reunions of all sorts and “Amen” to that.

We had a delightful time–a simple meal, a walk along the Marrtown Road chaperoned by mosquitoes and horse flies, and talk, talk, talk about our fourth and fifth Worumbo cousins. Then, with Monday’s responsibilities hugging us like a night fog over the island, we said goodbye. It reminded me of the ending of The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.

Yep, we are still a close family and we see each other when we can.

Onward, to Monday.

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A Moth in a Market Basket Mitten

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I’m a busy person; certain seasons are busier than others and let’s just say I’m in the middle of the busiest season ever.  Moving, Moxie, mittens, Moxie, moving, moths, house guests, Moxie, moving, party, moving.  Author John Gould once wrote the following about busy moths:

To ram around like a fart in a mitten is a good general Maine usage, and means that you’ve been so busy all day you didn’t get anything done.  A more genteel version is “like a moth in a mitten.”

The Monday after Moxie, I finally took a breath and a glance at an internet news aggregator.  Mon Dieu!  The Market Basket supermarket chain was under siege!  I couldn’t believe it.  When I was living in my chicken coop-sized condo in New Hampshire, preparing for the Apocalypse, Market Basket was my “go to” place to shop and stock up.  I read the weekly flyer religiously and strategically planned my purchases.  Bullets, beans, and band-aids…it’s the “preppers” mantra.  Market Basket had them in great abundance and at affordable prices.  They had what I needed, including toilet paper.

Market Basket MadnessEverything except the bullets.

Now, metaphorical bullets are flying after a long, simmering family feud.  Talk about the Apocalypse, it’s happening at Market Basket.  A zombie CEO ousts his loveable cousin, employees and customers protest, truck drivers don’t deliver the food, and the shelves empty. Politicians take sides, hoping to improve their image and show they care about “the people.”

Shocker.

The whole story is a Pulitzer-prize winning novel, waiting to be written.

The other day, I read an anonymous “open letter to Arthur S. Demoulas” via Facebook.  Here’s the part that caught my attention:

Without my realizing it, the patterns of my life have been built around one certainty: food comes from Demoulas.

Long-time blog readers will know what I am going to say next.

No, Anonymous, food does not come from Demoulas. Food comes from farms, grown by farmers who sweat and toil and harvest. Sometimes, this farming is done by migrant workers and illegals who work very hard for very little money.  This keeps food costs down, allowing a CEO somewhere, like Arthur S. Demoulas, to make a profit.

I digress and shake a beehive, perhaps unfairly.

The farmers then bring the food to market and eventually it makes it onto a truck which rumbles it onto a loading dock at Market Basket. In the Apocalypse business, it’s commonly understood that supermarkets only keep a 3 – 4 day supply of food in the store.  If there’s a hiccup in the supply line, like truckers refusing to make deliveries, the shelves empty quickly.

Who knew we’d get a glimpse of the Apocalypse from a big fat Greek family feud?

I don’t know what’s really going on at Market Basket.  I only know what I read on the internet and there’s always more to every story than meets the eye.  For the record, I support the dedicated Market Basket employees who have served the Demoulas family for many years.  As a former customer, I can attest to the superior service and knowledge they provide.

I’ve got to get back to fluttering around in my home office this beautiful Friday morning in Maine.  We don’t have a Market Basket here in Lisbon Falls, just Food City.  Everything seemed calm there last night when I drove by.  And it’s the first day of the month, there’s free coffee at the Extra Mart.  Cucumbers and beans in abundance in Uncle Bob’s garden and he doesn’t supply them to the two Greek Arties, just his family and friends.

No farms, no food, baybee!

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The Late Blooming Lupine

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I always thought of myself as a sunflower, but maybe I’m a late-blooming lupine.

Late Blooming LupineLife is full of surprises!

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More Moving People

Posted on July 30, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

When I tell people in town where I live, I generally get one response in a variety of combinations.  Something like:

“YOU LIVE NEAR THE WALKING PATH!”

Yes, it’s true.  I do live near the walking path.  And as daylight brightens my kitchen, men arrive in trucks and start making noise and shaking the earth to finish paving the path.  From my home office perch, I see the dump trucks going back and forth, hauling dirt this way and that.  Sometimes, foul language drifts up the hill, over my potato plants, and into my mud room.

When I first bought my house in May and started mowing the lawn, I knew I would have no need of the walking path.  As my possessed self-propelled lawn mower dragged me up and around my little acre like a flimsy kite, I knew I wouldn’t need a one million dollar trail to improve my life and health.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not opposed to public spaces and nature. But I don’t believe the only way to get big things done is by the coercive taxing hand of Gooberment.  The only certain observation I can make about public works projects, aka pyramid building, is that they are costly.  It’s not difficult to spend money when it’s not yours.  Even if the majority of the funding came from a “grant” from the Schtate, ultimately all tax-payers are responsible.

Alas, I was not living here at the time decisions were made about the walking path.  There’s no stopping it now; I’d better like it or lump it, right?

I don’t like lumping things, so I’ve decided to embrace the walking path in my own special way. The first thing I’m going to do, once it’s finished, is take a walk on it.  Naturally, I’ll write about it here on the blog, maybe make it into a “Lady Alone Traveler” bit complete with birds swooping down at me and deer charging out of the woods along the Androscoggin River.  Stay tuned.

If the path passes muster, I’m going to invite others over to walk it with me.  Friends, relatives, and angels.  Angel investors, that is.  The path will be part of my pitch to the “angels” I’m asking to fund some of the excellent unfunded projects I’ve got up my sleeve.  After we walk the path and we’ve taken in the great natural beauty along the river, I’ll offer them some coffee or tea at my big old house on the hill and we’ll seal the deal.

Yep, more moving people.  That’s how I’m embracing the walking path today.

Less Cities, More Moving PeopleThere goes the house shaking earth movers.  I’d better get busy pounding my keyboard so I can pay my taxes.

I’ll see you on the walking path!

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Where Credit is Due

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I’m not a woman who spouts off motivational quotes at the first sign of a problem.  I’m not saying certain combinations of words aren’t helpful, though, and the following two quotes are probably the ones that have helped me the most in my life:

“You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”  Zig Ziglar

“It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”  Harry S. Truman

Now let me tell you a little story.

About a month before the Moxie Festival, my friend Alan stopped by and told me our beloved fourth grade teacher, Vida Hunnewell, was going to have a milestone birthday at the end of July.  She would be turning 85.  Alan wanted to do something special for Mrs. Hunnewell and I thought it was a good idea too.  My plate was pretty full but I really wanted to help Alan plan something so I said “let me think about this.”

One thing I knew about Mrs. Hunnewell is that she loves her church, the Lisbon United Methodist Church on School Street.  I used to see her briskly walking from her house to church on Sunday mornings or working at different church functions like the Christmas fair.

Another thing I knew was that the good men and women at the Methodist church give really fantastic parties.  So I sent a note to the wife of a classmate and told her about Mrs. Hunnewell’s birthday.  She told her mother and one of the church committees discussed it and voila!  A party was in the works!

Sunday afternoon was marred only by a sudden thunder shower; it was raining cats and dogs and goats around 2:00 p.m.  A rush of umbrellas crowded the door and we packed into the church basement.  Our fourth grade class even had our own children’s table.  When Mrs. Hunnewell got there, she was so surprised, she started crying.  Then she composed herself and greeted everyone.

Happy Birthday, Vida Hunnewell!(Photo courtesy of Julie Guay.)

What a great party it was!

After the party, pictures were posted and comments were made on Facebook.  Alan posted a comment and thanked me and it got me thinking about the fact that I actually hadn’t done anything.  It was all Alan’s idea because he was paying attention when Mrs. Hunnewell told him her birthday was coming up.  I know Alan Thomas doesn’t care about getting credit for creating a boatload of sunshine for Mrs. Hunnewell, but in this case I want to give credit where credit is due.  It was all Alan’s idea and I was just part of the sunshine delivery device.

Motivational quotes are nice and all, but without action, they’re just more gas.  We really don’t need any more bloviating gas bags in this world, right Alan?

So go out there today and do the work in front of you, without concern about ribbons and trophies.  Just help someone else and who cares who gets the credit for it.

And a very happy 85th birthday to Vida Hunnewell!

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The Truth about Hospitality

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I’ve written about hospitality before.  Writing and talking about things is not the same as doing things.  Can I get a heartfelt “Amen?”

For the last two months, I have had the good fortune to live in two places.  I’ve had my apartment on the Mason Family Compound and my new old house on the hill in town.  I’d slowly started moving things down from the Compound at a snail’s pace.  There was no need to speed; I had time.

Then I decided to push the envelope and I invited some dear Florida friends to stay at my house for the Moxie Festival and beyond.  Come to the Moxie Motel, I said.

And they arrived!

They ArrivedThey were perfect guests and they “test drove” my house for me. They discovered night-time clicks and bangs, squeaky doors, and kitchen traffic patterns.  They did a lot of cooking and since there were teenage children involved, they wore lots of shoes and read books and crumbled cookies at their leisure.  I think they liked the location and they walked to and fro, from the library to the Dairy Maid to Faye’s Barber Shop.

At some point during their stay, I realized that I was a control freak. I had professed and embraced hospitality in theory but my years of living in a chicken-coop-sized condo had reduced my understanding and practice of it.  Not everyone needs to have everything in its place all the time and some people don’t fret to see nine pairs of shoes lined up in the hallway.

I knew my Bible and I knew what it says about showing hospitality without grumbling and entertaining angels unaware.  Why was it so hard for me to live and let others live in my house?

I did the best I could, but I was upset with myself.  Hospitality was more than a plywood pineapple or a wooden pineapple candy container.  I had measured myself against such hospitality giants as Conrad Hilton and J.W. Marriott and I had come up short.  My pineapple was empty; maybe I was really Leona Helmsley.

The Truth about HospitalityMy guests are waking up right now.  Their suitcases and sneakers are lined up in the hallway, like disheveled drunken soldiers after a night on the town.

I miss them already.

I’ll keep working on this hospitality thing and I’ll keep inviting people over.  You know what another lover of order, Helen, would say:

Practice makes perfect!

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Thowback Thursday?

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

For no particular reason.

To the moonMat it, baybee.

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