The Arabica Incident

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

When I went to Florida to visit Reggie Black, he showed me how to make delicious coffee in a stovetop espresso maker, or a macchinetta. Reggie, an excellent instructor, carefully explained how much water to put in the bottom chamber, how much coffee to put in the filter, and how to assemble the macchinetta correctly.

“Make sure you’ve tightened the chamber sufficiently.”

He showed me how the filter plate and the gasket fit under the top chamber.

“You don’t need to remove the rubber gasket every time you make coffee, once a week is enough.”

I’ve been making delicious espresso every day since then; it’s changed my coffee consumption habits and it’s brightened my mornings with a new, cheery routine. Although I’m not enjoying the sociability of caffé, my early morning is filled with delightful smells and sounds which end with a little cup of warm delicious energy.

After a lifetime of making coffee in various ways, this particular technique was the solution to a few of my coffee requirements. The macchinetta is small and aesthetically pleasing; space was limited at The Coop and I didn’t have room for a big old Mr. Coffee sitting on the counter. In the last few years, I had even taken to drinking instant coffee due to this space limitation. Stovetop espresso is also “green” enough for me and doesn’t produce much waste, unlike the “Keurig K-Cup” which commits the sins of both bigness and forever landfill life.

I’m saving my coffee grounds now and mixing them into my garden for the worms.

The best part of it all is that the coffee tastes good.

On Sunday morning, I got up early with thoughts of taking a sunrise walk. I had taken my macchinetta apart the day before and had given it a thorough cleaning and inspection. I sleepily followed what I thought was my usual preparation pattern. Then the handle fell off. Ach, not such a big deal, the rest of the machine was intact, so I placed it on the burner and turned it on. I pattered about, writing my blog while waiting for my morning cup of wake up.

What was taking so long?

I went over to the stove and adjusted the macchinetta and without knowing what was happening, the whole thing exploded, sending a spray of coffee grounds all over my kitchen. It even crossed the threshold of my bedroom and left a few coffee sprinkles on my dust ruffle.

It was one hot mess before sunrise.

In my pre-coffee sleep walk, I had forgotten to put the filter plate and the gasket into the macchinetta!

It knocked me off my game and I had no choice but to pull out mops and rags and sponges. It upset the rhythm of my day and it put me ninety minutes behind on a schedule I had hoped would include peace, quiet, and spiritual reflection.

I never quite recovered yesterday and I could provide a long list of quips and motivational quotations about “overcoming” when things go wrong. But I won’t; it could have been worse. It could have blasted my eye out.

It’s Monday, the coffee is on and I’m back at it. Like Tom Brady, after yesterday’s overtime loss to the Jets, “I’ve got to do a better job out there. That’s what I need to do.”

I’m not going to let a little “Arabica Incident” get me down.

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Hunting for Wild Apples

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

“Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees…

…please.”

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A Woman’s Career

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

This has been an interesting week, my first week of telecommuting.  Here in the post-modern world, many people telecommute and now I’ve joined the legions of slipper-clad workers, pounding away at a computer from a spare bedroom or their mother’s basement.

I’ve been thinking about one of Margo Channing’s monologues from the movie All About Eve; the stalled car scene.  (I can’t direct you to any online video because the scene apparently contains content from FOX, who has blocked it from me and the rest of the world on copyright grounds.  It’s probably just because the film was distributed by 20th Century Fox, in 1950.)

I was able to find the script of the movie here.  The monologue, in its entirety, is about two-thirds of the way through.

I’ve watched the movie many times; Bette Davis was a powerful actress and the movie is full of smart and witty dialogue.  She had a Maine connection, too.  During the Fifties, she and Gary Merrill spent their summers in Cape Elizabeth, in a house called ‘Witch Way.”  A ubiquitous zillion dollar house has replaced their simple colonial home on Zeb Cove Road.

I’m sure it’s perfectly lovely.

In the movie, Bette, as Margo Channing, is sitting in a stalled land yacht on a snowy Connecticut road with her best friend Karen.  They’re covered with a fur car robe and the car is out of gas.  Karen’s husband, Lloyd, has shuffled off into the winter landscape to find a gas station.  Margo and Karen light up cigarettes and Margo begins talking, leading up to these lines that always echo in my mind when I hear them:

“…funny business, a woman’s career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you’ll need them when you get back to being a woman.”

I often think about my “woman’s career.”  I’ve performed quite a few monologues myself, stalled out on Route 128 or driving up and down the Maine Turnpike, over the years.  I’ve done “office work” ever since I graduated from college.  I don’t remember any of my guidance counselors telling me that one of my career choices was to be a woman.

If I had it to do over again, I’d like to be a housewife.  I think I would have been good at it.  I like to cook and clean; I own a lot of aprons.  I enjoy doing the things my mother, the housewife, has done in her career as a woman.

I’m grateful The Big Corporation is letting me work from home.  I enjoy being in my home office and even though I have to finish setting up one last piece of equipment, my desk is covered with Cath Kidston-like oilcloth fabric and I may make a frilly curtain for the window this weekend.  I’ve noticed where the sun goes during the day; around 4:00 p.m., it streams in by my kitchen sink and I take a break to wash and dry my dishes.

I don’t wear my jammies; I get dressed every day and put on real shoes.  Just for kicks, I’ve been putting on an apron, too, although no one sees me.

I saw a used land yacht for sale in town.

After miles of monologues, one thing is clear.  I don’t have to climb to the top of the corporate ladder.  I’m happy here at home, hammering away at it from my spare room.

I’ve had a life full of choices and career opportunities.  Some I regret, some have been profitable and all have had consequences.  I don’t see myself choosing a used station wagon any time soon, but that’s okay because long car monologues are a thing of the past and I don’t have a fur car robe.

I don’t know what I’ll end up being; maybe a telecommuting housewife.  Sure, I want to change the world, but I’m thinking of a micro and local career, not a macro and global one.  Like Margo Channing, I’m picking up the things I dropped along the way and getting back to being a woman.

The journey continues! 

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Nowhere Wednesdays

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I was thinking about calling Wednesdays “Go Nowhere Wednesdays” because I’d like to have one day a week that I don’t drive my Jeep.  It’s dangerous to say “always” and “every.”  Something might suddenly come up.

I didn’t drive my Jeep yesterday, but I did take a walk at lunch.

I almost forgot that I wanted to be a country girl.

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Local Laundry

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Washing clothes has a long tradition.  Before the Industrial Revolution, women would take clothes to the river and rely on the water’s motion to agitate the dirt out.  Instruments of agitation included bats and sticks; how very violent!

I found some interesting information about laundry here.

It’s hard to imagine laundry life being so complicated and difficult, but a little internet research would probably provide me with information about a “laundry culture” that evolved from the work of cleanliness.  It doesn’t sound unpleasant.

My mother, Saint Helen of Immaculata, loves doing laundry.  She has laundry routines, special laundry tools and products, and she probably has special Holy Days of Laundry Obligation.  She hangs her laundry outside on the clothes line my father built for her and very rarely uses a clothes dryer.

When I got married, my parents bought me a washing machine and then my father promptly installed a clothes line like my mother’s at the house in Portland, Maine.  When I got divorced and we sold the house, I left the washing machine with my ex-husband.

I still miss the clothes line.

When I moved to The Coop, I used the small laundry room available to me there.  It had three washing machines and three dryers.  Some of my neighbors had compact washer and dryer sets and I looked into buying a set too, but since I knew I wouldn’t be staying there forever I didn’t make the investment.

I didn’t mind carrying my LL Bean boat and tote bags of laundry over the laundry room once or twice a week; it was good exercise and it was often peaceful and quiet there in the evening.  Once in a while, I might meet my condo neighbors; I met Mary and Dave in the laundry room last year and I told them I was thinking of selling my condo.

That story had a happy ending.

Here in my new home, I have a large “laundry room” with, as yet, no appliances.  Saint Helen and I have been to the local appliance store and scoped things out; Agren’s is having a big sale this weekend and I’ll probably buy a washer and a dryer.

Since moving, I’ve accumulated some laundry.  Lisbon Falls is a clean town with two coin-operated laundromats.

It’s hard to believe, but in forty-nine years, I’d never been inside the Main Street Laundry.  It’s always been there, right next to John’s TV and Appliance Store.  Glen, John’s son, still owns the appliance store, but it’s not open anymore.  He stores appliances there as part of some other business venture.  In the same block, a Chinese restaurant is in the former Mid-Maine Mutual Savings Bank.

I was surprised at how quiet it was at the Main Street Laundry.  Maybe it was because it was Sunday night and the Patriots were on, or maybe it’s because Lisbonites do their laundry on other days and at other times.  I went to the Chinese restaurant while I was waiting for my clothes to spin and met Mei; she was friendly and the crab Rangoon were very good.

I found some beauty at the laundromat, too.

In my two visits to the Main Street Laundry, I’ve had time to think about my hometown and the types of businesses that are needed for a good quality of life.  Main Street Laundry is a good, solid business and it fills a need.  It wasn’t always a laundromat; something else was there, something different.  Some simple internet research might provide me with the answer or a phone call to my father.

I think I’ll take a trip to the Lisbon Historical Society on Thursday instead.  Al and Dot will know what was there and they’ll direct me to old newspapers which might have more details about Main Street “back in the day.”

I might even dig up some dirty laundry.  That’s how it is to live a local life…agitating the dirt out.

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The Absurd Routines of Life

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Back when I lived at The Coop, I had a certain morning routine that involved getting up early and spending some quiet time reading and writing.  I’d post my blog, do paperwork, and drink coffee.  Then, I’d start my morning work preparations.

As I look back on it, some of these routines were complex.  I’d have to parse out my vitamins, prepare my lunch, and load up my water.  I know, it sounds absurd, but I didn’t like the water at the office and I don’t like drinking water out of plastic, so I would bring my filtered water into work in sixteen ounce recycled glass bottles.  Baby bottles, I guess.  I’d put the bottles in Moxie “coozies” and load everything into a canvas tote bag.

My mother would call these routines “gyrations.”

I don’t live at The Coop anymore and I won’t be going into The Big Corporation’s offices either.  I won’t have so many gyrations.  Still, I’m a creature of habit and I love routines.  I like mindless tasks like cutting up vegetables and counting things.  I like putting my keys in the same place every time I use them.

Some people are more comfortable with reinvention, like the JBE.

I’ve got my desk set up, pointing 42 degrees northeast.  My vitamins are all parsed out for the day and my water is rationed too.  Even though I won’t have to go anywhere today, I’ve decided to honor both routines and change.

My blogging routines might be a little discombobulated as I figure out how this new arrangement is going to work out, but one thing I know.

I’m going to drink my water today, in a bottle and in a glass!

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All Roads Lead to Home

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I rode my bicycle to Uncle Bob’s yesterday.  It took twenty-two minutes.  He was putting tools in his truck, on his way to The Farm to work on the tractor-hauling trailer.  I got a little nervous and asked if he was bringing the tractor home.  I reminded him of the promised tractor-driving lesson.

“I’m not bringing it home until the middle of November.  There’s nothing to driving a tractor…nothing to it.”

Phew.

I went about my garden chores and went to the post office.  Then I contemplated which way I would pedal home.  I live on a “ridge” and every road home involves hills.  In a car, the physics of climbing a hill are overcome by the explosive energy available in a gallon of gas.  It’s easy to forget how much power it takes to overcome gravity.

I’m not going to talk about Peak Oil and physics today.  I’m thinking about the psychic energy it takes to climb life’s hills.  There is sometimes an expectation that change will be like a ride in an automobile and one can just “mat it” to make it happen.  That expression would make a great marketing campaign for a car company, wouldn’t it?

“Mat it to make it happen.”

It’s not that easy.

I was having an e-mail conversation with my brother about life transitions, speed, and distance.  He said, “Cars make distance shrink and I think it changes how we measure many things, not only geographic space.”

Those were the things I was thinking about while pedaling west on the Bowdoinham Road yesterday.  There will always be hills ahead, but I couldn’t help but wipe a little tear from the corner of my eye as I made the turn onto Route 9.  I was overwhelmed by a hundred emotions, mostly gratitude.

All the roads in my life have led me home.

Gloria in excelsis Deo.

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This is Only a Test

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I was listening to the radio the other day and heard the strange automated croaking of the Emergency Alert System signal.  Growing up, it was called the Emergency Broadcast System and this series of sounds signaled one of two things:  a national emergency of grave importance, or a test of the system.

Radio and television stations used to be required to test the system at least once a week.  They would follow the signal with the words “this has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.  If this had been an actual emergency, the attention signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news, or instructions.”

Recently, the Emergency Alert System signal has been used to notify Americans of severe weather alerts.  I’ll hear the signal and then a computer-generated voice from the National Weather Service will say “severe weather is expected this afternoon” or “blizzard-like conditions are imminent.”

For me, growing up during the Cold War, the signal meant one thing.  The Russians were coming.  When I’d hear the signal, I’d be frightened.  I’d hold my breath, waiting for the signal to end, and then wait for the comfortable voice notifying me that it was “only a test.”

Back in the Cold War days, radio and television stations were occupied by actual men and women who worked around the clock.  They’d literally play records, press buttons to initiate commercials and public service announcements, and write down everything that happened in the logs they were required to complete for the Federal Communications Commission.  Now, much of what comes over radio and television is pre-programmed and can be controlled remotely.  Sometimes, human intervention isn’t even needed.

They still test the Emergency Alert System from time to time.  Lately, I’ve noticed that broadcasters have become haphazard about announcing the signal.  Sometimes, it sounds like it is played accidentally, by some twist of a misplaced electron.  No soothing voice tells me whether it is a test or an actual emergency.

Are the Russians still coming?

I try to ignore it, like everyone else does, but what if this is the one time it actually is a national emergency?  Then what?  Do I run to my bomb shelter?

Maybe it was all just theatre, teaching us fear instead of resilience.

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Men and Women Working

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Every time I drive north over the Piscataqua River Bridge into Maine, I pass a sign that says “Welcome to Maine, The Way Life Should Be.”  Directly beneath it is a smaller sign that says “Open For Business.”  It always catches my eye and I think about Maine’s current governor.  Making Maine a friendly place to do business hasn’t been an easy task for this pro-business politician.

Do the words “friendly” and “business” even go together?

As part of my move home, I needed a technology upgrade.  It’s one thing to find a place to live and move all kinds of stuff; it’s another thing to live somewhere with all the amenities of this modern age.  I will also admit there was a little part of me which said “maybe the sale of The Coop will fall through.”  In order to mitigate this potential financial disaster, I postponed making technology decisions until the last minute.

I reasoned that if I should end up with a seaside condo AND an apartment in my hometown, I could probably swing it for a year while I worked on an aggressive plan to sell the seaside condo.  I would sleep on an air mattress at the condo during the work week and drive home to Maine on the weekends, just like I’ve been doing for the past few years.

That’s not how it all turned out and it’s been a race to get all the parts of my technology installed.

There was a little glitch with a local telephone company last week, installing a landline.  They sent an IBEW member yesterday and he fixed it right up.

My first outbound phone call was to my mother and she promptly invited me over to supper!

Yesterday was also the first appointment the local internet service provider had available.  A friendly and courteous technician arrived, but his ladder wouldn’t quite reach the switch box on the telephone pole across the street.  He had to call someone with a bucket truck, who promptly fixed it right up.

No more blogging from the Maine Turnpike!

Finally, I went to Uncle Bob’s to talk about fall garden work.  I hung around in the garden for a while, dead-heading marigold and nasturtium seeds for a spring planting project.  Uncle Bob was nowhere to be found so I left him a note on the porch.

This transition home hasn’t been easy.  There are quite a few half-done projects.  I keep chipping away at them and before I know it, I’ll be ready to send out some kind of metaphorical sign that says I’m “open for business.”

I am in the business of living a local life. 

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Thursday on Wednesday

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Julie-Ann Baumer

This would be a good picture to use when I’m unable to get a full length blog post up.

20131009-055816.jpg
Time Warner is coming today to install some super dooper business class Internet service. We’ll see how that goes. Until then…

Sunflower down.

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