homeward

Goodbye Maine.  I love you dearly.  The fact that you never really warmed up consistently and insisted on blowing cold wind right up until the end of May is but a pimple on the nose of my adoration, and I am choosing to look beyond it.

I put 370 miles on the car today, and am currently in Utica, where there is a Wendy’s Restaurant and a fire raging about 10 blocks away that has made the air here smell like a giant woodburning stove.

Rather sad, about the Maine, but also rather joyful about the Chicago.

Not joyful about the remaining 830 miles. Send nice thoughts.

the circus

My friend Paula is doing her second radio piece about a circus that came through Portland.  She sent me a text message on her first day hanging out with the circus people.  It said, simply:

DOCUMENTARY SCHOOL ROCKS!

She had to get more tape, so yesterday she drove up to Augusta, where the circus had moved on to, and I tagged along to meet the people she’s been working with.  My favorite was Svenson, who has a goat act.  Keep an eagle eye on those goats.  One of them might be eating your jeans.

a picture post

In the last 48 hours I’ve had several emails from people wanting to know about the lack of an update, and I know – it’s been a little quiet on this site in the last week, not because I didn’t have things to write about, but mostly because doing something creative would really have gotten in the way of all of my massive anxiety. I mean, I could put my energy into blogging, but the panic is really going well for me right now, and I’d hate to fuck that up.

THERE ARE ONLY THREE WEEKS LEFT ON THIS COURSE.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH WORK THERE IS LEFT TO DO? DO YOU? DO YOU? Because if you do, and if you are completely freaking out and losing your shit, well that’s fabulous – come sit by me and have a beer. Maybe four.

I still need to restructure my first radio piece, and I’ve only just started making headway on my second piece. It was supposed to be about Maine accents, but now it’s about the Patriot’s Day Storm of 2007 – the worst storm to hit Maine in 12 years. Today I spent the morning with a couple who lost their beloved summer cottage that they’ve had in the family for 42 years – the one they brought their kids and grandkids to – and I know I’m supposed to be an outside observer, a non-emotional documentarian, but when this couple started describing the home they’d lost, all of the memories washed out to sea, well, um, you’d have gotten a little choked up too.

Anyway, so by the by, I took pictures today of the little town where I’ve been working. Words cannot express how tiny and pretty it is and how “old Maine” it feels, so the pictures are gonna have to do.

a little story

So I have to admit that my little trip home to Chicago a week and a half ago, super quick though it was, made me a little home sick. Chicago was warm and sunny and full of familiar things and good friends and I was very much all, “Hey Chicago! I miss you! I’m here! Maine ain’t all that, it’s you I love!” Even the crazy wacked out scary man at the bus stop who looked like he might want to kill me dead didn’t deter me from my little moment of urban adoration.

But then I got back here, and I was all, “ok Portland, you’re cute too, even though you are totally kicking my ass right now and I’m totally exhausted, but you have sea gulls and a big bay and brick paved streets and drivers who stop for pedestrians and people who smile, so maybe you’re not so bad.”

Anyway, this is all just sort of a lumpy little intro into telling y’all about the trash here. Portland is very SERIOUS about their trash and recycling. It all had to be explained to me when I got here. All recyclables go in one big blue plastic bin – all of it – paper, cardboard, cans, bottles, and no separating. You don’t even have to clean out your cans and bottles. The city comes around once a week and empties out your bin and takes it away.

On the same day they come and get your trash, and all trash has to be in official blue “City of Portland” trash bags. No Hefty Bags for the Portlanders. These bags have to be bought specially. They’re not cheap either, a parcel of 30 bags costs about $8.00. I think the cost of the bags underwrites the cost of trash removal…

Anyway, I bought more bags this week and the new lot were gray bags – all the old bags were blue bags. No big deal, I’m thinking, they’ve changed the color. Well, last night I put out my trash, along with all my neighbors, and this morning all their trash was gone, and my little gray trash bag was still there. Rejected by the trash men.

Evidence, below. One lone trash bag sitting atop my empty recycling bin.

I call the city (the number is nicely printed on the outside of the bag) and a nice woman says, “you have the wrong color, you need to call Rite Aid and tell them they sold you the wrong bags.” So I call Rite Aid. Rite Aid calls the Person in Charge of City Trash, and it turns out they changed the color and their trash men were supposed to know this and take the gray bags, but their trash men weren’t paying attention, and now I have a bag of trash on my curb.

So – and here is why I’m telling you this story – I go into Rite Aid and the manager says, “here is the cell phone number for the man in charge of Portland trash, he told me to tell you to call him and he’s going to help you.” So I call this man, very nice man, name of Ernie – (love that) – and I say Ernie, what can I do?

And Ernie says, “don’t you worry, we messed up, I’M GOING TO COME GET YOUR TRASH PERSONALLY.”

And then…wait for it…ERNIE CAME AND GOT MY TRASH PERSONALLY. And he shook my hand and told me how sorry he was that his trash guys didn’t pick up my trash and that it wouldn’t happen again.

Ohhhh Maine, I’m sorry that I cheated on you with Chicago last week. Chicago wouldn’t have come to get my trash, Chicago would have told me to suck it.  MAINE: You have been redeemed by your trash man.

moxie

I didn’t want to post this recording until after it had debuted on the Katie Mac Show, but in case you missed the announcement from an earlier entry, I’d like you all to know that the MOXIE HAS BEEN CONSUMED. I think it’s the Maine equivalent of drinking the kool-aid. Without, you know, the mass suicide and stuff.

The voices you’ll hear are the new friends who originally told me about moxie – the same ones who wanted to witness the consumption when I said I was actually intending to go buy some.

We talk a lot in school about the importance of “active tape” – i.e. tape where someone is actually doing something rather than just talking about it. This is active tape. My teachers would be appalled by the editing, AS AM I, but it was a quick and dirty job, done in Audacity, and…well…here you have it:

The Drinking of the Moxie.mp3

officially mooseless

Spent a great afternoon researching the Maine Accent at the Maine Folklife Center today, but 3 hours up and 3 hours back make for a tired me.

Just north of Waterville, about 70 miles from Portland, saw a sign on the side of the road:

MOOSE CROSSING

USE CAUTION

There was also just the cutest little Moose picture on that sign. While I’m not entirely stupid, and well aware that the last place you want to see a moose is coming through your windshield, I should admit that there was a definite moment of YES!!!! Combined with a requisite degree of much excitement. But, sadly, though I kept my eyes peeled for the mooses, there were none to be seen. What about trying a little truth in advertising there, Maine? A better sign would be:

YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO HAVE AN ACCIDENT LOOKING FOR A MOOSE THAN HITTING ONE

Another good sign would be, “Olympia Snow is a Senator, not a Mountain Range, so don’t embarrass yourself.”

Moxie Makes Mainers Mighty

Did you know that used to be the advertising slogan?  OH YES!

Feeling very mighty, I am pleased to tell you that THE MOXIE HAS BEEN CONSUMED.

I even ate another Red Hot Dog, to complete the experience.

The event was recorded and my virgin encounter with the official soft drink of Maine will be the next Anne on the Street piece for The Katie Mac Show.

I’ll be there too!  Barring any flaming fuselage, I will be in Chicago this weekend, and if I didn’t have to get on a plane to get there, I would be even more excited than I am now.  Thank god xanax and I are such close friends.

not featured in Food and Wine Magazine

Awhile back Linda from Milwaukee wrote to ask if I had had the chance to sample any of Maine’s local cuisine. I think that was the question. It was something like that. Anyway, it got me thinking. Other than lobster, chowder, blueberries, maple syrup – you know, the standards – was there any other food that is special to Maine that tourists don’t already know about?

Every Thursday I’ve been going to a local potluck dinner, and I took my question to my new local friends and the resounding answer was Red Hot Dogs and Moxie. They implied that this is what the true tourists should eat if the trip they are taking is a tour of Maine’s, ah, lower-brow attractions. So excited were they by my intention to delve into the goodness of local cuisine that these same friends – dyed in the wool Mainers, all – went out the very next week and bought some red hot dogs, just for me.

I had originally asked, “when you say red hot dog…do you mean RED? like the color red? like the hot dog is actually red?” Yes, Einstein, it turns out that is exactly what they mean. As to whether the red hot dogs are actually any good, a debate popped up between the Red Hot Dog Haters and the “Red Hot Dogs Taste Like Regular Hot Dogs” contingent. They couldn’t seem to agree if red hot dogs taste any different than regular hot dogs. And before you start thinking that this alone may preclude consumption of the RHD, let me assure you that I do love me a good hot dog from time to time.

Anyway. So the RHD gets grilled up and presented to me and I have to say, that was a darn good dog. The only noticeable difference was that it had a peculiar snapping consistency – it’s the casing that’s red and it’s crispier than usual. But overall, on the grand scheme of encased meat on a bun, thumbs up. My new friends were quite proud, with the exception of the contingent that still maintained that red hot dogs taste like butt.

What we didn’t have at this table of goodness, however, was Moxie. Moxie is a soft drink, and it was invented way back before Pepsi and Coke. Made here in Maine, it was originally some sort of medicinal tonic. The makers advertised it as a great cure-all for dementia and impotence, and if that doesn’t make you want to run right out and buy a case, well, more fool you. I looked it up online, and Moxie is the official soft drink of the state of Maine. (like, Maine, seriously?)

How have I not heard of this?

Anyway, no Moxie was provided on the night of the RHD, so I made it my mission to find some. I won’t bore you with the story of how I tried to find it in several local stores, but I will tell you about the local grocery store where I had to ask at the counter if maybe they sell Moxie? Even though I don’t see it? Like, maybe in the back, do you have any Moxie?

There was a man buying beer at the counter on the day I asked, and this wasn’t just any beer. This was one single malt liquor tall boy kind of beer, the 40 ounce variety, cheapest on the market, and he was buying just one. At 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Which is kind of all I need to tell you about the way he smelled. When this man – a man who will clearly drink anything – heard me asking about Moxie he leaned over and warned, “you don’t want to drink that. That stuff is bad.”

WELL. I am not easily frightened. (Ok, maybe I am, but I am not easily deterred.)

I have found Moxie. I have bought one single bottle of it, and it is sitting on my kitchen counter looking at me. And here’s the thing – when I saw my Thursday night friends this week I mentioned that I had found Moxie and that I was going to drink it, and they laughed. And said they want to be there when I drink it. So I think I’m going to bring the Moxie to the next potluck dinner, and maybe I’ll even record the whole event in case I ever need to use it to prove that I, too, can be a Mainer. I have been eyeing the bottle of Moxie on the counter now for a couple of days, and I swear if that thing could talk it would be saying, I dare you.

a clarification on the weathah

My sister wanted to know if it has stopped snowing. And if it’s getting warmer. Doesn’t that picture of the seagulls in the last post make it all look rather spring-like?

It has stopped snowing. But it is very much not warmer. The sun is brilliant, almost blinding, over the last few days, but the wind is biting. We hover in the low to mid-30′s. Yesterday in the antique store the woman behind the counter asked me how long I’ve been here.

“February through the end of May,” I replied.

“Oh,” she said.

There was a long pause. She looked apologetic.

“Well, ahhhh…May is very nice.”

driving north

Day off. Went to Bath. Checked out the antique shops.

Did not buy a beautiful brown glaze jug for $55. Showed restraint.

Did buy a $5 copy of this book.

Got lost.

Found a kick ass general store.

Fed the seagulls.

Went home.

but let’s not all freak out unnecessarily

So….this is Maine. I mean, this is MAINE. Maine is supposed to be moose, and blueberries, and LL Bean and people who say “chowdah.”

It’s not really supposed to be drive-by shootings, but that is rather what seems to have occurred, just half a block down from where I am living. Last Wednesday. The funny thing is that I kind of didn’t even notice. I had to be told about it at dinner tonight by a new friend who said “you live there? did you hear the shots?”

The shots? Why, um, no. I didn’t. Apparently a very nice family was at home, just past 11pm, and someone ran by and shot bullets through their living room window. And they can’t imagine why anyone would do that and now they are moving. (Of course, I can’t help but feeling that someone in the house might just have a teeny, tiny sneaking suspicion why someone might want to shoot up their home, they might just not be telling the police about it. So I’m not particularly worried about getting caught in the crossfire myself.)

Since no one was hurt I’m allowing myself the opportunity to feel a little flippant about the whole thing – because I have to admit, my first thought was huge disappointment that I didn’t get to be a witness.  I’d be such a great witness.  I don’t want to witness anything really awful or traumatic, but a victim-less drive-by shooting would be PERFECT. I’d have near perfect recall for what the perp was wearing, and be able to tell the police which way he went, and it would be my savvy knack for detail that would wrap the case up nicely.

OHHH, and I’d get to testify. We shouldn’t forget that part.

There’s been a fad in the blogging world lately for listing the top 100 things you’d like to do before you die. I won’t bore anyone with my list, chiefly because I don’t have one, but if I did have a list then identifying a criminal on “America’s Most Wanted” would be right up there. When I lived in London I used to watch “Crimewatch UK” religiously. It came on once a month and I think it caught my imagination because in a little country like England the odds are pretty good that if you watch long enough you might actually be able to identify someone. As I came to the end of my years there my hopes started to dwindle and I got more and more disappointed that I’d never have a real reason to call the number on the bottom of the screen. My flatmate Robin was kind enough to volunteer that if it came right down to it I could call and turn him in if the crime wasn’t too terrible.  I miss him.

I made another $2.00 today

I’ve been had. Conned. Bamboozled, even. All this time I thought Maine was giving away free money.  All “putting its money where its mouth is.” All, “this is how we give back.” Like a smaller eco-friendly cute-state version of the upcoming “boost the economy” checks. Check this out:

I’ve never lived in a place that gives you money back for bottles. Heck, I’ve spent the last 11 years living in a city with one of the worst recycling programs in the nation. So I got all excited when I got to Maine and learned that for every bottle and can I turn in at the “bottle reclamation center,” I get 5 cents back. Do you have any idea how much diet coke I drink? That’s a college education, right there. Three weeks ago I turned in 20 bottles and I got a whole dollar back. A dollar! That I didn’t have before. Illinois wouldn’t have given me a dollar. I could almost afford to buy another bottle of diet coke with money like that. I was very proud of that dollar.

But wait just a minute. The joke IS ON ME. It turns out that free money ain’t so free. You see this????

Do you see that little phrase on the receipt? That’s right. BOTTLE DEPOSIT. Turns out they charge you 5 cents extra when you buy the bottle in the first place. CHUMP CHANGE.

TRULY.

more tea, cause I’m hooked

I had another cup of the herb tea this afternoon, though I didn’t use the cayenne mix – instead I tried another tea that I had bought at the same time – one that is a special herbal blend originally designed for cancer patients. It sounded so good in the shop that I had to ask if regular healthy people could drink it too. It has things like cranberry, hibiscus and lemon verbena in the ingredient list, along with more than one herb I can’t pronounce or identify, and is probably what accounts for the liberal sprinkling of twigs.

I scooped out my tea from the little package the herb woman sold me (technically what she sold me is a stash, and at one point was even referred to as a ‘toke – hmmmm), and I parceled it into the all organic non-bleached tea filter bag (made from abaca pulp, natch), and as I poured carefully filtered boiling water into my Maine-made pottery tea cup (natch), and got ready to put in a twirly thing amount of organic, non-pasteurized, non-filtered “Maine-made from Maine bees” honey, I suddenly thought, I got some kind of crunchy granola living goin’ on here. And me in my Vermont clogs, too.

I should mention that when I poured the boiling water over herbs, there was a rather alarming diffusion of red in my cup…like blood seeping from the tea bag. Very CSI, quite frankly, and I can only assume it’s from the cranberry herb? This tea is now quite shockingly red, though it tastes very sweet and delicious and so far hasn’t killed me, despite its color. I’m rather contemplating a second cup, actually.

No diet coke for me, thanks, I’m drinking bloody colored twig tea. Peace out, man.

(This whole story is undone by the $22 I spent earlier today to have my eyebrows waxed at Old Port’s fanciest salon, but just pretend I didn’t tell you that part. I may be getting hippier by the day, but bushy eyebrows is kind of a line.)

herba-love

So my friend the herbalist called the other night and said, “hey, did you ever go get that tea????” And I replied, yes, I did, and it was yummy.

I also told her that she must come and visit because it’s her kind of place.

It needs a bigger sign, because it’s easy to miss, but once you find it there is a feeling that you stepped into a little sanctuary from the cold and icy world. It’s not big, but there’s a little bar, and little corners to sit in, and even a guitar if you want to play a bit, and there’s a cozy room off to the side with lots of pillows, and the whole point of the place is to drink herbal tea. But not just any herbal tea – herbal tea that is mixed just for you by the owner, who will customize a blend of herbs depending on what you need. It’s such an embodiment of serenity that I just want to package up the whole tea shop and put it in my pocket. And maybe ask the owner if she’d adopt me.

It feels like an apothecary shop, with drawers and old jars all filled with herbs, and big books about herbs when a consultation is needed. It’s got a lovely smell, and sitting at the bar it’s very easy to feel that maybe life isn’t so stressful after all. I first went with a new friend from school. She chose “find your focus” tea, while I told the owner that I didn’t know what I wanted, but could she do me a tea that would make me warm? Because I’m never warm. Ever. Crank up the heat, I’m coming to visit. The herb-expert owner made me a tea that she said would help my natural inner warmth radiate down to my toes and fingers. The ingredients included, among other things, cayenne pepper, which manifested as just a little tingle in the mouth after drinking.

That was two weeks ago, and yesterday I stopped in to buy some bulk tea, same custom blend, because I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I drank the first mug. So I bought some of that, and also some unbleached tea filters, and also a second kind of tea which sounded delicious. OH, and a jar of unfiltered, unpasteurized “Maine-made by Maine bees”, organic honey. With a wooden dowel thing that drips in the honey just right. I came straight home and put on the kettle and drank my tea all afternoon while I worked. I’m having another cup now, and while it’s probably just the steaming hot mug, my fingers are finally warm and I have high hopes for my toes.

new favorite thing