Occupy Maine

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I woke up yesterday feeling perky.  Yes, perky.  The sun was shining through my skylight and I could see colorful leaves blowing by.  I brewed some delicious organic, fair trade breakfast blend and spiced it up with some french vanilla creamer - and then I sipped away while blogging.  Blogging felt great!  I haven't been spending too much time on posts lately and it felt wonderful to finish my draft box lurker. I decided that it would be a great day to head downtown and snap some pictures.  I didn't take quite as many photos as I hoped - but I did manage my trademark shot - looking up at buildings with the sun behind them :)

The Occupy Maine-r's were out.  Let me be clear, I'm not a supporter of the movement however; the sun was shining and it was just too nice of a day to be angry.  So I played paparazzi and took some photos of their base camp.

I had a delicious falafel on a park bench and I walked around with a warm cup of chai in my hands.

Now if tooling around Portland taking pictures, snacking and drinking cozy drinks isn't occuyping Maine then what is it?

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GPS, Squishy Grass and Caterpillars

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I've been trying to 'get out in the city'.  For awhile I would just get into the car and drive around - it ended up not being that much fun.  Plus, I really thought I was going to kill someone because I'd get 'lost' and I'd take out my iphone for mapquest.  Kinda scary.  I decided I had to have a GPS.  For the record - I'm now having the most fun I've ever had driving around ever!  What I've been doing is getting in the car and putting a random intersection into the GPS - then I take whatever turns I want and let the GPS reroute me - I think I got a good GPS because it doesn't ever scold me....it just tells me where to turn next....although, it does scold me a little bit if I miss a turn - so, in a nutshell I drive around the city with no real destination in mind taking wrong turns on purpose......and it's FUN! The only sorta bummer is that the weather hasn't been stellar.  Where are those crisp and clear fall days?!  It's been rainy and cloudy...icky.  I've been wearing my Bean Boots pretty much everywhere (except yesterday so of course that meant I parked in a puddle twice).

I discovered the Eastern Promenade a few days ago.  I got lucky because the sun came out for about 30 minutes!  I squished through the grass and then walked along the water for a bit.  It is definitely a cool place to people watch - and if I had a dog it would be my hang out (someday I'm going to write a post about how much I want a dog).

MAINE!

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Fresh off the press!  I've found a place to plop a squat!  Yippee!  It's in the lovely city of Portland, ME.  (It's no Hilo, HI....but Maine is about as close as you can get...weird right?!) My Mother sent me an e-mail today that said, 'I'm going through Nautie Withdrawl Syndrome - and I'm tired of looking at Wethersfield, CT'.

Fair enough however; I only half way apologize for the lack of posts.  The good news is that today is October 1st and my air card is full of gigabytes just waiting to be eaten up!

I had my first glorious 'living on the Mainland' experience this afternoon.

I needed to go grocery shopping - I went to Trader Joe's!  (That alone is glorious.)  I FILLED my shopping cart up - because I had to get the 'necessities' all at once..coffee, laundry detergent...you get the picture.  I was really nervous when I got to the counter.  I was feeling super guilty about buying so many organic items, combined with doing all my shopping at a 'specialty store'.  When the final item was scanned my total was only 115.00!  I couldn't believe it.  I would estimate that is less than half as much as it would cost in Hilo.  Holy Toledos!

However, the really glorious thing happened while I was paying and the bagger was organizing my goods.  The final item was a carton of eggs.  He looked at me and said, 'did you check your eggs?'.  I of course replied no....I mean really, do you guys check your eggs?!  Then he says, 'Jeezum Crowe!  You didn't check your eggs?!  What Kind Of Main-ah Ah You?!'  No lie!  He really said Jeezum Crowe and then called me a Mainer....dropping the 'r' and adding an 'ah' and then he said 'ah' instead of are.  It was GLORIOUS!

(For the record...I've never ever had someone ask me what kind of Hawaiian I am....)

Nottingham, NH

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I've spent the last few days at a totally cool house in Nottingham, NH.  The owners were away so I had free reign to look through all their drawers (psych!  -that would be a great words with friends word- I can't thank you guys enough....for letting me stay there and for getting me addicted to words with friends!). The house is a renovated farm house.  There are wide plank pine floors throughout....the rafters are exposed and look like real trees...and the roof has lightning rods.

Here's the best part:  there is a barn in the yard!  A BIG barn!  You may be wondering what they do with the barn since they aren't farmers...to this I say, 'DUH!  They host mad cool parties that include bon fires!'.  (They also have their own wedding reception in the barn....what do you eat in a barn in NH?  DUH!  Lobsters!)

These friends of mine are also insanely resourceful.  They have a large garden where they grow veggies and such.  The 'such' is the cool part - they grew their own hops - and then brewed their own beer with their own hops.  Insane.

I wandered around the yard with my L.L.Bean boots on and pretended that I was a character in Little House on the Prairie....but then I realized it would probably be more appropriate to be a character in Little House in the Big Woods.  Either way works for me.  Can you imagine what we'd be seeing photos of today if pioneers had DSLR cameras?