Category Archives: Celebrate

Cats, Celebrate, Food, News

Success! Plus, Gotcha Day and a Short Break

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Success

On Saturday, the weather gods were kind to us. The day was sunny, and the temperature was relatively mild—in the mid-60s. Off to southern Maine we went to join Shannon and Mike at Stonewall Kitchen and have lunch at their cafe.

Stonewall is such a pretty place.

And while the day was a bit chilly, we wore jackets and were able to eat outside.

I chose my favorite—grilled brie with fig jam and homemade chips on the side.

And a whoopie pie for dessert.

As always, we had a wonderful time talking and catching up. Because of our schedules, Covid, and the weather, the last time we got together was in June for Father’s Day. We, of course, text regularly, but it’s not the same as meeting in person and having a good chinwag, as our friends across the pond might put it.

All too soon it was time to head home—south for Shannon and Mike, north for me, Dee, and Clif. And with the trees glowing in their fall finery, what a beautiful drive it was.

Next birthday: Dee’s at the end of October.

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Gotcha Day

Sunday, October 4 was Gotcha Day for our two cats, Fern and Kai. Hard to believe it’s been a whole year since we adopted them. They have settled very nicely into our routine, and I can’t imagine the household without them. So many cats are given up to shelters, lots of kittens and lots of adult cats. (Kai and Fern were two when they came to live with us.) Poor creatures, totally at the mercy of humans, who are not always merciful. For folks who love cats (and dogs), adopting one or two from a shelter and giving them a good home is such an act of kindness.

Anyway, here Fern and Kai will stay until they cross the rainbow bridge. Happy gotcha day, Fern and Kai! So glad you are with us.

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A Short Break

In November, my fifth book, Darcy Dansereau and the Missing Children, will be published. My first four books revolved around a mysterious place called the Great Library, involving good librarians and bad librarians. Darcy Dansereau takes place closer to home, in Waterville, Maine. There is some magic—I can’t seem to write a story without it—but it’s primarily a slice-of-life novel, a coming-of-age story,  a portrait of an artist as a young girl. (This is a gentle nudge for those who don’t read fantasy. You just might like this one.) As the title suggests, the book is also a mystery involving missing children that Darcy and her friends must solve.

Here is a rough draft of the cover. It still needs some work. Either the leaves on the trees must go, or the white on the sidewalk, which looks like snow, must go. I think maybe my name should be moved to the right of Darcy. Anyway, Clif is working on it. But the image below gives a basic idea of what the cover will look like.

Over the next month or so, there will be a lot of work getting the book ready, and this entails many fiddly things. Therefore, I’ll be taking a break for a few weeks to get the book ready for publication.

When I come back, there will be a giveaway contest for the book, and I’ll send it to the winner anywhere in the world, from Maine to South Africa.

See you in a few weeks!

 

 

Celebrate, Food, Movies

What a Difference 300 Miles Makes

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On Saturday, we were supposed to get together with Shannon and Mike to celebrate birthdays—mine and Clif’s—at Stonewall Kitchen in York, Maine. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans. A nor’easter—in September!—roared up the Eastern Seaboard. It slammed the coast, as nor’easters always do, and Shannon and Mike, who live in the Boston area 300 miles to the south, quite sensibly canceled. A good thing, too. Winds reached 60 miles per hour; poles and wires were knocked down, along with an occasional tree. And, unsurprisingly, there was flooding.

But in central Maine, where we live, we barely got a sprinkle. (In fact, we would have liked more rain.) We decided that even though we couldn’t celebrate with Mike and Shannon, which was disappointing, we could do a little something on our own on Saturday.

So off we went to Wei-Li Restaurant in Auburn, about a half hour from where we live, and well out of the Nor’easter’s path. Wei-Li is one of the best—if not the best— Chinese restaurants in the area, and it is our number one choice for special occasions. Somehow, the food tasted better than usual, and while we were sorry not to get together with Mike and Shannon, we certainly enjoyed our meal.

Sunday was Clif’s actual birthday, his 75th, and naturally, we had to do a little something on that day, too. To start with, I cooked Clif a Sunday-morning brunch,

In the afternoon, we went to the cinema to see a re-release of the 2019 Avengers: Endgame. (It is the sequel to Avengers: Infinity War.)

Endgame, featuring the superhero team the Avengers, is surprisingly deep for a Marvel Comics movie and as relevant as ever. In brief: The powerful Thanos (Josh Brolin), an Eternal, decides the universe is out of balance, and to fix this, with the help of the Infinity Stones, he wipes out half the population of every habitable planet, including, of course, Earth, the focus of the movie.

In Infinity War, Thanos achieved his goal, and in Endgame, there is worldwide mourning on Earth as family members grieve the disappearance of loved ones who instantly vanished. Endgame explores the grief in a moving, unrushed way, and the movie is long on feelings and short on battle scenes, which is just fine with me.

As I watched Endgame, it occurred to me that this movie is a rebuke to people who long for an apocalypse, a good cleansing of humanity. In real life, there are more of these people than you might think, both on the far right and the far left. Some of them are very rich indeed and in positions of great power. I suppose when such people yearn for this great cleansing of humanity, they imagine their families and loved ones will be spared. It won’t be their mothers, daughters, sons, and fathers who will be crushed and hurt. Oh, no. They will be safe in underground bunkers or on faraway islands or in space. Because they are the deserving chosen ones, they will be spared.

Endgame makes it perfectly clear what havoc this kind of thinking—hubris really— wreaks. It is up to the Avengers, among them Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk, to try to reverse Thanos’s damage.

Alas, in real life, we are short of Avengers, and the people opposing the proponents of various apocalypses seem outmatched and outspent. We can only hope that those who love this planet and want a more humane outcome will prevail.

After such a deep, dark movie, you might think our spirits would have been too low for more celebration. But you would be wrong.

Not ready to call it a day, we went to Margaritas in Augusta for drinks and snacks and had a good time discussing the movie.

Here is the birthday boy. I know I might be biased, but I think Clif still looks pretty darn cute at 75.

Happy birthday, Clif!

Addendum: We plan to get together with Shannon and Mike on Saturday, October 3. Fingers crossed there are no bad storms to skunk our plans.

 

Books, Celebrate, Movies

Sixty-nine on the Fifteenth

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Tuesday, September 15, was my 69th birthday. Regular readers will know that our motto for birthdays and other special days is to celebrate early, celebrate often with simple pleasures. And that is exactly what we did for my birthday.

On Saturday, we went to Buen Apetito, one of our favorite restaurants in Waterville. We always start with margaritas, chips, and salsa before we move on to our meals. With its tasty food and lovely service, Buen Apetito is a pleasure for any occasion, special or not.

Yesterday, my actual birthday, was filled with many simple pleasures. Dee, Clif, and I took the day off, and Clif cooked us a delicious brunch.

After brunch, I went outside to take some pictures of the September garden.

In the afternoon, we—surprise, surprise!—went to a movie, The Uprising, starring, among others, Andrew Garfield. The Uprising is about the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England. Taxed beyond endurance and demoralized by the Bubonic Plague, Garfield, who plays Ploughman, helps lead the peasants to London to petition a very young and weaselly Richard II to relieve their burden. I will say no more about the plot except to note that Richard II gets what’s coming to him about twenty years later, when his cousin Henry Bolingbroke becomes Henry IV. (This is not featured in the movie, but as a Shakespeare fan, I am very familiar with “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”) Until a completely unbelievable, made-up ending, The Uprising is a good movie, stirring and brutal and more than a little applicable to modern times.

After the movie, we picked up pastries from Barnes & Noble and headed to our favorite place of all, our own backyard, where we had drinks, snacks, and dessert.

I had a very good day indeed and will celebrate yet again when we meet Shannon and Mike at the end of the month for more birthday brouhaha.

Celebrate early, celebrate often!

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Reading

A Challenge: 70 by 70

I decided to challenge myself by setting a goal of reading 70 books by my 70th birthday. As I read between 50 and 60 books a year, this will be a bit of a push for me. However, I feel as though I am up to the challenge.

I am currently reading John of John by Douglas Stuart, and this will be the first book of my challenge. (John of John, along with The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout, is long-listed for the 2026 Booker Prize. I’m not sure whether I will read the whole list, but I plan to add one or two more from it.)

 

 

 

 

Celebrate, Food, Movies, Music

An Enchanting Evening

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In the United States, last Sunday was Father’s Day. As longtime readers might recall, our philosophy for special days is to celebrate early, celebrate often. Accordingly, on Saturday, we met our daughter Shannon and her husband Mike in southern Maine at When Pigs Fly Pizzeria in Kittery.

Clif and Mike reflected on their beer choices. Did the beer measure up? Yes, it did.

There was pizza.

And for Clif, a tofu bowl with perfectly fried tofu and ever-so-fresh pea pods.

We had a wonderful time eating and chatting. Even though we are homebodies, we so enjoy our southern Maine adventures with Shannon and Mike.

On Sunday, which was actually Father’s Day, did we stick to our usual routine and stay home? We did not. We went to a movie, The Death of Robin Hood, a violent,  grim take on the famous outlaw. No merry men cavorting in tights here. This movie is not for the faint of heart, so readers be warned if you decide to see it.

After the movie, we cheered ourselves up with drinks at Margaritas in Augusta.

Duly cheered, we headed home to spend the evening in our gazebo on the patio.

With the addition of lights, our special spot has gone from very sweet to enchanting.

We stayed until dusk came, and the solar lights in our yard blinked on. Despite the grim movie, it was a very happy Father’s Day indeed.

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In the United States, last Friday was Juneteenth, a federal holiday. According to Wikipedia, “It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday’s name, first used in the 1890s, is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth, referring to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.”

In honor of this day, here is one of my favorite songs, “Blackbird,” written by Paul McCartney, who was inspired by the Civil Rights movement in the United States.

Celebrate, Food

Our Forty-Ninth Wedding Anniversary

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Yesterday, on a day that started out snowy but cleared in the afternoon, we celebrated our forty-ninth wedding anniversary.

And, yes, forty-nine years seems like quite an accomplishment. A good one. But to be together with someone for that long is an odd thing. On one hand, our early days seem like they happened long, long ago. On the other hand, it seems like the years have rushed by. Time is funny like that.

To celebrate, we planned a busy day revolving around food, one of my favorite things to do. Since we eat light and healthy most days, we feel that we can splurge occasionally.

First, for lunch, we went to Wei Li restaurant in Auburn, about twenty miles away.

The food is so good, and we got our usual general bean curd, vegetable lo mein, and veggie spring rolls. I could have some right now.

But our plans did not end there. In the late afternoon, we made plans to meet friends at the Hearthside Vine & Tap at the Maine Evergreen Hotel in Augusta, Maine. Two years ago, a friend told me how nice this place was, and finally, we were getting around to checking it out. Sometimes, it can take me a while.

As soon as we walked into the lounge, we were smitten by the cozy yet classy atmosphere. This little corner in the lounge is where Dee, Clif, and I met our friends.

But the restaurant itself is nice, too.

And while the “nosh” menu is small, the food was excellent and reasonably priced. Clif and I shared a flatbread with sauce and cheese. Absolutely delicious. Dee and our friends liked what they had, too.

And the cherry on the sundae, so to speak, was the artwork displayed on every floor down every corridor of the Maine Evergreen Hotel. The artwork ranged from abstract to landscape, with a variety of prices. Something for everyone. Dee, who is crazy about art, bought two pieces. Right now, they are wrapped and in her closet. She plans to hang them this weekend, and when she does, I’ll snap a picture so you can see what she bought.

We all decided that Hearthside Vine & Tap is a great place to meet, and we will be going there regularly.

What a splendid way to celebrate forty-nine years!

 

Celebrate, Food

A Birthday Celebration at Maine Beer Company

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This week, I’m going to take a break from focusing on loss and politics to write about something more joyous—a trip to Maine Beer Company in Freeport, Maine, to celebrate my son-in-law Mike’s birthday. Even those of us who are obsessed with politics and the state of the nation need to take regular breaks to refresh the spirit. So bring on the birthdays!

Mike and my husband Clif are beer enthusiasts, and Maine Beer Company makes some of their favorite beers. There are also fresh pretzels,

tasty pizza,

and crunchy, utterly delicious cannolis. (Alas, I forgot to take a picture of them.) Wine for Dee, diet soda for Shannon, and root beer for me. In other words, something for everyone.

The tasting room is large with long tables and benches, a bar, and rooms upstairs. But the first thing I noticed was a long, elegant whale skeleton soaring across the ceiling—so long I could only capture a portion  of it with my phone camera.

I wondered, was the skeleton real? As it turns out, it is. The skeleton came from a female fin whale (Finny) with a too-short life—between three and five years old—who washed up on a Maine beach in 2023. With support from Maine Beer Company, Finny’s skeleton was recovered and reconstructed by Whales and Nails. As beautifully described on Maine Beer Company’s website, the skeleton gives “a second life to spark curiosity, and connection to these magnificent animals.”

As Mike pointed out, Maine Beer Company is unabashedly progressive. On their website, they are not ashamed to state openly: “Our commitment to the environment is a core part of Maine Beer Company’s values. We aim to create a company culture of sustainability with projects ranging from our use of clean energy, to our donation of spent grain to farmers, and our work improving our recycling and compost systems.”

Do they have solar panels? Yes, they do. (I guess I can’t keep politics out of any post, even when it’s about a birthday celebration.)

But back to the birthday…We had a wonderful time talking and eating. We are a present-giving family, so there were presents, too. No better way to spend a February afternoon than with family at a business that is trying to make the world a better place. (Whoops, I drifted back to politics.)

A very happy birthday, Mike!

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Listening

Tiny Desk Concert: Billy Strings

Along with being on the same page politically, Mike and I also share similar tastes in music, which we often discuss when we get together and give each other suggestions. Billy Strings came up, and we discovered that we are both big fans of his music, which ranges from bluegrass to Americana to roots rock.

Somehow, most of my musical pathways seem to lead to NPR’s Tiny Desk, and with Billy Strings, it’s no different.

Celebrate, Food

When Pigs Fly and a Blogging Break

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On Saturday, Dee, Clif, and I piled into our EV and headed south to Kittery, the banana belt of Maine, as we like to call it. The occasion? Dee’s birthday. Shannon and Mike, who live in Massachusetts, joined us for a meal at a restaurant called When Pigs Fly. Pizza baked in a wood-fired oven is one of their specialties, and Dee is a pizza hound extraordinaire.

But first we had appetizers and drinks: a pumpkin martini for Dee, a beer for Clif, and iced tea for me. (Shannon and Mike were stuck in traffic and joined us later. Ah, Boston!) The fries and the pretzel sticks were mighty tasty.

When Shannon and Mike joined us, we had a nice little feast.

Pizza for the birthday girl and Clif,

soup and sandwiches for Shannon and Mike,

and tangy sweet and sour tofu for me. It was so good that I could have some right now.

Was there room for dessert? Yes, Indeed. The birthday girl and Shannon had ice cream, and Clif had a brownie sundae. However, I only had eyes for one thing —an order of cannoli that Mike and I shared.

The cannoli were everything they should be: crisp and sweet but not too sweet. Mike and I agreed that a soggy cannoli is a crime against nature and should not be allowed.

I had been to When Pigs Fly before and knew how crowded it could get. When Clif, Dee, and I arrived at 11:30, there were plenty of seats. By the time we left around 2:00, not only was the place packed, but there was also a waiting line.

So off we went to Starbucks for tea, coffee, and presents. None of us are huge Starbucks fans, but it was nearby, and we don’t know the area all that well.

That might change. The Kittery/York/Kennebunk area is a good halfway point for us to meet, and we plan on getting together once a month or so, even when there isn’t a birthday to celebrate.

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It is time for another blogging break.

I have finished writing my children’s novel, Darcy Dansereau, a slice-of-life fantasy set in Waterville, Maine, in the 1970s. Some readers might recall The Dog Angel, a short story I wrote a few Christmases ago and shared online for free. In The Dog Angel, Darcy and her mother, Janine, were kicked out of their apartment because Janine had hurt herself while cleaning houses and couldn’t pay the rent. Help comes to them from an unexpected source that changes Darcy’s and Janine’s lives.

In Darcy Dansereau, I have expanded The Dog Angel to a longer story, where Darcy not only encounters more magic but must also deal with the prejudice that comes from being poor and belonging to a second-class ethnic group.

The story is written. Now it is time for editing — picky, time-consuming work that takes all of my little brain cells. Hence the need for a break.

I’m not sure how long the break will be, but I think it will be at least a month, perhaps a little longer.

I’ll catch you all on the flip side!

 

 

 

Cats, Celebrate, Fall

Some Good Things…

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Readers must surely know that right now in the United States there is a constant fire hose of bad news that is covered, quite rightly, by various forms of media. No point in denying this bad news, and being somewhat of a news junky, I pay close attention.

But at least in my personal life, there are many good things happening too, and I hold on to them the way a person falling overboard might cling to a tossed life preserver ring. The good things help keep me afloat.

First and foremost, October in Maine. October in Maine is so glorious that it never fails to fill me with joy—that slant of sunlight reflected from the golden leaves; the deep blue sky made brilliant by the lack of humidity; the bursts of orange and red; the nutty smell of fallen leaves. I could go on and on singing the praises of October. And even this year, when the drought has muted the color of the changing leaves, it is still a wonderful month.

Here are pictures taken last week from my backyard.

A flash of red in the nearby woods,

yellow leaves against blue sky,

and the view from the patio.

Then there are the new cats, who despite their pesty ways with plants they shouldn’t be nibbling on, are bringing us so much joy and laughter.

Kai chilling on the cat tree
Little Fern helping me with my upcoming novel, Darcy Dansereau

 

Finally, there is another reason why October is such a special month for us: our eldest daughter Dee was born the end of October. We will be celebrating her birthday next Saturday with a trip to southern Maine, where we will meet our daughter Shannon and Mike. But that will be a story for next Monday.

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrate

Another Birthday Treat: Tea at Lady Mary Inn in North Berwick

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For my birthday, which was in September, Shannon and Mike treated me to afternoon tea at the Lady Mary Inn in North Berwick. October 11 was the date everyone settled on, thus continuing our family tradition of celebrating often. Mike is not exactly into tea—coffee and beer are more his thing—so he and Clif went to a local brewery, while Shannon, Dee, and I had afternoon tea.

The inn is nothing short of spectacular. I pegged it as a huge Victorian house—the largest I have ever seen—but its official description, taken from their website, is Queen Anne-Eastlake Victorian style. That’s a new one for me. Whatever its architectural style, I think we can all agree that this is some house.

As the link in the first paragraph of this piece takes readers to a history of the Lady Mary Inn, I’ll just give a brief description, again copied from their website. “Mary R. Hurd was born in 1839, daughter of William Hill, a member of the large Quaker population of the area and founder of the North Berwick Woolen Mill. Upon her father’s death in 1873, she inherited the mill. This determined woman took over the administration of the mill, an astonishing task for a woman of her era….It was at the time of her second marriage that she built the great Queen Anne house on a hill at the prominent intersection overlooking the mill.”

Those Quaker industrialists apparently knew how to get things done. We had one in Winthrop, too—Charles M. Bailey, who was an oil cloth manufacturer and donated money for the construction of the town’s library in 1916.

But back to tea. Dee, Shannon, and I all had our own pot of tea—I order the Lady Mary Grey, a floral black tea. Then came tomato soup and little sandwiches—curried chickpea, toasted cheese, tomato, and cream cheese.

Next came scones.

And finally dessert, complete with a little candle in honor of my birthday. Yes, I made a wish when I blew out the candle.

Afterward, we all felt perfectly full but not stuffed, which is a nice way to feel.

Finally, here’s a picture of the room across from where we had tea.

Not only was the food tasty, but the service was also exactly the way I like it—attentive, friendly, relaxed, and unpretentious.

If you live within driving distance of North Berwick, and like tea, little sandwiches, scones, and sweets, and are in the mood to treat either yourself or someone special, then afternoon tea at the Lady Mary Inn is the perfect outing.

Many thanks Mike and Shannon!

 

Celebrate, Food

All about Clif

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In the United States, June 15 was Father’s Day, but we decided to celebrate it a week later on June 21. Our daughter Shannon, who lives in Boston with her husband Mike and their dog Holly, took some time off from work to come midweek. (Mike, who recently started a new job, couldn’t join us until Friday.)

A mini-vacation, with much eating and some drinking, ensued. (Because of the merriment, I couldn’t keep up with reading blogs and then commenting. My apologies! This week will be better.)

On a cool, misty Thursday morning, Shannon, Clif, Holly, and I went to nearby Hallowell to sit by the river. By gum, the sturgeon were jumping, but unfortunately I wasn’t fast enough to get a picture.

Clif with coffee
Holly waits for a treat

The next day there was a trip to Newcastle, a lovely little town by the Damariscotta river in Midcoast Maine. We got sandwiches at Salt and Pepper, a vegan cafè overlooking the river. Because we brought Holly, we decided to go to what must be one of the prettiest picnic areas in Maine, one that overlooks a salt marsh.

We all enjoyed our sandwiches, but the winner was Clif’s beet pastrami on foccacia. We liked it so much that I’m going to try to replicate it at home.

Then came Mike, on Friday night, and on Saturday, the beer boys were ready for a brew at Cushnoc in Augusta. (Shannon, Dee, and I are more cocktail girls.)

This was followed by a pizza palooza. (Don’t worry. We took some home for our Sunday night supper.)

On Saturday evening, stuffed with good food and drink, we sat in the screen house as dusk came to our home by the edge of the woods.

As well as being treated to delicious pizza and beer, Clif got some lovely presents, but as he noted, the best present of all was everybody getting together.

That’s the way of things, isn’t it?