Notes from Maine - 2024/05/12

Yesterday I dressed up a friend of mine. He was over with two other old friends and we were packing up stuff that has been stored in my attic for about a decade. With my upcoming roof repairs, I’m trying to clear everything out. So a bunch of old attic things are finally moving on—going to their final resting place at his condo in Vermont. 

I really didn’t mind storing that stuff in the attic. It’s a big space and I don’t go up there much. When I contacted the owner of the stuff, he immediately flew out from California to come clear it out. He’s working on the west coast but keeps a condo in Vermont. 

But dressing up my friend (I’ll refer to him as Dave) was because of a different topic (pictures below).

I was dressing Dave up for an encounter with a sweet little baby raccoon, who fell from his hiding place in a hollow tree. After I introduced myself to the baby raccoon and explained that I wasn’t going to harm the little baby, it stopped hissing and started to make that little purring sound that baby raccoons make. We did the responsible thing and we all went inside to allow the mother raccoon to come down and carry her baby back to safety. After a ninety minutes, it was pretty clear she wasn’t coming. She stuck her head out from the hole multiple times, looked down at her sweet little baby, and then went back to bed. Meanwhile, baby was trying and trying to climb back up the tree, but it was too big a feat.

So, I put a face shield, welding gloves, and a welding jacket on Dave and sent him up the ladder. Earlier, when I went up the ladder, the mother raccoon was furious. She hissed, spat, and coughed out raspy barks at me. Her baby was very sweet to me, but mom wasn’t welcoming any ladder guests.

It was the opposite for my friend—the baby hated him but mom didn’t make a peep when Dave climbed. Dave popped the baby back in the hole while the mom watched. As of this morning, everyone is still in the tree. Now the mother raccoon is sleeping with her body blocking the exit. She’s lounging with one arm flung out of the hole. I hope that little baby will be okay. It was the sweetest.

Welding equipment turned out to be good gear for raccoon rescue.

It wasn’t the first time I dressed Dave up.

A few months ago, I found out that Dave, his wife, and daughter would be going on a cruise.

“If I send you some swim trunks and a shirt, will you wear it?” I asked.

“Of course!” Dave said.

When the outfit arrived at his house, he snuck it into his luggage when his wife wasn’t looking. She saw it for the first time when their boat docked Nassau and they went out to dinner. That’s when Dave snuck off to the bathroom and changed into the clothing I had sent. Within minutes, an older gentleman spotted Dave’s new clothes and he stopped dead in his tracks. In a loud voice, he pointed at Dave and said, “You’re a swinger!”

The clothes I sent were decorated with pineapples. Many of them were upside down. On the swim trunks, just above the upside down pineapple, big block letters announced, “Plays Well With Others!”

If you’re not familiar, the upside down pineapple is “secret” symbol that swingers use to identify each other out in public. I have nothing against swingers, and I’m not trying to poke fun of however different people choose to physically express themselves, but I thought it would be hilarious if my friend wore the customary garb of swingers on a cruise with no knowledge of the meaning of the pineapples. 

Of course he did know what the pineapples meant, and I believe his wife did as well, but they both played dumb.

“You’re a swinger!” the man announced in the restaurant.

Dave, with wide eyes and pure surprise on his face asked, “I AM??”

“Yes. That’s what those pineapples mean,” the man said.

My friend shook his head. “I don’t know anything about it. My wife gave me these clothes.”

His wife just about fell out her chair and squirmed and laughed as she denied it.

“Yes you did!” my friend said.

The man who stopped by their table warned my friend again and then moved on.

They had a repeat experience in a watch shop down the street when a woman stopped them.

“Do you know what that means?” the woman asked.

“No!” Dave said.

She proceeded to give them a pretty graphic opinion of how swingers operate. The woman left them with an admonishment. “You should NEVER wear that in public again. People will think the wrong thing.”

“Thank you so much!” Dave said.

After that, Dave decided to put the pineapple clothing back in his luggage. 

I keep looking up at the tree. The raccoons are still stuffed in their hole. The mother usually goes out at night to forage, but I didn’t see her leave last night. I was up a few times, checking on the aurora. There were some colors but a little too much cloud cover to see anything clearly. It’s nice to clear some things out of the attic and the cellar. I have a bunch more to do, but it’s a start. I put a couple of things next to the road with a “FREE” sign and they were gone within minutes. Maybe I’ll do that again today. It’s a nice to think that someone was driving down the road and they just discovered treasure with a “FREE” sign on it. Happy Mother’s Day. If you’re a raccoon mother, please take better care of your babies.