Notes from Maine - 2022/08/14
My family is here. They arrived a week ago. Predictably, it has been ten degrees cooler and it has rained as much this week as it did in the three months prior. It’s nice though—cool nights and mostly-sunny days. That’s better than the alternative, I guess. When it’s too hot, it’s difficult to find relief in this house.
Mom is trying to talk to me as I write this. She’s sitting on the floor trying to get Albert to eat some breakfast. In the morning, his sole focus is chasing after the frisbee. Then he comes inside, collapses, and pants with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Food is not a priority for him, but Mom thinks he needs to eat breakfast in order to get a good start to the day.
For the first few days of her visit, Mom focused on the front garden. A couple of years go, she took over the strip between the yard and the road and she has been populating it with plants she collected. From the neighbors, she obtained some Rudbeckia laciniata hortensia, better known as outhouse flowers. On a five-foot stalk (1.5m), they’re a pretty yellow blossom. The other day, she added Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower), which have spread like wildfire across the street. More interesting are the flowers that she didn’t plant. We have some Centaurea montana (Perennial Cornflower), and Cosmos bipinnatus that appeared from nowhere. Hostas are everywhere. Mom can’t give them away fast enough.
Each day last week she declared that she was finally done with the garden. I’m sure she’ll be out there again tomorrow. She loves that stuff.
My sister and my nephew brought Mom up. They’re attempting to have a more traditional vacation—outdoor activities, swimming, and relaxing. The fair was last week, so my nephew had a chance to ride all the spinny/barfy contraptions with the other kids. We’ve done some estate business and spent time at the lake. They biked down to the ocean yesterday.
For me, “vacation” is a mix of my normal activities and a few excursions. I still have my chores and responsibilities here, so I try to get those done when nothing else is going on. I don’t remember the last time I left the house for more than a day on what one would call a vacation. This is my favorite place, and I’m unsettled when I’m away. We hope to get to the beach. Another trip to the lake is definitely in the cards.
My nephew had a hard night. I suspect he has food poisoning, but we’re not sure yet. At the moment he seems to be as comfortable as he can be. My sister is worried, of course, and feels guilty for eating breakfast when her son can’t. Fingers crossed.
Mom just left to buy supplies for her new project. She has started painting the barn. The front is scraped and washed. Perhaps it sounds like she only comes to my house to do work. It should sound like that—it’s a completely accurate statement. At home, she feels like she has run out of projects so she likes to come here where there are tons of things that need doing.
Everything is quiet at the moment. My sister is reading, my nephew is resting, and Mom is working. I’ll get some chores done and then see if I can fix the pinball machine in Mom’s room. It has been broken for a few days and she’s starting to get irritated. It’s such a hassle to walk down the hall to the nearest working machine.
