Lunchtime in Maine

I recently went to lunch in a little working harbor here in Maine.  It was very picturesque, the weather was beautiful, and the restaurant was right on a dock servicing local lobstermen.  So you could watch lobstermen unload their catch while you downed a freshly cooked one upstairs. 

Here comes the gotcha: this year, there is a glut of lobsters, so at around $2 a pound for the lobstermen at the dock, they are barely making fuel money.  Upstairs, THAT SAME DOCK is charging we touristas $14 for a lobster roll, using perhaps 1/2 a pound of meat.

Ahh, America.

Toilet Seats

At great personal risk, I must stand up to the ridiculous notion that men are somehow responsible for the position of toilet seats.  Happily, for once the Curmudgeon Handbook comes to our aid here: we hold doors open for people, we're OK with "ladies first," but put a toilet seat down every time you're done?  I don't think so.  

I grew up when women were expressing a desire to be "equals."  If I could hang on to a few notions of chivalry during those trying times, fine.  But where did this men are supposed to put toilet seats down when done thing come from?  It's pretty much a 50-50 shot for anyone in a 2-person household that the seat will be in the correct position when either of you enters, so what's all the fuss?  Either I have to move it or the other person has to, so why complicate things with an arbitrary rule?

Men of the world unite - We do doors, not toilet seats!

Body Piercings

I don't know how I missed this one when I was on about tattoos and the unshaven look, but it hasn't escaped my net altogether.  Growing up, proper society accepted unobtrusive holes in women's earlobes.  And back then we had National Geographic to see what other societies did - elongated earlobes, stretched lips, pierced noses, tied feet, the whole gamut of quaint cultural beauty tips.

So, of course, WE had to import some of those "quaint" cultural practices and "update" them for our - until then, at least - more civilized culture.  What are these people thinking?  Let's be honest - this stuff is revolting.  A zillion pierces per ear?  A pierced NOSE??  And the worst of all, a tongue stud - kind of a stealth piercing: you don't know it's there until the blighted person opens their mouth.  And then you're transfixed - watching the revolting thing bounce around during conversation you completely lose track of what's being said.  And I prefer not to even THINK about piercings that lurk in more hidden places.

At least we can hope that when these creative souls actually grow up and mature, sanity is readily restored.  The body heals holes, unlike when you inject ink into it.

Doggy Done Departed

I was recently at a dinner with a number of good friends, a setting that even a curmudgeon couldn't fault - good company, good drink, good food, even good weather.

During cocktails and a stunning array of appetizers, amidst delightful conversation, I couldn't help but notice a decorative box on the mantle.  Politely inquiring as to its provenance, seeing as how it was so prominently displayed, I was casually informed that it contained the ashes of their recently deceased dog.

What!?  I was aghast.  Incredulous, I inadvertently blurted out some exclamation that now escapes me and not one, but two other dear friends at the soirée chimed in that they, too, had dog remains on their mantles.

What ghoulish custom have I somehow missed, lo these many years?  I think, in the future - and for my mental health - I will simply avert my gaze from mantelpieces.

Clam Chowdah, Ayuh

I am quite the fan of clam chowder.  The only kind I recognize, of course, is New England clam chowdah - that New York tomato-based stuff is not even in the same league.  But, in the past, I, like many others, have encountered cream of potato soup with the hint of clamminess presented as the real thing.  Hah!  This curmudgeon is not so easily fooled.

But there is a flip side to this, I have discovered.  Having recently vacationed on the coast of Maine, I naturally tasted the local chowders.  These good-hearted people take their chowders seriously, and the apparent rule of thumb is the more clams the merrier.

For clam lovers, this can be heaven, but for normal people, well, not so much.  The discerning chowder lover requires the proper balance of stock, potatoes & clams.  If I wanted a milk-drenched pile of clams in a bowl, I think I would have specified that.

So, with our humble soup spoon in hand, we continue a quite enjoyable search for better and better New England clam chowder.

A Hobby for the Inept

It has occurred to me that gardening is the perfect hobby for the inept.  If whatever they prune, plant, etc. goes bad on them, it just means all the more gardening to repair the damage.

Unlike other hobbies that tell you when you're awful - poor golfing produces things like bent clubs and enough frustration to make one desire a new hobby, for example - gardening REWARDS you.  Maybe that plant needs more sun, maybe you overwatered - no problem - there's always a next time.

The worse you do, the more opportunities open up to do more of your favorite hobby.  What a win - win!  And, who would notice?  The casual observer would simply think you were really into gardening.

The Buzz Chronicles

When a family has a vacation place, as does mine, there are all manner of tasks to be done.  And there has to be a family ringleader to organize things.

Enter older brother "Buzz."  (If you were christened Brimford, you, too, would have a catchy nickname).  Buzz has things to do, places to go, and a million invented tasks that would ruin the longest "vacation" of any normal human.  Cranky Curmudgeon in tow, he briskly runs up and down hills, clears paths, moves zillion-pound granite mooring blocks, launches boats and in general, comes up with an endless array of things needing doing that really makes it difficult for me not to feel guilty should I try to relax and, I don't know, VACATION.

I've consulted the Curmudgeon Handbook on this troubling interference in my vacation time and it is disappointingly silent on the matter.  I am therefore defenseless against these intrusions.

His motto: "no to do list long enough, no item too urgent."  For Buzz, waking up in the morning with nothing on the list is inconceivable.  No day should ever be non-productive.

Of course, that is the very thing I aim to wake up to: a Calvin and Hobbes day.  

Eating Contests

Upon my return to "civilization," I was once again exposed to a guilty pleasure, television.  But instead of a nice Murder, She Wrote marathon or some such, I tumbled across some disgusting Coney Island hotdog eating contest.

Televised eating contests - what screwed-up brain ever thought these things up?  I can see it now - sitting around one day, somebody says "hey - lets watch some people eat until they puke.  Wouldn't that be fun?"  Now, doesn't THAT sound socially redeeming?

I suspect that you, dear readers, can remember being at the dinner table as a child, glumly staring at lima beans or Brussels sprouts or some other god-forsaken foodstuff and your mother would threaten "eat your vegetables - there are people starving in Africa!"

Now we glorify overeating?  Now?  When America is suddenly noticing it's way overweight (and people are still starving in Africa).  The Food Channel even made a TV show out of overindulging.  This is one Guinness category we could do without.  

But no, there are ratings to be had.  Let's pander to the lowest common denominator.

Opening Up the Cottage

"Oh, to own a waterside cottage of my own" you may, on occasion, have thought.  Well, let this curmudgeon tell you, it is a decidedly mixed bag.  Yes, the view can be spectacular, and the clean air refreshing, but there is a price for all this.

When said cottage is quite far away, say on the coast of Maine, something as simple as "opening up the cottage" takes on a whole new meaning.  After all, the Maine winter is a long one.  First there's the discovery of what life forms - or worse, what new life forms - have taken up residence in your absence.  You are, after all, in the middle of nature, and goodness knows, nature certainly has unexpected surprises up its sleeve.  If you're lucky, you only unearth what the odd mouse has left behind and an impressive collection of dust.

Then there are the grounds.  Gracious, things like to grow on the coast of Maine.  I watch my sainted wife patiently feed her plants at home for good health and growth and let me tell you, their growth is nothing compared to what a good spring can do here all by itself.  Driveways need to be recleared, paths need reclaiming, trees need topping, and the healthy gardens growing in your gutters need to be removed.  Weed whacking is an industrial-strength endeavor.  Save the blackberry bushes or whack them to gain access to the trash bins?

And, of course, there are the boats. You are on the water, after all.  There is the painting, the launchings (always an adventure), and putting out the moorings (talk about heavy lifting).  

Congratulations - you have just eaten up half a week of your stay.  But is it time to relax?  Of course not: this is when all the littler things kick in - peering into the shed to see what has made a nest in there THIS year, dragging out lawn furniture, putting up the flag pole, putting the screens and screen doors on, testing the stairs to the beach to see if they still hold you (knowing full well that they age & weaken as you age and fatten).

It's a regular laugh riot, what we innocently refer to as "opening up." And bear in mind - it all has to be undone in a couple months - what joy!

Massachusetts Driving

There are a couple things that get in the way of a relaxing vacation in Maine.  One, for people like me who live in NJ, is the daunting 10 hour drive.  The other, much more terrifying, is that the drive takes me through Massachusetts, where lurk the worst drivers in the country.

Now, New Jersey is not without some pretty fearful driving practices, as I have touched on before.  In our defense, however, those practices are pretty much born out of necessity.

Mass. drivers, on the other hand, take great (one would suggest perverse) pleasure in their bad driving.  They easily top us as the worst drivers.  They are so bad, Mass. instituted remedial driving classes, but as anyone who has driven in or through Mass. knows, it was a futile undertaking.

Where else can you be driving on a 3-lane highway and the distribution of traffic is the exact opposite of what it should be - the passing lane is packed, the middle lane less so, and the slow lane more or less empty.

Given this bizarre pattern, it is no wonder that Mass. drivers have hatched "the sweep," where someone in the passing lane sweeps around traffic by using the slow lane to pass everybody lined up behind the idiot who refuses to budge from the passing lane.  Blink your headlights to ask to pass said idiot?  Don't waste the effort - sweep.

For the rest of us, it is a grueling defensive driving test.  Massachusetts: enter at your own risk.

A Curmudgeonly Return

One would have thought an archeological dig in an exotic foreign land would have been an ideal way to unwind.  As it turns out, one could be monstrously mistaken.

Despite catching up with an old friend, I made the fatal choice of catching up with him in what I thought was an exotic place.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I connected the word "exotic" with "fascinating," "spectacular scenery," "paradise," maybe even "quaint partially clad female natives".  

Certainly not "monsoon."

I have no idea how Carberry expected to dust the earth for pottery shards when the earth was mud, rather than dirt.  He claimed "an unusually wet summer," but the advance preparations by the native guides and porters shouted "we knew it was going to rain." 

Nonetheless, we had a good time playing with our little dirt dusting brushes (though using them mostly to swat mosquitoes), and exploring the different ways to prepare wild boar.  As you can well imagine, this wore thin in about a day, so I cut my stay somewhat short, and returned to a more civilized vacation on the coast of Maine.

Ahh, vacation at last - gulls keening, lobsters aplenty, fresh air, a relaxing sail...or not, as it turned out.  Criminy, after two weeks there, I need a REAL vacation.