First Maine Lobster This Trip

Photo of blue lobster by Leslie Ricker, shown on Lobster Institute site.

We cleaned the Cape house top to bottom for a few hours starting at 7 A.M. yesterday, picked Figgy up at the Woods Hole ferry landing [she'd visited a friend on Martha's Vineyard], then drove all day to Maine to visit H.'s big family. We arrived at the Muddy Rudder restaurant in Brewer by 7:15 P.M. to meet his sister Eileen, her husband and three kids.

My funny, kind, nature-loving nephew, Kyle, age 10, ordered a lobster. He put on the bib and asked his Dad, Mike, to help him get the meat out of the tail. And then he soon decided he was full, and they didn't want to take it home--so they passed it to me. It was tender and delicious with a little melted butter. Lucky, lucky me. [I also had a spoonful of H.'s lobster stew--always more of a soup than a thick stew, served last night in a shallow bowl, and that was excellent, too.]

On the dark, lean, non-lobster-eating side, we've had stresses, big ones, like our checks not coming on time for various jobs and having to ask our dear friend, Patsy, who's been taking in our mail and watering our garden back home, to sift through our daily letter delivery and deposit any checks that came. Plus, our mortgage is drop-dead due by Monday, and we're waiting on checks for that, too.

Though the Cape and Maine are truly beautiful, this is not a relaxed way to take a break.

But last night, we had a pretty view of the Penobscot River while we ate. Sug and I ran up and down the grassy riverfront hill with Kyle and his sweet little sister, Isabella, 5. And when a freight train rolled through on the Bangor side, I thought of the lyrics to one of my favorite songs that H. does really well on the guitar:
King of the Road

Third boxcar, midnight train/Destination...Bangor, Maine./Old worn out suits and shoes,/I don't pay no union dues,/I smoke old stogies I have found/Short, but not too big around/I'm a man of means by no means/King of the road.

Now it's Saturday, 11 P.M. We drove to Eileen and Mike's camp [Maine term for summer house] on Pushaw Lake this afternoon, to stay for a few days in the little guest cabin. So many good things:

• Productive family talk with H. and Figgy about tricky dynamic.
• Swim in the lake! Lily pads around me, squishy underfoot.
• Fresh dinner, with sweet corn; grilled salmon and zucchini; palmfuls of those little Maine blueberries; and two of my mother-in-law Mary's specialties: potato salad and apple cake. [She grates eight apples for it, skin and all. It is so moist and lovely. I want to make it at home soon.]
• Loons calling as we ate.
• Boat ride after dinner on the family's bowrider motorboat. Sug went, too! Really gorgeous out there.
• Sitting around the fire pit when the sun set and beyond with a glass of Mommy's Time Out Pinot Grigio, while Kyle and his friend skinny-dipped [we had to turn our backs when they got out] and Figgy and her cousin and a friend sat on the docked boat, talking and laughing. Oh, and I made a s'more.

Good night.