Caught

When I moved into this new apartment, I wanted to furnish it with "modern" furniture. I'll admit that I was influenced by the taste of my former housemate, Noah, whose Lower East Side co-op was a veritable shrine to mid-century modern design. I loved living with the clean, spare lines of his aesthetic. But since moving in here and looking around, I've learned that that stuff is not cheap, and until I start banking some paychecks, I really can't be spending my non-existent discretionary funds on furniture. Even the good-looking IKEA stuff costs several clams! So my enthusiasm for the modern mandate--at least for now--is waning. Or on hold. I still want a cream-colored shag rug, though!

But, speaking of clams, while trolling my favorite used furniture shop here in Portland (the one nearest me, whose name I don't even know) I came across this wonderfully weird lobster pot-cum-coffee table. Actually, I saw this at Tiny Tim's moving company, next to the used furniture store. I think the moving company collects stuff that people either don't want or leave behind. There's all kinds of furniture interspersed around what looks kind of like a Brooklyn real estate broker's office. A TV blares off to the side while a small Asian woman, who might actually be Tiny Tim, answers phone inquiries about moving jobs. It's a weird place, and it carries a lot of funky weird things. I know it is incredibly kitschy to move to Maine and use a lobster pot as the central focus point of the living room, but....for $40....I just kind of loved it! Have I totally lost it? I had to remove the lobster netting that was nailed inside, in case Thumbelina got caught up in it and got trapped. Then I used some Murphy's Oil Soap to really clean it off. Before and after photos are below. The first two were taken out on my deck; the second two show the final product, inside:

Am I Blue?

Feeling sort of down today. Next weekend is a long weekend, and I get to spend 4 whole days with N in New York. So I should be happy and looking forward to that. And I am. But on the following Tuesday, I start my new job. I don't know if it's more anxiety-producing to start this new job, or to continue to live off my credit cards. Neither course of action is very appealing. Working again means I won't be able to spend 4-5 days at a time with N. It also means I'm really living here, in another city, with responsibilities and a brand new life. Wow, major reality check. I am looking forward to having a routine here, cash flow, to going to yoga again after work and to meeting friends for drinks after work, all the things I used to do and know how to do. And of course to the job itself, learning about a whole new aspect of the healthcare system, and being challenged again. But it will also be hard to say goodbye to this easy life I've been living, one of excessive coffee consumption, conjugal visits to my boyfriend in New York, and apartment fixing-upping. Ah well. It was fun while it lasted!

Thumbelina pics!

The Maine Mall

I left my cell phone charger in New York, so had to find a new one today. In New York, there's a cell phone store of some sort on every corner. Here, I didn't know where to start. So I started at the Staples in South Portland. They didn't have one, so on I went to a (relatively) cute little T-Mobile kiosk--by that I mean a freestanding store that wasn't shimmied into the middle of a strip mall. The store was out of my brand of charger, so I was forced to ENTER THE MALL. Like giant supermarkets, giant malls scare me. First, they involve lots of walking under fluorescent lights. Second, I don't know where to find things, and that frustrates me. I'm terrible with directions in general, can't really read those maps they put up in malls, and I like to get in and out of places as quickly as possible. So I did not really want to go to the mall, but I had to, or my cell phone was going to keep bleating all day about how its battery was low.

The mall was just like any other mall, and as it turns out, I was in and out of there rather quickly, (mostly because the guy at the T-Mobile store tipped me off that I should enter through the Best Buy in order to find the Global Cellular, where they sold all manner of cell phone accoutrements (neon plastic cell phone holders and the like, along with a charger that works for my phone, thank God!)). But since I was in my car, I couldn't help but stop at some other stores at other, smaller malls. (The Maine Mall seems to have spawned a brood of mini-malls lining the routes and frontage roads around South Portland.) I stopped at the Christmas Tree Shops, a discount close-out type of place that sells a lot of household stuff you don't really need, until you see that some tchotchke costs only $1.29 and suddenly it seems like a great deal. (Didn't buy anything.) I also stopped at some unfinished pine furniture shop. Then I made an accidental detour onto 95 south, which was totally not where I wanted to be going. But I couldn't get off of it, and I was even forced to pay the toll I'd paid last night while driving up from New York, drive a mile or two, then turn off at the first exit and drive up a frontage road. Argh. I need to get a GPS chip implanted in my brain.

It's a gray, rainy day here, and driving around the strip malls of South Portland, listening to Lite FM because I still can't figure out where the good radio stations are, and hearing Muzak in big box stores, was depressing. I thought of N and missed him so much, wishing we were in Red Hook scoping out used furniture stores or getting coffee at Baked. Or wishing he was here, and that we lived in a nicely furnished apartment somewhere close to downtown and our lives were in full swing, that we ate out 3 nights a week at Fore St. and Duckfat and Local 188, and cooked delicious healthy meals from ingredients purchased at Whole Foods the rest of the time.

Ah, food. Today I am "fasting," sort of. Well, actually, for breakfast I had tea and aloe juice. And a small glass of soy milk. And for lunch I ate an apple. For dinner tonight, I'll have nothing but brown rice, broccoli and avocado. Ok, it's not a fast, technically, but more of a cleanse. It's still a lot less than I usually eat. If you know me, you know that I used to be the sort of skinny person who could eat bagels and burritos every day without gaining a pound. I was skinny, like Olive Oyl skinny. At one point, I was even trying out those protein powders that bodybuilders use to put on weight. And then, at some point in the last few years, I started to like food. Really started to like food. I even started to eat everything on my plate. This would be a coup for my parents if I were still 7 years old, but unfortunately, as an adult eating out 2-3 times a week, this means I'm about 10 pounds heavier than I ever used to be. I think about food almost all day--about what I'll have for lunch all morning, and what I'll have for dinner all afternoon. I never used to be like this, and have never had to limit calories or pass on dessert, and in fact used to disdain people who did so, and now, as karma would have it, I am one of those people. Thus, today's "cleanse." I'll let you know if I wake up tomorrow with clearer skin and sense of "lightness," and more energy. (That's what they promise you when you do these things.)

Scene of the Crime

This is what happens to your bathroom when you leave a cat younger than a year old alone for more than a day. My brother and his wife checked in on T while I was in New York, but I didn't hear about this. Maybe she waited until they were gone to get to work!

Last Lazy Trip to NYC

I'm writing now from N's apartment in Red Hook on a Tuesday morning, probably the last time I'll do so on a weekday for some time. In some ways that's a good thing, because the reason for it is that I was offered a job with the Maine Medical Center, working as a data analyst in their planning department. This is great news for my bank account, which has been mightily depleted these last two months. Working in town will also, hopefully, help me get in the swing of life in Portland, might bring some new friends into my life, and will help me establish a routine as a Mainer.

I will also, I hope, be able to FLY down to New York from now on, instead of making the 6-7 hour trip by car. After not driving for nearly a decade, getting back on the road as a driver has been stressful and alienating. More to come on this topic.

Pictures!

When words fail me, and they often do, I have pictures. Lucky for me, N left me his amazing digital camera with the Leica lens. (The less sharp pics were taken with my cell phone.) I'll try to figure out how to get the captions near the photos.

Higgins Beach and nearby (photos by N)





Portland Architectural Salvage
View from my window (facing West towards downtown Portland):

Cat Update

Estrella-Rufasina-Lil' D has a new name: Thumbelina! Thanks to N, who thought of it. A shout-0ut to her big paws!

I did some research and discovered that cats with extra toes (she has them on her front AND back paws, which is even rarer) are thought by sailors to be good luck! Who knew? Here's some more info about polydactyls, from messybeast.com:

A correspondent to the New Scientist noted that the innermost extra toes on the front paws are often opposable and some cats use them with quite startling proficiency to manipulate small objects with almost human dexterity. Some owners of polydactyl cats joke that their cats are more intelligent because of this and represent the next stage in feline evolution - the ability to open cartons and cans unaided.

And this...

Polydactyl cats are known by various names - "mitten cats", "thumb cats", "six-finger cats" and "Hemingway cats". The latter is because of writer Ernest Hemingway who made his home on the small island of Key West, Florida. He shared the island with nearly 50 cats, including a 6-toed polydactyl given to him by a ship captain; the cats bred and the polydactyl trait became common, hence polydactyls are often known as "Hemingway Cats". Hemingway's colony of cats was free-breeding with the local cat population and the ratio of polydactyl cats to normal-toes cats was about 50/50. Another story suggests that the cat given to Hemingway was a female double-pawed cat and that the polydactyl cats on the island came from 19^th Century ships' cats. The high rate of polydactyl cats in Boston, USA has also led to the nickname "Boston Thumb Cats". The nickname "double-pawed" cats is a misnomer since there is a specific double paw condition.

For those interested (Betsy and Noah), there's more info here, including a picture of a "thumb cat" named Rufus!!!

Introducing Estrella Rufasina...aka Lil' D

So, a few weeks ago, I went to the animal shelter in Westbrook. I was in love with a cat named Little Debbie, whose photo was up on their website. But when I got there, I was told she'd been adopted! I was crestfallen. I'd foolishy already made plans for her, how I'd call her Lil' D. I looked at a few of the other cats, but none of them were as cute as Little Debbie.

Cut to a few weeks later, when I'd returned from a few trips to NYC, and was planning on being in my apartment for an indefinite period of time and I could really help a new cat settle in. I went back to the shelter with N, thinking I'd just be looking, and lo and behold, there was Little D! I guess she never was adopted. Now she's mine, all mine, and you can just how cute she is from these pics. As for her name, Lil' D isn't really sticking. Neither is Rufasina, an homage to Rufus Wildman, my step-cat of the last year. So now I'm trying out Estrella, Spanish for "star," which also sounds a bit like Stray, which is what Lil' D/Rufasina/Estrella was until Monday! Note her double paws, front and back!

Brick by Brick

I've been remiss in updating my blog, I know, I know. I want to write about everything, but that seems so daunting, so then I don't write anything. But I have a new philosophy now: a little bit at a time. Isn't that the great thing about this day and age anyway? Technology is totally supportive of people with ADD. I can write a little bit at a time, not have to bother fleshing out an idea, and you, dear reader, don't mind, because you're reading something on a website, which was specificially designed to appeal to all of our short attention spans. Perfect!

So my musing for today is this:

The other day, while passing a wall being built in Red Hook, I told N that sometimes I wished I was a bricklayer. I think it would be nice to work on something so tangible. To spread the cement, lay down the brick just so, add more cement, another brick, and so on until you have a wall. Wouldn't it be great to spend a day working on something and be able to see something so (literally) concrete when you're done? To turn around as you're walking to the subway and see your wall? The wall you built? I'm sure it would be hard, physically demanding work, but it's got to be satisfying.

So, I said all this to N. I think he thought I was a bit strange, though he himself has often talked about wanting a job that was fundamentally about craft more than anything else. Then, a few days later, I was reading an interview with a novelist who happens to be the daughter of David McCullough, the historian, and she said that he told her that being a writer was a lot like being a bricklayer--each day you lay down a few words, and before you know it you have a wall. (Am I mixing metaphors?)

Anyway, I took that as a sign, that I would announce one day I wanted to be a bricklayer, and then read a few days later that a prolific, Pulitzer-prize-winning author compared his own craft to bricklaying. So from now on, this blog is my wall, and hopefully it will get me in practice for building other walls, like chick-lit walls, and health policy walls, and other walls that I've been building in my head for years but have never had the discipline, or stamina, or focus, or....whatever it is....to get down on paper.