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prev home archive next Momentary Thought I need to hire somebody to do all the tedious jobs in my life. Today I have to get the oil changed on the truck, do some banking, and go grocery shopping. Dude. My life is like sooooo exciting. High/Low High: BUFFY! BUFFY TONIGHT! Don't bother me, I'm watching Buffy. Buffybuffybuffybuffybuffy. And maybe Angel. Probably Angel. Yeah, Angel too. Angelangelangelangel. I'm a freak. Low: TOTALLY bombed on a Stats quiz last night. Gah. Current Obsession Maine. Grin Source E-mail exchanges with Viv, Dawn, and Shelley. It's so nice to have friends! Singing Guys you know you better watch out Some girls, some girls are only about That thing, that thing, that thiiiing... "Doo Wop (That thing)" - Lauren Hill Storyteller Bio Dramatis Personnae Who I Read Recipes |
I spent some time yesterday over at this website, looking at a TON of potential cabins to rent for the vacation we're taking to Maine. In June. Of 2003. Okay, so maybe I'm jumping the gun just a leeeetle bit. By maybe a year or so. Most places fill up a year in advance, so I'm not that much of a freak. Just a little bit of one. It's just that I'm so damned homesick that even looking at pictures of cabins (interiors, exteriors, lake views...) makes me feel like I'm not as far away from it as I really am. My grandmother rented a cabin on Big Sebago Lake a few summers when I was growing up. We'd pack our stuff up from our home in the country and move out to the lake for two weeks or so. My younger cousin (by three years) would stay with us every summer. The cabin we'd rent was great - at least, to my mind. Since my grandmother had to deal with more of the logistics, perhaps she didn't think it was quite so great. Water for the sink was attained with a hand pump, which I thought was really cool (we did have normal plumbing in the bathroom, though). My bedroom was completely panelled in wood slats that seeped pine pitch and got all my clothes sticky. A completely open attic ran the entire extent of the cabin, and was entered via a set of stairs that lowered from the ceiling. A screened in porch ran the length of the back of the cabin, with the lake about fifteen feet away. My aunts and uncles (not all of them were "aunts" and "uncles" - once we got down to second this and twice-removed that, everybody turned into an "aunt" or "uncle") would come out to stay for a day or two while we were there, and the adults would stay up playing card games on the porch while my cousin and I would chase lightning bugs (fireflies) in the woods surrounding the cabin. I learned how to play Uno on those trips, and I also learned that I like sour cream on my baked potatoes. My cousin and I got our Pound Puppies taken away from us because we were fighting over them, and the people in the cabin next door had a dog named "Ask Him". "What's your dog's name?" "Ask him." "We can't ask him, he's a dog!" Funny the things that stick in my mind. We'd always have Grandma's potato salad - a huge yellow ceramic bowl of it, topped with sliced hard boiled eggs and paprika. Oh, and dear God, her apple pie! My uncle would bring a load of lobsters and clams for steaming, and strawberries and corn on the cob from the farm stand that was on his way. We ate vurry, vurry well. My cousin and I would get very brown during those vacations. Another aunt and uncle actually lived on the lake, across the cove from the cabin we rented. My uncle would drag us around on the torpedo behind his boat, and we watched 4th of July fireworks at the Big Rock from it. A dock floated in the middle of the lake, and we'd swim out to it every day. And jump off. And climb back on. And jump off. We'd have to go straight out to it as soon as we got in the water. The shore was very rocky and there was no beach, so swimming where we could "touch" was uncomfortable. We caught a lot of frogs. And pollywogs (hey, your "tadpole" is my "pollywog"). A LOT. At night we'd have fires in the fire pit near the shore, and we'd toast marshmallows on sharpened sticks. Yes, my childhood was *that* idyllic. And so since life is about as far from idyllic as can be and yet still be basically harmonious and happy (yes, it is possible to have the absence of the former even with the presence of the latter), I have an intense desire to recreate those summers on the lake. I know it won't be exactly the same, of course. I'm grown up, for one. And I'm the one paying for it, for another. And I'll be the one to wash up the dishes with the hand-pumped water, for a third. But I can hear the loons, and see the mist hanging low over the water in the early morning. I can picture us having a cook-out with all my crazy relatives. I can smell the fresh air. I can feel the cool water, and the soft grass under my feet. I can envision Calvin and Marie and I dangling our toes in the water as we sit on the edge of the dock - perhaps even catching some fish for dinner. Hell, even the *bugs* don't seem so bad, from this vantage. I wonder if my cousin will want to stay with us? Then we can catch pollywogs and lightning bugs. |