Look what I found in Ginger’s refrigerator today.

The best and maybe the longest version of Pretty Woman with Roy Orbison, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, T Bone Burnett & J D Souther.

 

Dan’s wanted a garage for as long as I can remember. He’d drawn up designs complete with elevations and he’d talked to friends and he’d talked to the town planning commission and he’d snooped around the neighborhood looking where neighbors kept their cars and just when it looked like he was about to start, he stopped. Until one day, on the way home from a weekend in Boothbay Harbor with his wife,  Linda. She said, “Dan, it looks to me like you’re too busy to get the garage built. Why don’t I take over the project?”  I believe the next morning he hired his builder. 

 

Dan’s wanted a garage for as long as I can remember. He’d drawn up designs complete with elevations and he’d talked to friends and he’d talked to the town planning commission and he’d snooped around the neighborhood looking where neighbors kept their cars and just when it looked like he was about to start, he stopped. Until one day, on the way home from a weekend in Boothbay Harbor with his wife,  Linda. She said, “Dan, it looks to me like you’re too busy to get the garage built. Why don’t I take over the project?”  I believe the next morning he hired his builder. 

Most people walk out of their dentist’s office with a toothbrush, dental floss and maybe a small bottle of mouthwash. I guess mine wants me back because look at what the hygienist gave me.

Brock began shaving at fourteen and by sixteen he was doing it twice it day. I’ve known him for thirty years, ever since he fixed our first car. I know he doesn’t really know me. It’s the merchant syndrome. If you walk into your local drugstore that pharmacist is the only pharmacist and you never forget her. She gives you your Valium and you leave with a smile, but she sees you as just one of a thousand people for which she dispenses pills.

I grew up fixated on men like Brock. Hairy knuckles, broad chest, the stink of testosterone and not an emotion within a thousand miles. I tried, but never got to be one.

I’d a reason to be back in Somerville when a friend needed help with the foundation of his porch. In his neighborhood, I swung by to see Brock and what he could do with my dented front end.

I also wanted to see his wife, Sharon, who made my knees wobble. She wore lots of red: earrings, lipstick, and tight sweaters – all set off by her chestnut hair. I wasn’t afraid of Brock, but I was of Sharon.

After Brock pulled out my dent, I brought up the obvious.

“Where’s Sharon,” I asked.

“Cost me half a mil to get rid her.“

“I guess that means you’re not married anymore.“

“She’s an addict. Everything went up her nose.“

“Sorry to hear that. You know, I have to say this. I thought you two were the perfect couple. You even look alike. She’s a pretty version of you.“

And that was the truth.

“I tried to help her. I did everything I could but she was wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t work, the bitch was never home. Fought with me and our two sons.”

“Shit.”

“She moved to Alabama and I heard from her sister that she wants me back. Not happening. I’ve remarried. Lisa’s very different. She’s stable. She’s home every night. She cooks my meals.“

“Things have worked out.“

“Worked out? Yeah. But you know what? I love Lisa but I don’t love her like I loved Sharon.“

Diane and I stayed up late watching The Bourne Supremacy, so I wasn’t all that thrilled when my internal sunrise alarm clock began ringing at 6:10. I hit the snooze alarm but woke up every ten minutes until I lurched out of bed at 6:40. I peeked through the drawn curtains to see pink promise, then with the lights out and trying hard not to wake Diane, I dressed myself and, quietly, but still half asleep, walked out onto the balcony.

Sitting next to our room was a middle aged gay guy who launched on me like I was his long lost best friend.”It’s beautiful isn’t it? I couldn’t sleep. We’re here another day and then we go back home. I’m from Pennsylvania.”I was so groggy I could barely babble enough to escape his verbal clutches. What the hell was he doing sitting outside at this hour on a Sunday in ten degree weather? Why was he talking to me? No, don’t tell me. I left him in mid-sentence with some comment about getting closer to the ocean and I walked across the street for my non-telephone wire view of the rising sun. Except where the sun should have been were clouds too thick to fly through. Pink on either side but opaque in the middle.

Optimistically, I hurried back across the parking lot to my car and drove to Adam’s suggested Neddick Nubble which appeared from afar to be the perfect spot. Except the old lighthouse, adorned with Christmas lights, sat proudly right in front of that cloud bank behind which might have been a rising sun.I tried different vantage points but none mattered because I’d missed my best opportunity which occurred twenty-four hours ago.

**************

Last night we ate dinner at the Village Inn and were served by Shane from Chicago. We were this close to asking him if he were named after the character in the 50’s movie, but the next four grey-haired parties beat us to it.

We’re in York, Maine, which is a few minutes more than an hour’s drive from Acton. Online, I found a cheap motel that sits across the street from the Atlantic and, since it’s so close to Boston, it defines an area we’d never go to in season. Too crowded, like Revere Beach north. But now we’re one of about ten other cars sharing a 115 slot parking lot.

Last night, after dinner at The Harborside, where we met Ashley (our waitress) who graduated last year from Plymouth State and is now taking a year off before she maybe moves to the Seattle area to teach, we watched “A Beautiful Mind. ” Diane’s second time and almost my first, which is to say I caught bits and pieces of a movie that seemed overly long but ended with a bang. I don’t know who I liked more, the real people in the movie or those delusional character’s in Nash’s mind. I could use some direction from a guy like Ed Harris.

This morning, I woke up too late to catch the sunrise which happens directly across the street. Tomorrow I won’t miss it. I remember my first ocean sunrise in 1970. Dan and I’d planned on getting up at 4:30 and driving up to Gloucester. I’ve got slides of the orange orb (what I thought then were dramatic but which now are real yawners) splitting clouds and lifting off the water, and I have two slides of Dan still fast asleep on a mattress on the floor. I couldn’t wake him.

In those far off years, when Dan wasn’t crashing at our place, he would wake before sunrise, jog the .7 miles from his place on Richdale Ave. in Cambridge to our apartment, hop up and down outside my bedroom window while waiting for me to lace up my shoes, and then together we’d run back to his place and have rice cream for breakfast. Rice cream is rice that’s been milled to a fare-thee-well. We’d sprinkle on some soy sauce and feel like we’d eaten the healthiest breakfast imaginable.

Anyway ( I try so hard not to use that word to transition from one thought to another), I was hoping this place would be nicer than it is. I was thinking of arranging some grouping of the grieving parents to take our show on the road, and given the location and the cost, figured this might be it. Only problem is, when I look up from my computer the word fleabag comes to mind.

Arlo and Janis often mimics the goings on in the Kibbe household. This past week Jimmy Johnson has had me in his sights. 

Ginger remodeled her downstairs and here are a few photos of the new, bold look with a couple pics from the past thrown in. I confess I don’t mind tweaking Dan and Jennifer who grumble about “adult houses.”

Also, this from yesterday morning taken off my front porch.

Mike,

On our way down from our highest camp in Glacier NP last August, our youngest fogy-hiker, Reed, asked me to take a bunch of overlapping pictures from a spectacular viewpoint. Far to the left we could see the canyon we came up from Canada, in the middle we could see the distant, smoke-shrouded Lake Bowman where Beth was to meet us, and far to the right we saw the wonderful “hanging valley” alpine meadow where we camped the night before. My pictures overlapped horizontally about 30-40%, but there was one point where I had to side-step to get around some obscuring trees for the last 4 shots.

I was dubious about stitching all 11 of these pictures together, particularly because of the sidestep. But then I found a program (Doubletake) for the Mac that does the stitching automatically, and it did a wonderful job of joining the pictures that overlapped in the distance but not in the foreground. I only had to tweak the picture in one area using The Gimp to get rid of a floating tree branch.

Reed’s last name is, appropriately enough, Panos. And he really does love panos. He wants to print this picture as a 1-foot by 9 foot mural.

So here it is for your viewing pleasure.

–rakkity

Blogmeister’s note.  And here it is for Adam who always wants the largest version.

Mike,

On our way down from our highest camp in Glacier NP last August, our youngest fogy-hiker, Reed, asked me to take a bunch of overlapping pictures from a spectacular viewpoint. Far to the left we could see the canyon we came up from Canada, in the middle we could see the distant, smoke-shrouded Lake Bowman where Beth was to meet us, and far to the right we saw the wonderful “hanging valley” alpine meadow where we camped the night before. My pictures overlapped horizontally about 30-40%, but there was one point where I had to side-step to get around some obscuring trees for the last 4 shots.

I was dubious about stitching all 11 of these pictures together, particularly because of the sidestep. But then I found a program (Doubletake) for the Mac that does the stitching automatically, and it did a wonderful job of joining the pictures that overlapped in the distance but not in the foreground. I only had to tweak the picture in one area using The Gimp to get rid of a floating tree branch.

Reed’s last name is, appropriately enough, Panos. And he really does love panos. He wants to print this picture as a 1-foot by 9 foot mural.

So here it is for your viewing pleasure.

–rakkity

Blogmeister’s note.  And here it is for Adam who always wants the largest version.