Well. Summer is here. Almost. Okay, so it’s Maine, and 80 F feels hot to me and others used to shoveling snow. And someone like me is also used to wearing a knit hat. Now my exposed, balding head (with early-Fraiser hair, kind of) can’t take the direct sun without risk of sunburn.
(Jun 15 2:52 p.m.)
Likewise, this very tree has gone a bit… “bald.” Or maybe it’s just me. …Okay, so this tree is not the one at the top, so it very well was just me lol. The cherry blossom trees have all gone green too.
(Jun 6 6:06 p.m.)
The sun can be intense at times, but— like rain— the plants and overall life on Earth need the sun. And the COVID mask will only prevent sunburn on the lower parts of my face.
Thistle or aster. (Jun 1 1:04 p.m.)
At night, people can appreciate the cooler side… and hopefully not sleep in sweat. But it is also the season where kids can be heard in the streets on skateboards… even at midnight.
(May 27 12:13 p.m.)
It’s past mud season… and so it appears to be a season of road construction.
(Jun 3 1:09 p.m.)
That sidewalk damaged by a fallen tree last year (that also took down a power line our house depended on) was fixed earlier this month.
So… quarantine. Someone who doesn’t wash his hands around here got sick, surprise, surprise. But I hadn’t been stuck indoors due to that, not quite. But because my right shoe broke in such a way that part of it rubbed slowly cut into my foot. And thus I couldn’t walk outside.
(May 14 3:49 p.m.)
Gawd, it was good to get outside again. Hobbling in the process of buying new shoes wasn’t great… and worse that the shoes we bought were awful dress shoes that did not match the display shoe (face-palm). (Going back, I found none of them matched that shoe!) But I got the idea to tape some paper towel into my broken Air Monarch shoe, and got back out walking.
So green, so blue. (May 14 3:50 p.m.)
Looking-like-a-dork-with-a-mask-on aside, I was grateful for the sun and fresh air.
Oh, the places you’ll go after moving to a city with so many stores within walking distance. And so many firsts. And not just the Firsts of the day program I attended, such as visiting a fire department and a police department, or the Firsts of the new residence, such as the first snowstorm, or first long power outage.
We’ve had quite a few dumps of snow here. It’s Maine, after all. (Jan 19 3:08 p.m.)
Or first frozen hard-boiled egg because I put a salad too far back in the fridge; or other more trivial things like first nosebleed, or first ant; it was no April Fools joke to see that a-hole ant in my room the first of this month.
(Mar 5 7:25 p.m.)
But firsts like restaurants I’ve never visited before, from greasy burger joints (sometimes those hit the spot), to a Chinese buffet of many types of food, to a native-Spanish-speaking Mexican restaurant. My mother and I had gone out less and less over time until it was rare that we ever did, but ever since I moved out, we’ve gone out twice a week, for lunch or a movie. I’ve now had more pizza and lasagna in months than I had in years. And on one part of my desk sits a pile of tickets. 🙂
(Jan 14 3:59 p.m.)
Often, we’d walk thru the Mall, and eat at the food court, even if the food we got didn’t come from the court.
(Jan 28 3:26 p.m.)
And… then the economic struggles hit home. Across the country, stores and whole malls have been struggling for years.
The lights are on, and the room is loud, but the place is nearly empty. (Jan 28 3:31 p.m.)
But never would we guess what would come next.
(Mar 19 2:41 p.m.)
The coronavirus SARS-2 pandemic was the second punch that shuttered the rest and a great deal of U.S. commerce in general. Continue reading Growth in isolation→
Well. I’ve been gone long enough that you may be wondering what happened to me. What can I say? I’ve been busy and distracted. I’ve settled in the group home, and for months it’s been one change after the next, in staff, and loud laughter, and spontaneous clapping by a roommate who revolves around the living room TV, most often channel surfing music videos. (It didn’t take long for him to wear out the batteries in the Roku remote.)
(Nov 22 12:07 p.m.)
And then you count the chores we’re all used to—e.g., doing dishes… but then cleaning up others’ messes, which is not something I signed up for. And that includes staff leaving plates and utensils in the sink. Sometimes people don’t learn to not put utensils in the garbage disposal sink; they fall in. To top it off, some areas are never cleaned despite the obvious warning of mold and ants come summer unless I bother. Can you sense my frustration?
(Dec 6 3:35 p.m.)
Oh, and now the staff knock on my bedroom door to “check up on me” at times, even if it means waking me. And on program days, I’m awake anyway for the unpredictable Logisticare service that’s so awful one of its drivers, who was already late, pushed his hybrid car so hard it broke down on the highway, Friday, with fumes entering the car. Other out-of-the-ordinary things have been happening in the last few days; I lost a receipt as if it disappeared out of thin air.
So I’ve been pushed and pulled around in many little different ways that add up, and it becomes not only frustrating but time-consuming on top of that day program I’ve been too timid to end. (Still, what do I do if I end it? Always out of the loop, I don’t have ideas.)
(Dec 5 8:13 p.m.)
One plus: I’ve learned to cook pasta pretty well.
Nevertheless, peace and quiet is harder to find. And without good ideas and new ideas, or fulfilling relationships, I’m not satisfied enough to rest. So after a share of social media and informative videos, I don’t get enough sleep and can’t find my voice or be bothered to write a string of words longer than a tweet or two. But surely I could have posted here, right?
Cabela’s! (Dec 13 2:20 p.m.)
I blame Twitter. Again.
It’s addictive or seemingly welcoming but to the point of being oversaturated, and in a way apathetic towards thoughtful blogging, even though the platform was intended for micro-blogging. Today, you can find endless retweeting of one-offs that serve the warning that quality is not appreciated nearly as much as retweeting among tribes. Like any social media, the more you stand out in the “wrong” way, the less you will be heard. And it all happens in real-time, further manipulated by Twitter’s popularity algorithm.
(Nov 20 3:08 p.m.)
But I digress.
The rush of the holiday seasons was rather pronounced at the Goodwill in Biddeford. Christmas trees and decorations were on sale over a week before Thanksgiving.
Flowers in a vibrant green around the sand. (Jul 4 11:51 a.m.)
The year’s gone by too fast. It’s already well in to summer. So on top of the year feeling like it’s gone by too fast, the days are getting shorter again.
Dandies. (Jul 4 12:11 p.m.)
Before summer came, the trees were sprouting, and seedlings fell from the trees. Once summer hit, hard winds and rain began to knock leaves from the trees— and it can be harsh, some days. But there always seems to be some kind of flower patch somewhere throughout the seasons.
(Jul 3 11:34 a.m.)
And when the flowers shrivel up, the stems just continue to rise. Plants will take whatever they can, and adapt however they can.
(Jun 20 5:40 p.m.)
Humans, however, don’t even like being out in the rain. (Okay, some do sometimes.)
Things are moving… and some things are stalling. Such is life. I’m behind. Not enough time, and not enough sleep. The year has gone by so frickin’ fast. One week away from summer… even less than that.
I’ve been meaning to post more often here but my internet access at home has been unreliable.
(May 15 2:33 p.m.)
I’ve been here and there. And my transportation has been funded by… gulp… taxpayer money.
(May 15 2:33 p.m.)
Okay, so I’m being a bit dramatic. I haven’t been everywhere and every day, and it’s nothing compared to the cost of health care… nothing compares to health care in America anymore.
Which makes it odd that many of the tree leaves near home are still in early development or just budding, whereas trees in Biddeford and Portland have already bloomed.
(May 17 10:31 a.m.)
Of course, snow makes everything take longer. (Not to mention, planted trees, flowers and grass are treated differently.) It’s been cold for May— temperatures in the 40s (°F) versus “normal” numbers in the 60s.
It had been many a year since I visited this beach.
Closed until summer. (Apr 17 2:50 p.m.)
I remember visiting the Old Orchard Street— lined with stores, rides on the side… and pizza. And more pizza. I remember playing at the arcade. The last time, however… I sat in my mother’s car parked along the street, and didn’t get out due to self-consciousness.
(Apr 17 1:49 p.m.)
On Wednesday, most everything was closed, and will remain closed until summer, of course.
