Memorial Day in Camden

Memorial Day.

Before the tourists show up.  Before the mob scene in Thomaston every July 4th and before the giant commercial endeavor that is the annual Rockland Lobster Festival.  Memorial Day is an intimate, small-town celebration of heroes and each town honors its own.

In Camden, there is a small ceremony on the Public Landing

Then comes a parade, led by an Honor Guard and the Cub Scouts.

They paused here by the village green to lay a wreath at the veterans' memorial.

A moment of silence; a trumpet player stepped from the ranks of the high school band...

...and played Taps while the wreath was laid.

The rifle salute nearly caused Wilson the Agoraphobic Goldendoodle to spontaneously evacuate.

Then the parade moves on.  Thing Two is there in the center with the tenor sax.  By the time this day is out the kids from Camden Hills will have played for ceremonies in Rockville, West Rockport, Camden, Rockport and Lincolnville and marched in two parades.

There were old cars...

...and the Little Leaguers...

...and every single damn fire engine in the town department...

...and time to say thank you.

Middle School Band Concert 11/15

This.  Was.  So.  Painful.

Saint Patricia, the new guy is not.

Only four more to go, if I can convince Thing Two to stick with it.

They're baaa-ack

Remember these guys?

Worked out great last year.  We're doing it again.  

Would you believe the couple who owns them has named every single one of them?  There are, like, two dozen of them.  Must be weird taking a packet out of the freezer that's marked "Q-Tip" or "Mr. Freckle."

Le Weekend

It was that sort of weekend.

In the low 80s, light cool breezes, not a cloud in the sky.

Everything deciduous bathed in shades of springtime green.

The sort of weekend when you take the cover off the boat and open up all the hatches.

The sort of weekend when you air all your bedding and do seven loads of laundry and almost don't have to use the electric dryer, except you only have so many linear feet of clothesline.

You know you shouldn't set out your basil because it could still freeze, but it's that sort of weekend, and you just can't resist.

The sort of weekend you just have to play outside.  

On Saturday, Thing One turned 15.

(He got a full set of Grundens for his summer job, but the biggest hit was this coffee worship t-shirt.)

And on Sunday, Himself and I marked 17 years of matrimonialocity.











That sort of weekend.

All good.

Aria

The middle school chorus teacher just had a baby daughter which she named Aria.

I am a mean and horrible person, I know, but the thought of using musical terminology for kids’ names strikes me as gut-bustingly funny.  I mean, if Aria gets a little sibling might it be named Recitative?  Wouldn’t G-Clef be a great name for a hip-hop artist? 

I’m almost sorry I’m done having babies because I would happily endure another infant if it gave me the opportunity to say “This is my daughter Fermata.  Would you like to hold her?”

Honeybees

Today is one of the first really warm, sunny weekend days.  Our usual two pairs of rose-breasted grosbeaks are back.  The chickadees, nuthatches, mourning doves and finches are crowding the feeders.  The ticks and black flies are out in force, but I decided to risk it because my front walk and flower beds have been taken over by crabgrass and dandelions and were long overdue for some attention.

It's been a very long time since I've seen so many honeybees as are out and about.  The dandelions were positively boiling with them.  This is a good sign.

I wonder if they're wild, or if someone nearby has gotten a hive?

They were placid and perfectly content to share their space, even let a nosy human get right up to them with a camera.

I confess, many times I paused and waited for one to finish burrowing in his blossom and shuffle off in search of another.

Then would I heartlessly dig the dandelion out by the root.

There are still plenty to go around.

Things I Have Inherited from my Mother

My mother was an avid houseplant person.

Me, not so much, but I took hers on a temporary basis that seems to have become permanent.  Kind of like the cat.

She had an amaryllis bulb which I perched on my sunny kitchen windowsill and tossed some water on every week, and it seemed perfectly content to sit there and send up green leaves.  

A few weeks ago, it pushed up a stalk with a bud on it.

And it bloomed on the anniversary of my mother's death.