Lessons

You live and you learn, right? You make mistakes and you learn. And sometimes you repeat said mistakes and you learn. Or not. 

Throughout our seven or so years together, I've learned Pig cannot be trusted around candles. She has some strange desire to sit with her little face inches away from the flame, usually burning the ends of her whiskers until they are nothing but crisp and curly stubs. This applies to the whiskers above her eyes too, it's quite a hilarious sight when you get the chance to witness it. Candles are one of my favorite things, I love the warmth they bring to a room and the scent they fill a space with. You see my dilemma. Here she is, more cautiously might I add than usual, staring off into the little yellow flame. Sometimes I catch her inching towards it while her eyes are closed and her little nose is wrinkled to catch the scent. She will never learn, which means I will have forever have a cat with burnt whiskers.

 And no, I will not give up my candles.

Who hasn't repeated mistakes while knowing the outcome? I think every person on the planet is guilty of that. I for one know that eating a whole plate of waffle fry nachos from Sebago Brewing Co. is a terrible idea and always causes me significant abdominal discomfort after. Do I still eat the entire plate? Of course. Is it still a surprise to me? Only at first because of denial that it won't happen this time around. I don't think Pig is in denial, I think she doesn't realize her whiskers are on fire.

I'm ready to live and learn though, two more months.

DQ

This picture has two of my favorite things in it, can you guess?? Ice-cream and Jurassic Park, of course. We had a pretty eventful Sunday, and I binged pretty hard on food. Limiting oneself to cottage cheese and tiny cucumbers during the week is great and all, but I still gotta live. 

We made it out to Elevation Burger and I was in cheesy/saucy/spicy/savory heaven with a side of fries. Afterwards we headed to our local Dairy Queen, it was pleasantly not busy, surprising for a sunny Sunday. I wolfed down one of DQ's new flavors, brownie cookie dough. If there is a place in the sky where one goes after ingesting copious amounts of sugar then I was definitely headed there. Totally worth it. Did I mention that the DQ cups were Jurassic World themed?? Only 18 more days!

We scooted ourselves to the big Cinemagic in Westbrook after and caught the 6:50pm showing of Mad Max: Fury Road. I heard good things about this movie, and I can happily say it definitely lived up to the expectations. Grunge, lots of explosion, a bald Charlize Theron, and a little feminism mixed with comic-book like effects. Although I'm still not sure why it's named after Max (I know there are older originals of the movie so maybe that has something to do with it), considering the main characters were for the most part gun-wielding women who drove post-apocalyptic rigs.

Speaking of remakes, the new Poltergeist is out, I'm pretty sure that's next on our list. After that will be none other than Jurassic World. I will probably be unreachable on premier night because I will be standing outside the movie theater the second it opens.

Heat

Feel the heat! Well, almost. Spring is in full bloom but we've been having some chilly days here and there. I find it's warm enough to shut the rinnai heater off, the squeeze not so much. I also like to sleep with the window cracked these days, again, the squeeze not so much. The squeeze's rents, Birdman and Mrs.Birdman (is that kosher??) finally got their fire pit in! 

We trekked up there late one night after I escaped from work, made some grilled shrimp and veggie skewers, and relaxed by the lava rocks and jumping flames. For a while I had the view to myself, I watched with wide eyes as the large June bugs flew themselves violently into the fire. Upon landing they would sizzle, after a couple seconds you would hear a loud pop. The image I picture is something similar to that of a popcorn kernel bursting, but much less appetizing. They continued to to this the entire night, buzzzzzz pop.

I do love fire pits though. Ones fueled by wood are the best for one thing; s'mores. I could eat s'mores every day. S'mores season is coming, I can almost taste it!

Neon

I loved my Lancer. She was bright blue, had a great sound system, could play DVD's, and her neon shoes you could see from 10 miles away. I remember the day I came home after picking up my freshly powder-coated wheels, my dad stepped outside and stared with his mouth open, what did you do? I really didn't care about anyone's reaction, I thought it looked awesome. Kids loved the set up, everywhere I drove they would pull at their moms' hand and point excitedly. It was like driving around in a Hot Wheels.

I added some other touches along the way, removing the emblems, tinting the windows and taillights, installing a side plate bracket, and blacking out the front bumper. But alas, the girl had some miles on her. I don't think you can tell in the photo that she was encroaching on 100k, once that number hit though things started to go sour. One ball joint here, one shaky tranny there. I tried to justify getting a new car, but settled for well I just want a new one. The timing couldn't have been better though. Little did I know that upon agreeing to purchase my new car there was a five month wait ahead of me for it to arrive. Fast forward to five months later and I needed a new car.

I hated to see her go, but she would have bitterly become a money pit. We weren't able to sell her as part of our pre-owned inventory as she didn't pass our shop's inspection, so off to wholesale she went. At that rate we don't know what happens to cars, she could be sitting on some local mom and pop shop's lawn, she could have been parted out, or worse, the dump. I'd like to think she was at least too nice for the dump.

I did take one souvenir though. The wheels. Currently they are sitting in my dad's closet, I am on a journey to try and sell them. Wish me luck. 

MOD

I'll admit, talking about the rally made me pretty nostalgic. When we went I was still in school and only working part-time, I had the freedom and flexibility to go to a lot of places and see a lot of things. These days that freedom seems to have been put on hold. So I started backtracking through photos from around the time the Poker Run was taking place and remembered that my friend and I also made it out to MOD that year.

MOD, or Mitsubishi Owners Day, happens on both the East and West coast. My first and second cars were both Mitsubishi's, I'd heard about MOD before but again, never had the sort of friend base that was interested in doing automotive things. Now that I had not only one, but two female friends who were not only fellow Mitsubishi owners, but also car enthusiasts, it was extremely exciting to get the chance to go to these events. I drove down to RI and stayed at my friend's home in Warwick, the next morning we took her car down to King of Prussia where we spent the night. A bunch of fellow attendees lived in Philly so we had a small gathering at Hooter's in KOP. Not only my first Hooter's experience, but also my first fried pickles experience. MOD took place in Camden, NJ so the next morning one bridge and 40 minutes later we were in Mitsubishi heaven.

Our CT friend arrived there with her crew shortly after and the three of us pranced through the rows of cars like a trio of bambies. It was a great day, lots of shiny custom paint jobs and bright wheels for us to drool over, raffles, T-shirts, food, and music.

I recap on this experience positively because it meant a lot to me. Us three prancing bambies no longer speak to one another, and I traded in my three diamonds for six stars. Perhaps in TX there will be more opportunities and new friends. But I will always have a soft spot for Mitsubishi.

Rally

This is the hood of an old Miata. Why is it covered in confetti and a winged T-Rex duking it out with an evil unicorn you might ask? Well, because car rally. Short of a few minor details, that really is the answer. 

There isn't a very large 'car scene' up here in Maine, let alone many fellow girls who are interested in Cars and Coffee kind of gatherings (in TX I hear C&C is a big thing). Back in 2013 I met a couple of female car enthusiasts on a Mitsubishi forum, we all happened to live in New England - one in CT and the other in RI. The three of us became pretty close and visited the others' home state. Through the forum we heard about this New England Rally that was happening in the summer, it was a Poker Run of sorts and spanned the course of three days. My friend from RI and I signed up and handed over the hefty enrollment fee, but after the experience I can say it was well worth it! We were the first all girl team they had (which they gave us a goody bag for), we called ourselves The Lulzers. We both drove Mitsubishi Lancers, which were referred to as Lulzers on the forum.

Back to the hood. The person in the forum who introduced us to the Rally asked me to custom paint his Miata hood. He literally asked for technicolor dinosaurs and unicorns. The goal was bright and obnoxious. So when it was rally time we showed up to our first destination, and from a mile away I could see the hood I painted! It was a big success, due to the sheer ridiculousness of it all. After the Poker Run was over, they continued to drive around CT with the hood covered in neon, stopping at small car meets along the way. For a brief stint people would reach out saying they saw it around. I think they've since parted out the Miata and sold it, the hood may be hanging on a wall in the garage.

If you ever have an itch to do something outrageous to your car, let me know.

Ninjette

Here is the Ninjette in all her green glory. I had this motorcycle for two years, and what an interesting two years those were. I was 23 and had just started to explore my interest in the world of things automotive. You could label me a tomboy growing up, I liked bugs and snakes and kept frogs as pets. I would rummage through my mom's gardens and overturn every rock she had thoughtfully arranged in order to find beetles and crickets. As I got older I retired the bugs for cars. I'll still catch a spider and put it outside if need be, I just don't go digging through dirt anymore to find them.

No one in my family really shares this interest with me (no one really shared my interest for bugs either though). At some point my mother had a somewhat life crisis and purchased an S2000. She couldn't drive a standard though. She paid someone big bucks to teach her, but she never got further than the roundabout in the center of our neighborhood. I don't think she ever learned to drive it and it sat through at least one winter in its parking spot.

One day I decided I wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle. Honestly, I really hadn't thought about what could go wrong, and I'm not even talking about crashing it. Bikes are big, and heavy. On two wheels it's easy to simply fall over while standing. The Ninjette wasn't remotely close to a Harley, but it still weighed in at 375lbs. I can attest to its heaviness because one time it did simply fall on me in a driveway. Other things no one talks to you about is what's on the ground; sand, loose gravel, and oil can cause for unexpected falls. I can attest to this too when I tried pulling into a dirt driveway and the bike came to a slow, sinking halt as the front tire sank into the soft ground. Luckily for me I walked away from both these incidents with nothing but a bruised ego.

Then there was that time I did actually crash it. After that I think I said no more. I sold it last year to a girl in her teens, her dad accompanied her and was super supportive (her whole family rode). It's that time of year now where everyone is out riding, it make me a little nostalgic. When I took my motorcycle course they had us on these puny little 125cc Honda's, I rocked the training, even mastered the figure eight in the enclosed box. I think what killed it for me was that I had no one to ride with. One of my coworkers (who owned crotch-rockets for years) told me I should have ridden with a group of people, it would have made me less nervous and I would have learned from watching everyone else. I think he was definitely right.

Perhaps down the road I'll try again. Until then, I'm happy with my four-wheels.

Graduation

The USM Class of 2015 is graduating today, congrats guys! Since the Art Department is relatively small, most of us had classes together up until the very end. Many of us graduated last year, the rest of the art crew are snagging their degrees today. My dad and grandparents waited patiently and gleefully, for what seemed like an eternity, for me to run up and grab my degree. 

I had taken a couple years off from college, not necessarily to 'find myself' but more or less to take a break. You go to school for 12 years in a row, and then are expected to throw yourself into college for another four, seems crazy not to take a little break. In reality, my break was only supposed to be one semester... which turned in to two years. I don't regret it though, after two years I was genuinely excited to go back. Plus, had I not taken my little leave of absence I would have graduated prior to meeting the Squeeze!

My family was always on my case about going back to school, my grandmother especially. Every time I would visit it was "school this... school that." I think it brought a lot of relief to everyone when graduation came around. To honor our artistic achievements, a bunch of fellow soon-to-be-graduates and myself got together and painted our caps. Obviously this was the theme I went with, I thought it was pretty clever *insert grin here*.

You're next, Squeeze!

Wildlife

We took advantage of the beautiful day yesterday, low 70's! last summer I took the squeeze to the Maine Wildlife Park over in Gray, he said he'd never been before so I made it my duty to bring him. We had so much fun, despite the fact that we (per usual) got there kinda late in the day and certain things were closed. Last summer they were in the midst of building the new Lynx exhibit, and a bunch of other animals were on hiatus. This time though we got there early in the day! We managed to go to the snack shack and nature store that we missed last time, and I spent way too much money on a MWP t-shirt. Anyway, here are a couple Lynx in said new habitat! They look like large house-cats in person, but their paws are massive. Like huge saucers. These guys eventually hauled themselves to the back of the enclosure, where people couldn't go, of course. But I managed to snap this picture before they fled. I love cats, no matter how big.

These two were hilarious. The big brown bear bullies the little black bear, but they were both equally adorable. There are food dispensaries around the park to feed certain animals, corn for the deer, some sort of grain for the terrifying local Canadian Geese that were hanging around (one actually attacked the squeeze), and then the bears had what looked like cat food. A mix between Cheerios and cat food to be exact. Despite the fact that it seemed silly to feed tiny Cheerio cat food pellets to these bears, they would vacuum them right up off the ground. They would even sit and beg! I tried to snap a picture as these two massive teddy bears sat up side by side with their paws up, but I didn't grab my phone in time and the brown one plopped back down. I felt bad for the lame size of the food, despite the fact that the first sign you see when you drive into the park is 'please don't feed the animals' (aside from silly Cheerio cat food pellets) I grabbed the apple I had in my purse, split it in two, and chucked it into their enclosure. I regret nothing!

This little guy was probably our favorite, he's an albino Raccoon! At first we couldn't see anything inside his dwellings, but the second he heard the crunching of a plastic bag he came running out full force. Such a curious sight to behold! I've never seen an albino Raccoon, or anything albino at that matter. A group of small girls threw him a french fry which missed the fence by inches, he stretched out his tiny little human-like hands and managed to grab the fry and devoured it. Again, my empathy for anything small and furry got the best of me and I threw him part of a cheese stick. I still regret nothing! The squeeze got very, very close to take a video, the whole time this little guy was pressed against the fence with his tiny hands stretched out trying to grab the phone. So cute!

Little Bird

This little guy just arrived in my mailbox the other day, and I couldn't be happier. He hails from Connecticut, which means I only have 48 more states to go. Only! I guess my collection is going to take a lot longer than I anticipated *nervous laugh* Oh well, I'll get there. He's a little 4 x 4 oil painting, a swallow to be exact (I don't have the sort of budget yet to splurge on big ol' pieces). The painter included a mini easel with him and wrapped everything up in the cutest way possible. I almost didn't want to unwrap it. So here he sits contently on our fake mantel.

I must admit I may have a problem though. You see, when I checked out my account on Etsy for tracking info to see if this little bird was delivered yet, I may or may not have stumbled upon something that I had to have. You'll have to wait and see once it arrives. Although it doesn't fit my criteria for this collection, it's a photograph and from Canada, perhaps this means I'll just have to start another collection of non-paintings from countries around the world. At this point I will either have to learn to comfortably live broke, or find a job that will sustain my art habit.

But how can you say no to that little bird?!

Apples Galore

This was the time we got lost in a corn maze. Ok, we didn't really get lost, but I did panic for a second and got slightly claustrophobic among the endless corn shoots. I think at some point we gave up and simply tunneled our way out, essentially creating a new exit. 

This was at Wallingford's Fruit House up in Auburn, we'd gone apple picking the previous year but it was a very brief experience and right down the road from the squeeze's home. I wanted to make a day trip out of the next apple picking season so I searched long and hard for a new spot. This place got happy reviews for its extras and food goodies. There were goats you could pet (one managed to get loose and just wandered around unnoticed) and feed, did you know goats love squash?? Because I sure didn't. Some of the staff would throw whole gourds and squash into their fenced in areas and they would just annihilate them.

The main building was like a mini convenience store, you could buy anything from local ciders to apple mango salsa to caramel apples. They had a bakery out back where they pumped out fresh hot apple cider donuts, so good! They had some Halloween related activities for kids, regardless of age bias the squeeze and I took an epic tractor ride to the orchards.

The day was a success. We left with a bag of apples each, a six-pack of local hard cider, and bellies full of donuts and other pastries. I tried to search for apple picking in Austin, not too many options. Maybe we'll reserve that for visits to New England.