Of course I asked ...

"Where's the milk crate strapped to the handlebar, and the alien wrapped in a blanket? "

Behold ... the iPed making an iPuss

So ... vacation is neigh.

Two weeks of coastal bliss ... interrupted only by four hours of sticky highway travel and 47,000 rounds of "Are We There Yet," set to the tune of earworm.

It will be idyllic ... with the possible exceptions of a crowded house, the potential for frayed nerves, family faux pas and too many encounters with Maine's state bird.

Not that I'm complaining.

I'll have my iPhone. ...

My camera. ...

Two not-so-summer-y reads. ...

And a date with the coffee shop and beach every morning.

I may even be singing a happy tune when I return.

Sharing the love (and the Secret Service investigation)

the usual suspects, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I'm blog sitting at Little Bald Doctors today and decided 'What a perfect way to share the love while Andrea's on vacation than to share the third and final chapter of the ME and the BUSH FAMILY saga over there?'

I mean, I'm friendly that way. I like to share the love and widen the investigation.

Of course, tinkering around in her bloggesphere really made me a little envious. I mean did you know WORDPRESS has password protection features and really nice interface that seems much more intuitive than Blogger? It also has automatic spacing and it does html code all by its lonesome (with the toggle of a button). All the code and spacing I'd prepped? Useless.

... But I digress

Go. Read. Make a new friend.

But please, come back.

*Pretty please?*

Ah, the good ol' dog days of summer

The other day I revealed my first experience in Kennebunkport, Me., and the happenstance of finding a beach next to the Bush compound by the light of the moon and - it would seem - the seat of my pants. Today I will tell you the second part of the three-part saga: The first time I took my then-boyfriend's (and-much-later-husband’s) dog to the beach ... alone.

Now mind you (and Jed would disagree with me about this) his dog got a little strange when we all started dating.

We had each brought a dog to the relationship (Maggie was his and Maddy was mine). And aside from the certain economy of their names --they both answered to either Maggie OR Maddy whenever their selective hearing acknowledged being called – after a brief time residing in the same house the canine pair formed a pack.

His dog, Maggie, even became a little dog aggressive. That’s not to say that she ever BIT another animal, but she did scare many-a-people at the other end of the leash who were thinking that she might. My dog, Madeline, who had previously been a coward in the presence of stranger dogs, now took a cue from her older and wiser compatriot and barked heartily at their presence out in the world.

Of course this new gang we formed – one that no longer acquiesced to the whims of its founders - barked at everything that moved. Sometimes with an insistence on stampeding towards other dogs with the force of a herd of wild boar, sending terror into the hearts of all involved.

You may see where this is going ...

Jed and I were in his hometown on a the new girlfriend tour: I was being introduced to his boyhood friends. During one portion of the weekend he was busy slowing down his friends’ golf game by agreeing to play while I had decided to take both our dogs to the beach. How bad could it be? They weren’t bad dogs.

And the day was beautiful. It was 7 a.m. and the beach was mostly empty. I had stopped at a bakery on Chase Hill and gotten myself a cup of coffee to hold in the hand that wasn’t holding dog fecal matter … (WHY DO WE DO THIS? Insist on drinking coffee on the beach when inevitably ONE if not BOTH dogs will squat and leave a present that will need to be scooped up and carried for the remainder of the walk?)

... I digress ...

The dogs were happily playing in the surf and fetching tennis balls and sticks I threw for them.

Until.

There.

There, in the distance.

Very, very far into the distance.

Almost on the other side of the beach.

Was a familiar something.

A Q-tip person: White-haired and regal, walking a boneless spaniel and flanked by two men wearing dark green windbreakers.

I knew the green men were protecting the little white-tipped dot, and the dot was walking a "Millie" clone.

I froze.

Maddy froze.

Maggie froze.

And then ... Maggie RAN.

I grabbed Maddy’s collar - lest she get any ideas about collusion - and watched as Maggie got farther from me and closer to the white dot. She seemed to be a black bullet; getting faster and faster and lower and lower to the ground as she zoomed toward the former first lady’s morning constitutional entourage.

My body was frozen but my mind reeled with panic.

OHmygodJedsdogisattackingtheformerfirstlady’spooch.

WhatdoIdo?

TheywillshootJed’sdog.

Hewillneverforgivemeforgettinghisdogkilled.

Staycoolstaycalmpretendnothingiswrong.

And then, at the very second, just feet away from her target, Maggie stopped short, sniffed a little sniff and turned around. She loped back to me as if nothing had happened.

I felt faint.

When we finally passed each other a few moments later, Barbara (as I thought of her but would likely bumble for "your majesty" if I tried to actually speak) turned in my direction, smiled and gave me a little wink. Her wordless reassurance didn’t really help me calm down, though.

In fact, I still kind of feel like throwing up.

As promised ...

First and foremost, let's finally close the chapter on the birthday that ate two months shall we?

After much hemming and hawing and gnashing of teeth (not to mention trying to decipher the somewhat condescending responses to my internets plea for help from the experts as to how I could get my computer to play nice with my new camera) I was finally able to process the photographs from Silas’ second official first birthday party.

The fact that I am still able to function after the tiny ordeal, having stayed up well into the night, is a testament to the power of coffee.

So without further ado, here they are ... pictures from when Silas turned one year and one and a half weeks:




Not sure it was really worth the wait.

Ah well, moving on to the second thing: I will try and fulfill another promise I made to my flickr friends recently about telling the stories I have concerning a certain presidential family, which, during the past two decades, has become VERY familiar to the people of southern Maine.

I must first warn you that however much I would like them to, my stories DO NOT cast a dim light on the First and second First family. Yeah, I know. Shucks. Worst still: The jokes are usually on me.

Here we go ... part one:

VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR

Way back when George H. Walker Bush (that would be the former CIA man who was VP to Reagan and then a one-term president himself) was newly a former president was also about the time I got my very first almost-new car (NOT to be confused with my first nowhere-near-new car that I saved from the junk heap and spent all my part-time-job earnings trying to keep tooling down the highway).

So with this almost-new, mechanically perfect automobile in my possession I went where no one in their 20ish right mind would ever consider to go for a little weekend away: the southern coast of Maine.

Now Friends, I had never been there before on my own; didn't even know Jed from granola. All I knew was that there was a ocean and it was only four hours away.

I don't really remember much about that trip other than my almost-new car (a Honda Civic the size of a honeydew melon) gave me some trouble parking in a little tourist town called York. As it turns out I couldn’t seem to maneuver the little thing into a parking space big enough for a Mack truck without power steering. (Yes, I am a weak link.)

After a small gathering of tourists applauded when I finally managed to sidle up to the curb (pulling forward and back, this way or that, no fewer than 48 times) I got right back in my car and headed farther up the coast to Kennebunkport where, I hoped no one had seen the clown show I made of parrallel parking.

But I digress ...

Ah, was it pretty there.

Being a young and idealist photographer, not to mention a slight bit of a *cough-cough* romantic, the first night I was there I found myself lured to the Harvest moon hovering seemingly just inches over the water. I walked and it walked with me. Like a pet. ... only a pet that was obedient.

I digress again. ...

Anyway, I followed that moon - that crazy moon - up Ocean Avenue and out of town. Further and further away from the lights and the hubbub. Suddenly. A beach. A tiny public beach made of rock and boulder. I pulled my almost-new car over to the side, took my camera and tripod and hoofed it out to seaside.

Dang, that moon was pretty.

A few seconds after I’d set up my camera two white paneled vans skid to a stop near my car on the road; their lights glaring down onto me a few yards away.

They wait. And watch. No sound just blinding light.

I can’t get pictures of the moon with those lights.

I get back in my car and head back to town ... where I buy a map.

And learn I was here.

And Friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a piece of paper with my name on it (probably) ... and I never got that picture of the moon.

Click in next time (which may be days from now, who knows) when I reveal the second in this three-part harmony opus: ME and The BUSH FAMILY.

Take the T

i'd like to tickle his tummy, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

For a good time ...

Go to Alewife,

take the red line to the green line,

take the green line one stop to the blue line,

take the blue line two stops to the other Wonderland.

You'll want to tickle the sea lion's tummy, too.

Wait a while and it changes

like the weather in NY, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

We just got back from a weekend trip to New York City, the cruxt of which was to visit the big Toy's R Us store in Times Square.

You may wonder why on Earth two reasonably intellengent people -- parents of Ittybit and Champ to be more precise -- would travel two hours on a train and then schlep the kids, two backpacks, a stroller and a camera to visit a toy store that arguable has less going for it than any of the the locally owned toy boxes in our own neighborhood?

The occasion was a "potty party" in honor of our dear friend CC, who was celebrating a dry summer by taking a few spins on the gigantic indoor farris wheel the toy behemoth has jammed inside its multi-storied establishment.

We thought we'd try and take it easy on ourselves and take a bite out of the Big Apple a day early, stay at a Greenwich Village hotel and see the Richard Serra show at MoMA.



I can honestly say we had a wonderful time, even though we expected to be shooting ourselves in the face bringing a nap-striking three-year-old through the bowels of Manhattan's mass transit system in a souped-up umbrella stroller and then making her stay in the contraption through five floors of modern art, when all she really wanted to do was see her friends and ride the ride.

I must also point out that waiting to cry and throw an all-out tantrum three hours into the museum experience should be put down on her application for sainthood. I, myself, lobbied for an hour at the museum and an hour at the Central Park Zoo. (I was overruled).

But I'm not bitter or anything.

Perhaps the most interesting part about the whole experience was just witnessing the city for the first time at the vantage of parenthood. New York, a place that ordinarily seems cold and austere despite its opulance, where people race from place to place and barely make eye-contact, melts when tiny tots are in the picture. Having children really is the great equalizer. Everyone stops to talk to the kids, to ask about the sling that kept Silas comfee and quiet the whole trip. It was exactly like being in a small town.

From the moment we stepped off 34th Street on our way to West 4th and back to Penn Station, we were engaged by people who wanted to know how old the baby was, how old Annabel was; they worried about his safety in the sling and wondered where I got it. They told me about deals they saw on such things in SoHo.

When Silas cried, grocery clerks clucked in empathy, coffeeshop baristas told us about their teenagers at home. ... how they'd go back to the baby days in an instant if they would just stay babies ... and hostesses at restaurants offered to walk him around so I could eat.

Everyone smiled and said 'Have a Nice Day.'

And they meant it.

Even in the toy store we had to admit the kid of ours who walks and talks was walking the line, and on her best behavior. The only thing I regret, out of the whole experience was not photographing the tower of boxes containing dolls fashioned from the musical "Hairspray" that Toys R' Us was hawking.

As teeny-bopper types were shrieking with glee at the chance to have their very own Amber Von Tussle doll, I found myself handling an Edna Turnblad, turning the box over and over in my hand and feeling sad. I wondered momentarily if John Waters is turning over in his grave ... then I realized the poor man's not even dead. Hell must have frozen over for sure.