Food, Friends, Ocean, Excellent!

Friday afternoon meant off for another adventure weekend in Portland and the surrounding area. Marie-Agathe, a friend from back in high school who was a French exchange student, was coming up to Portland to visit Merry and I was invited to join them. Unfortunately Alice, Merry’s daughter and the reason I know both Merry and Mappy, couldn’t come. For supper we had some tasty stir fry and then it was off to meet the rest of our company for the weekend. Long story short; Merry’s friend and coworker is hosting for a short time a friend of Mappy’s from France. We spent the weekend with them (Tracy=Mom, Emmy= Tracy’s Daughter, Pauline=Mappy’s Friend) because it makes sense in a way I need not take time to explain, you’re all smart individuals and I’m attempting to make this less than 100 pages long, onto the good stuff.

After dinner we had dessert over at Tracy’s which consisted of a variety of sorbetto, gelato, maple coconut tapioca and things. For drinks, Champagne Aubry I believe it was. Everything I had was delicious. I had a small moment of star struck syndrome as Tracy’s husband Eric played NHL Hockey with the Chicago Blackhawks, he of course played with several teams including the New Jersey Devils and the Montreal Canadiens, but I found it exciting! I love hockey but of course the other girls paid no attention so I got over it. Saturday we had those delicious waffles Merry makes for breakfast. I apologize right now Merry if people start showing up at your house for breakfast, but they are just so darn tasty I have to talk about them.

The original plan for the weekend was to go out on the boat all day and see the sites but there was unfortunately some wicked storm clouds moving in so we changed it up a bit with a shorter scenic boat ride and TUBING ON THE OCEAN off Cousins Island! We all know how much I love tubing but even I am used to just doing it on the Maquoketa River, the ocean is a whole different experience. Mappy was a little terrified at first but we had a lot of fun! She even went Maq. River tubing when she was in Iowa so she has had two VERY DIFFERENT experiences. We had some DELICIOUS Panini for lunch with all the great ingredients I can’t afford (yummy artisan bread, fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, grilled peppers, grilled eggplant, arugula, yum, yum, yum) I couldn’t contain myself it was so tasty. I also went WAY out of my box and had green gazpacho made with avocados and cucumbers, neither of which I typically like but I mixed it with some regular gazpacho and it wasn’t too bad.

Left: Check out those clouds!    Right: At least Tracy and I know how to get down to Janis Joplin.

The afternoon was spent on karaoke and watching Pet Semetary which only Tracy and I had seen before. It was fun to help translate “A man’s heart is stonier” to Pauline as we didn’t have the luxury of French subtitles. For supper El Rayo Taqueria, tasty Mexican including Beso to drink (tequila, hibiscus, lemon, lime and orange)!

Has everybody ever noticed that the main thing I talk about is food. I’m a foodie, what can I say? I love food and delight in talking about and photographing it for the world to see. A recent comment made by a little birdie said my blog always makes her hungry, I aim to please. The moms woke our butts up early for breakfast (I say moms because I claim Merry as my mom away from home) because of a little bakery called Scratch. Can you say: IT. WAS. WORTH. IT!? Talk about a mean croissant, buttery and soft, if both the French girls say it’s a good one it must be right? We went out to Fort Williams Park (you’ve seen mention of this in my last trip to Portland) and I enjoyed by croissant and soy latte sitting aside the ocean and the Portland Headlight Lighthouse. I almost forgot to add this in but there could have been some more adventure and cool picture taking if Merry had only allowed me to climb out on the rocks to do it. There is a picture of my being displeased with her about this but it won’t come until I gather the pictures from everybody.

Next we were in for a real adventure, it included snipe hunting…oh wait that’s not right. I mean Piping Plover Searching! They are a cute little puffball of an endangered species and we went to see if we could locate some baby ones at Ferry Beach. Ferry Beach is your fairly typical sandy beach and was great for a Sunday walk with the ladies. We didn’t see any Plovers but we found several good seashells and ended up swimming in the ocean in our full attire. Emmy got a little rowdy at the water’s edge and somehow that resulted in the submersion of the rest of us kids, somehow the moms were spared.

I left Portland at 1:30 and decided I had time for another small adventure before retiring home. I ended up heading south to the coast from Bath and wound up at Popham Beach. I was thinking it might be a bust because it was rainy and foggy out, but I rolled my pants up and grabbed an umbrella and started into the sand. Popham is extremely peaceful and mildy eerie in the fog and I seemed to be the only one around. I decided to at least walk out into the sand until I either met water’s edge or couldn’t see where I’d come from anymore. The latter happened first but by then I could hear the water so kept on until a huge rock, which I of course had to climb for curiosities sake. I like to say I was being really adventurous and could have possibly been climbing to a fall to oblivion but I was very careful. The ocean is not something to toy with. When I reached the top I could see above the fog and see where I’d come from and the ocean next to me crashing into the rocks. I want to live at this exact point with nothing around me for miles, it was so beautiful. I sat and enjoyed it for over an hour by myself until the fog started to clear and the beach monkeys started coming around. At this point I traversed the edge of the beach and overturned some rocks looking for creatures. They included some crabs, lots of sand dollars and one little starfish which I “saved” by putting it back in the water.