Auntie duty

I took this picture with my phone last evening on the cliffs near Thunder Hole. The surf was pretty spectacular as high tide approached, and the crowd was pretty good about obeying rangers' warnings to stay off the rocks where the waves were crashing. Last year a little girl and her father were swept off the rocks and into the sea while they were watching the waves after a hurricane. Emergency personnel were able to rescue the father, but the little girl perished. We found out later that the crowd on that day did not heed rangers' warnings, surging back out onto the rocks after officials repeatedly asked them to move back. The story of that day traveled up and down the crowd of people at the path's edge yesterday, and when rangers said to move back, the people did.

I am providing ... I'm not sure what - recreational opportunity? educational adventure? weekend away from UN-cool parents? A couple of days' respite for the 15-year-old daughter of a friend. Kid came out as bi a couple years ago and mom is doing her best to make sure her daughter has all of the role models/resources/non-parental supports a queer kid could want or need growing up. Somehow, the kid likes me, and I seem to get along pretty well with her, so she's here. Why this all is, I have no idea. She's a geeky semi-goth girl in skinny jeans with long hair and a decidedly feminine style. What I might have to offer her is a mystery to me, but she was excited to come for a visit, so here we are.

I taught her how to make sushi rolls Friday night (her request) and Saturday we had planned a day of adventure at the Blue Hill Fair, but when we awoke to a torrential downpour, I nixed that idea in favor of a drive around Acadia to see the surf and the stupid people who want to go stand in it.

After noon, the rain stopped and the sun came out and we had a marvelous day puttering around the island. The summit of Cadillac was mobbed with three motor coaches filled with Japanese tourists, but we were able to walk the paths around the summit area and see the white surf pounding the windward sides of EVERYTHING as far as the eye could see. We had lunch at a table in the sunshine on the lawn at the the Jordan Pond House and then toured some of the shops in downtown Bar Harbor before going back to Thunder Hole for the incoming tide (high tide was at approximately 8 pm) as it was pretty but not magnificent when we visited the first time at around noon.

We returned home tired and dusted with salt from the spray, and I made some seafood newburg with eggs from some hens kept by friends. Hand-raised, corn-fed chickens produce the YELLOWEST yolks of any eggs I have ever seen in my life. The newburg was like something from a box of crayons. It was YELLOW. Like school bus yellow. Yikes. My young charge had never had newburg before, so she was unaware of the nature of its alarming appearance and just ate it and liked it. I am still disturbed by the color of the stuff now stored in plastic tubs in my refrigerator.

This morning our plan is to attend church where a friend is preaching and then go to the fair in Blue Hill. The women's frying pan toss is at 4 pm and is the highlight of the afternoon's offerings. No, really. The grandstand is packed well in advance of the first pitch and the crowd cheers heartily for each woman in all of the age groups. The occasional wild toss (straight in the air, landing behind the thrower, or careening near the grandstand) will bring howls of alarm and delight from the crowd. It is a good time for everyone. While we are at the fair, her mother will meet up with us, we shall watch my young friend and her sister go on some of the rides, and she will travel home with her family. I expect to come home and collapse.

I have a new respect for parents, particularly single parents. This kid is pretty much self-contained and self-propelled. She has her own laptop, her own cell phone and her own money. She looks to me only for "this is ok, right?" kind of approval, not "may I please have an ice cream cone?" kind. I cannot imagine the work involved with supervising little ones. Holy crap.

This morning I got up and made banana nut bread with chocolate chips. It is still baking and the house is beginning to smell heavenly. I just woke the kid so she could see four huge, full-grown turkeys that were in the yard, gobbling and poking among the tall grass looking for their breakfast. Now we are up and each on our computers in companionable silence, me at the kitchen table with my coffee, she sitting cross-legged on the fold-out couch, flanked by a small dog and a large cat.

I think it's been a pretty good couple of days. I am exhausted, but she seems to have limitless energy. I am looking forward to the fair this afternoon, although not so much church this morning. This is the church that I used to attend and that I quit back in June. The internal dysfunction and drama were too much, they managed to run the minister out and that really pissed me off, and well, right now, I need a minister. I need to go to a church that has a minister, even a long-term sub while they find a regular one. So I plan to attend at a church about 45 minutes from here. But this morning, because my friend is preaching, I will go back into the church building I left. I will sit in the sanctuary and I will participate in the service, and when it is over, I will leave and probably be sad. I'll ride that out when I get there.

For now, I am going to drink my coffee, have a slice of banana nut bread with chocolate chips while the chips are still all ooey-gooey melty and wonderful, then a shower and we'll see what the day brings.

Stay tuned.

Two weeks out

Ok, so many years ago I swore I would never get involved in a Gay Pride thing again. I got burned pretty badly, and was voted from leader to outcast on my birthday. By an ex-lover and her new girlfriend. But I'm not bitter.

So anyway, as both of you know, I belong to this thing called Maine Gay Net, which is a thing called a list serve, which I really don't understand, but it is kinda fun. It's like a big (135 members, give or take) chain e-mail club. A member can post something, which ends up in everyone's e-mail in box. Others can reply in public for all to see or off list so the conversation is private. It is kind of like a large cocktail party of people in a completely darkened room. But without the groping. We can hear each other in some conversations, but not in all of them, and we can't see each other's faces. Come to think of it, there might be groping going on, but it's dark, so I can't see it.

So this gaynet thing has been going on for something like 15 years. It was founded by the marvelous and fabulous Paula Stockholm, who turned over the reins last year to the marvelous and fabulous Nanci Little, who now serves as our moderator. So there is this group of people, spread far and wide around the globe (Maine, Florida, California, Ohio, Thailand), who check their e-mail on a kind of regular basis and comment back and forth about issues as broad and weird as politics, sex, religion, economics, recipes and home appliance repair - really all kinds of things. Some members have been corresponding and contributing almost daily for nearly 15 years. And to date, we've never all gotten together. We've shared some really intimate and personal details, but we've never met.

Sure, some of us who live in the same area have met, but never have we had a reunion or a large-scale get-together of any kind. Until now. In two weeks, great hordes of gaynet members will descend upon my little island, filling up campgrounds and hotels and restaurants for a weekend of activities.

And I'm the one coordinating it. Goddess help us every one.

Don't get me wrong, I love this thing and am thrilled to be doing it, but it feels a lot like when I did Pride stuff years ago, and that makes me nervous. Of course this is a committee of one (me) so I am not so likely to get voted off as I was before. But you can never tell. I can be fickle.

Aside from my own insecurities, and they are plenty, this is looking to be a pretty cool thing. We're having a coffeehouse kind of open-mic/music/storyteller ice-cream social kind of thing on Friday night, some activities during the day on Saturday, a big potluck picnic and more activities on Sunday. Oh, and an informal breakfast gathering Sunday morning at a local eatery. With very attractive waitstaff. Not that that matters, of course.

I am doing my best to not over-coordinate things. Events and adventures will come about organically as people meet and decide they'd like to go for a hike or bike ride or whatever. I've got some leaders lined up, and L and I will be offering early morning trout adventures, but really we have no huge, set in stone kind of plans. Aside from the coffeehouse and the picnic, everything is really a catch-as-catch-can sort of thing.

So. Here I am. Two weeks out and starting to get nervous. The souvenirs should be arriving at my house either today or Monday. I had to order a minimum of 72, so let's hope we have some people show up to this thing or else I'll have a bunch of stuff left in my living room.

Oh hell. Speaking of my living room, I think I may have a dozen people fighting over who gets the fold-out couch. My yard is going to look like a homeless encampment with tents everywhere, and every cooler I own (and those are nearly as many as my insecurities) is going to be pressed into service for this adventure. So far, I think I have Mike, Jen and her daughter, Darlene and possibly a friend, and maybe Steph and Rena and their dog. Let us hope it does not rain. Other folks in the area are similarly booked. Some friends in Ellsworth are putting up a member who is flying in from Florida for the occasion!

This whole weekend is really, as one friend put it, not unlike the world's largest blind date. My greatest fear is that at just past noon on Saturday, when the potluck picnic is in full gear, we will all agree on one thing: that we were happier having never met any of these people. I think what will probably happen is that we will all be taller, shorter, fatter thinner, older, younger, and infinitely less clever in person than we are on line. Oh, and our voices will not sound anything like we had imagined they would.

This is sort of like meeting your favorite radio personality and realizing that he's that dweeby guy from sophomore algebra with lots of pimples and who never combed his hair. You just never realized his voice made him sound six feet tall and gorgeous. I think it's going to be a lot like that.

But I am looking forward to it. If we like it and decide we want to do it again next year, then I'll ask for committee volunteers and start taking minutes and stuff like that. But for now, we're flying blind and we'll see how it goes.

Oh, in the interest of promotion, here's the website with the flyer and a paypal thing so you can donate to the burger and hot dog fund.