Sunday, July 11, 2010

Clearly back in Maine

This weekend Carrie and I are decompressing from our adventure in very different ways.  Yesterday she was roaming around Boston with a pal from undergrad and I was at the famous Ice Out party in a secret location in Western Maine.  The party is a tradition that was started a while ago which celebrates the end of winter.  Whomever best guesses (although some claim using secret scientific tests) the date that all the ice is out (that's 'all melted' for you Southerners) on Egypt Pond, becomes the Ice Queen or King (see the foto of this year's queen (again!) and her dancing princess on the right).

Her/ his responsibility is to plan a menu and the rest of us (can you tell I've never won?) then make.  Once we find a day in which we can all get together, we kayak / canoe out onto the pond and share our meal via a series of courses and varied locations on the pond. [This photo of the sign above is a clue to the name of the owners of the house at which the festivities took place].

In the four years I've been participating, we've had mixed results in terms of eating on the pond and yesterday was no exception.  This year's theme was Mexican food.  We had Mexican salad with corn and black beans, cheddar jalapeno corn bread, guacamole with chips, pico de gallo, chile rellanos, Oaxaca tacos (pictured on the right), churros, margaritas and other things I'm sure I'm forgetting - perhaps due to the margs.  As usual there was a ton of yummy homemade foods complete with assorted giggling.  Due to rain, we ate on the screened-in porch and when things let up we loaded up the watercraft, bug spray and desert and were on our way.
It was a beautiful day - most folks went swimming and a few of us kayaked or canoed.  Everything was perfect until I was attacked by a pond shark named Gretchen.  Jordan and I were hanging out by some rocks, he was in the process of winning the Egypt Pond belly flop competition, when I felt this pulling on the back of my kayak.  Before I knew it, the shark was on the back of the boat and we were tipping back-n-forth and slowly taking on water - soon it was all over, I was in the water.  Luckily for me, pond sharks usually only attack watercraft.  Once I recovered my hat (my glasses somehow stayed on), the shark calmed down and helped me to right the kayak.  In gratitude, I towed her back to the dock.  If you look closely, you'll see two heads in the water - Jordan looks like he's attacking us but he's really helping us out. 

Thankfully I had a change of clothes and we spent the rest of the night playing games and attempting to play music. 
Today I began to deal with the weeds in the garden, mowing the grass that's roughly shin-level and harvesting the last of my radishes.  I did manage to find some ripe red and black raspberries. I think I'll eat them with a chocolate covered ice cream bar later today.
Now that I'm feeling like an old lady, I'm going to go post garden pictures on facebook and then take a nap, mow or actually do some work.  ta ta

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