cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
Day Three<O:p</O:p
“You just go get yourselves a cup of coffee or some lunch,” said Anita, ducking her head to look out over the tops of her wire-rimmed reading glasses, “look around a bit and let me work on this. I’m sure I can get you something acceptable.” Anita had the earnest look of a problem-solving grandmother, a Miss Marple of the vacation housing industry. She was dressed in a navy blue crepe something-or-other that my female readers could easily describe. It was somewhere between an earth-mother dirndl skirt and boardroom casual. Her salt and pepper hair was pulled back in a bun and I half expected her to stick her pencil in the bun as she busied herself. “Now go get that coffee and let me handle this. I’ll call you on your cell if I find something right away or you can just come back in an hour or so.” She shushed us out as if we were a room full of school kids in need of a recess break and we headed for the Maine Bookstore/Coffee Shop we had spotted the night before.
We sat at the bookstore eating chowder and salad and discussed our options including the thought that we might just pack it all in and spend the next week wandering across Maine and Upstate New York. One thing was certain, we had spent our last night at Dale Dapkin’s cabin on the lake, “Where moose swim and eagles fish,” and where faceless drummers practice well into the night, mold spores reproduce at record rates and everything except Dale’s art says, “slapped together.”
Beside its enviable location on the banks of Damariscota Lake, Dale’s cabin had only one other thing going for it; his art. He was a painter of some renown; a sculptor, furniture maker and ceramicist… multi-media would fit. His work was full of rich colors, whimsy and thought. Careful inspection of the pieces revealed craftsmanship, patience and thoroughness, as if all the things he could not do to the house, he poured into his art.
I’d had a hard night sleeping. Yes, I had been dead tired, but the air was heavy and the bed was lumpy. The island drummer was evidently only the opener for a teen-ager with a boom box and a taste for that one-dimensional music that consists only of bass and drums… I think Ace of Basses may have been one of the original groups of the genre. I’d had an aversion to the music for several years. I was first victimized by it’s mindless thumping from a passing car sometime in the 90s. Annoying then, it had not improved in the ensuing years. Now it’s deep tones penetrated the Maine woods and sought out my cranium like a nagging mosquito seeking out a camper to torment. We’d found a good-sized window fan and turned it on. It moved the humid air, but the ‘low’ setting had worn out leaving us with a choice of ‘high’ or off. We took ‘high’ and it roared along like a B-25 on a low level attack. At least it muted Ace of Basses. What it couldn’t mute was the grinding sound of the sump pump, which I discovered was directly behind the headboard of the bed and seemed to kick into action every forty-five minutes.
I’d had it easy though. The mold count had not gotten to me yet. Kathy and Tom were a different issue. She began coughing in the middle of the night as her sinuses fought off invasion. Tom came down stairs with red, puffy eyes, sneezing and hacking and the look of someone who had slept in fits and starts. I was still drying off from my shower when I over heard them discussing the situation. “We’ve got to call Dale and see if we can get our money back,” said Kathy. Tom agreed.
I was actually in a positive mood now. I was ready to set up my computer and begin writing and to do the mental work of accepting the situation for what it was, but I wasn’t the one with the sore throat from sinus drip. We voted Kathy our negotiator and in a short time we had Dale back in our midst and counting out our refund in hundred dollar bills. We repacked the cars and headed off toward downtown Damariscota.
True to her word, Anita presented us with three situations, each one exactly what we had had in mind when starting this adventure back in February. We settled on Guest House at Seal Cove.
We soon found Bywater Lane and pulled into the drive. Though the pictures had been compelling, the reality was something more. It looked as if we were pulling into the drive of an English country manor. The main house was made of handsome gray brick and topped with a slate roof. Ivy climbed around the windows and the doorway. Our guest quarters were set atop two pale yellow out buildings joined by a breezeway to form an L shaped facility that created a sort of courtyard to the main house. We discovered that the first floor of the buildings served as a three-plus car garage and a woodworking shop. I climbed the staircase and almost dropped my suitcase and computer briefcase when I saw the interior. Milled timbers outlined the ceiling, antiques and rugs warmed up the rooms. The kitchen was complete with lots of counter space and a wrought iron pot rack suspended from the beams. Windows opened to trees and views of the Damariscota River. Light poured into all the rooms. We’d gone from the corner of Baltic and Mediterranean to Boardwalk and Park Place in the space of a morning.
We all but danced as we unpacked for the second time.
“You just go get yourselves a cup of coffee or some lunch,” said Anita, ducking her head to look out over the tops of her wire-rimmed reading glasses, “look around a bit and let me work on this. I’m sure I can get you something acceptable.” Anita had the earnest look of a problem-solving grandmother, a Miss Marple of the vacation housing industry. She was dressed in a navy blue crepe something-or-other that my female readers could easily describe. It was somewhere between an earth-mother dirndl skirt and boardroom casual. Her salt and pepper hair was pulled back in a bun and I half expected her to stick her pencil in the bun as she busied herself. “Now go get that coffee and let me handle this. I’ll call you on your cell if I find something right away or you can just come back in an hour or so.” She shushed us out as if we were a room full of school kids in need of a recess break and we headed for the Maine Bookstore/Coffee Shop we had spotted the night before.
We sat at the bookstore eating chowder and salad and discussed our options including the thought that we might just pack it all in and spend the next week wandering across Maine and Upstate New York. One thing was certain, we had spent our last night at Dale Dapkin’s cabin on the lake, “Where moose swim and eagles fish,” and where faceless drummers practice well into the night, mold spores reproduce at record rates and everything except Dale’s art says, “slapped together.”
Beside its enviable location on the banks of Damariscota Lake, Dale’s cabin had only one other thing going for it; his art. He was a painter of some renown; a sculptor, furniture maker and ceramicist… multi-media would fit. His work was full of rich colors, whimsy and thought. Careful inspection of the pieces revealed craftsmanship, patience and thoroughness, as if all the things he could not do to the house, he poured into his art.
I’d had a hard night sleeping. Yes, I had been dead tired, but the air was heavy and the bed was lumpy. The island drummer was evidently only the opener for a teen-ager with a boom box and a taste for that one-dimensional music that consists only of bass and drums… I think Ace of Basses may have been one of the original groups of the genre. I’d had an aversion to the music for several years. I was first victimized by it’s mindless thumping from a passing car sometime in the 90s. Annoying then, it had not improved in the ensuing years. Now it’s deep tones penetrated the Maine woods and sought out my cranium like a nagging mosquito seeking out a camper to torment. We’d found a good-sized window fan and turned it on. It moved the humid air, but the ‘low’ setting had worn out leaving us with a choice of ‘high’ or off. We took ‘high’ and it roared along like a B-25 on a low level attack. At least it muted Ace of Basses. What it couldn’t mute was the grinding sound of the sump pump, which I discovered was directly behind the headboard of the bed and seemed to kick into action every forty-five minutes.
I’d had it easy though. The mold count had not gotten to me yet. Kathy and Tom were a different issue. She began coughing in the middle of the night as her sinuses fought off invasion. Tom came down stairs with red, puffy eyes, sneezing and hacking and the look of someone who had slept in fits and starts. I was still drying off from my shower when I over heard them discussing the situation. “We’ve got to call Dale and see if we can get our money back,” said Kathy. Tom agreed.
I was actually in a positive mood now. I was ready to set up my computer and begin writing and to do the mental work of accepting the situation for what it was, but I wasn’t the one with the sore throat from sinus drip. We voted Kathy our negotiator and in a short time we had Dale back in our midst and counting out our refund in hundred dollar bills. We repacked the cars and headed off toward downtown Damariscota.
True to her word, Anita presented us with three situations, each one exactly what we had had in mind when starting this adventure back in February. We settled on Guest House at Seal Cove.
We soon found Bywater Lane and pulled into the drive. Though the pictures had been compelling, the reality was something more. It looked as if we were pulling into the drive of an English country manor. The main house was made of handsome gray brick and topped with a slate roof. Ivy climbed around the windows and the doorway. Our guest quarters were set atop two pale yellow out buildings joined by a breezeway to form an L shaped facility that created a sort of courtyard to the main house. We discovered that the first floor of the buildings served as a three-plus car garage and a woodworking shop. I climbed the staircase and almost dropped my suitcase and computer briefcase when I saw the interior. Milled timbers outlined the ceiling, antiques and rugs warmed up the rooms. The kitchen was complete with lots of counter space and a wrought iron pot rack suspended from the beams. Windows opened to trees and views of the Damariscota River. Light poured into all the rooms. We’d gone from the corner of Baltic and Mediterranean to Boardwalk and Park Place in the space of a morning.
We all but danced as we unpacked for the second time.
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