Saturday, December 27, 2014

The Difference Between Rat and Wrong


Our plans today were to drop some recycle off, go to the indoor fleamarket in Brunswick, and have lunch at a new Vietnamese restaurant that we finally managed to be able to go to when it's open and Carrie and I both have the day off.

En route we see a white rat scurry across the road in front of us in Lisbon. We, of course, stop so as not to hit it and decide because it's white, must be a domesticated rat that will not survive outside and therefore we must catch it. Which we do with only a little bit of fuss.

We check with a couple of different people in the neighborhood but they don't know of anybody keeping rats, let alone missing one. One lady mentions a relatively nearby, but out of our way, vet that works with the Lewiston animal shelter and we decide that would probably be the easiest thing to do. Unfortunately, while they do work with the local shelter, which is considerably out of our way, they do so only within certain programs and do not take in any strays anyway. Next we opt to try the one in Brunswick as that's where we're heading. Carrie gives them a call and, unfortunately truthfully reveals where we found the rat. They will not take in animals outside of their specified area.

A call to the Lewiston shelter confirms that they will take the rat, because we live within their specific range, and we decide to take advantage of their late hours to swing by after our planned trip. We make sure the rat has stuff to chew, air holes, and some soggy clover until we can get some tastier veggies from the restaurant.

We drop recycle stuff off at the recycle drop and head on to the restaurant. The waitress asks us how we're doing and Carrie mentions a bit of the adventure, still feeling a bit sore at the brusque treatment from the Brunswick shelter once it was revealed we were from outside the acceptable range. By coincidence the waitress's boyfriend has had rats before, and she was kind of thinking she'd like a pet rat, and they lived just a 15 minute walk away... When we leave the restaurant we walk her boyfriend to the car and turn the rat over to his new humans.

And the food we ate was really good too.

 We then go off to the flea market. I only buy one comicbook. I do find some books. I am very curious about the Zane Grey book, I only knew of his westerns. He's got a jungle adventure too! This was in a pile with three Tarzan books. I have them in paperback, but these were old (1917 & 1927) hardcovers. No prices on them and they weren't under glass or wrapped in plastic, so I figure I'll ask how much. I expect something along the lines of the prices I normally see, but they're at less than a tenth of what I thought they'd be. At or below the price I would pay for Tarzan paperbacks! One of these has lots of wonderful illustrations by J Allen St. John!

Carrie finds a number of interesting things, too, including pieces for a new prop she wants to build inspired by our photo shoot yesterday. And while at one vendor buying some goodies, the vendor turned to me and agreed on the low low counter offer I'd earlier made on the Phantom book he had.


Next stop was at the Goodwill store where, instead of the usual one if I'm lucky work shirt find, I got a week's worth.

If a black cat crosses your path it's bad luck. If a white rat crosses your path, it is apparently good luck.


Friday, December 26, 2014

Beaten To A Pulp

Carrie had to work Thursday, but we both have Friday off and went on a trip down to Portland. We got food from Sun Oriental Market and from Trader Joe's, we got comics from Casablanca, we got books from Green Hand, and I took a picture of a post office. But the main reason for the trip was to finally get to the gallery show at the Portland Public Library. The Pulps!




 On display were both original art and the magazines and novels whose covers they became.


 Of special interest were the Tarzan paintings they had. Including J. Allen St. John! Some other known characters were also represented, including Doc Savage and The Shadow (who I had to explain to some people was one of the good guys.)

 And being who we are, we didn't attend empty handed. No, we brought props!







Exiting, we noticed this display.






Enlarge any picture by clicking on it.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Happy Winter Solstice!


Carrie has to work on the 25th, so we're celebrating the season together today, because it's the Solstice!

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Dreaming of a White Thanksgiving

Enjoying the morning together before Carrie heads to work.

I did 2 passes yesterday, and this is our third clearing of the driveway.

Morning light on the back yard.

Persephone watches our antics but stays warm inside.

Happy Thanksgiving


I'll try and post some pictures of this White Thanksgiving once the sun's up and Carrie is safely off to her job.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Friday, October 31, 2014

Monday, October 13, 2014

Loving In Fall Again

Our own backyard!

Carrie works Saturdays, so Sunday is our day together. Last Sunday was another nice day, so we decided to go out peeping again. Not as many trees in perfect color, but we made due.

 We had a specific goal to get to with a meandering path to it. There are, to my surprise, a number of public labyrinths in Maine. We went to one of the two in Brunswick. Lots of still green trees around it, though some color was still seen.










 This weekend is a three day weekend for me and because Carrie requested the day off, a three day weekend for her! She took the day off so we could go to the Great Maine Yard Sale at the Cumberland County Fairgrounds. The morning was heavily overcast and cold, so no pictures of nice foliage we saw on the trip out. We spent several hours at the flea market and hit yard sales before and afterwards. I got some great things, including 10 old comics, several old books, four big little books, a cast iron bank, and some Jay Ward character stuffed toys. Carrie found some stuff too, a Ganesha statue, a funky little toy bus, an Archie McPhee mermaid and more.




Sunday morning we found our driveway serving as a turkey buffet. We're not sure what they were eating, but we have been driving over pine cones and acorns a lot recently. After we went off for our weekly groceries, I cleaned out the gutters and swept the driveway. Not that I want to discourage the turkeys, but there was really too much debris accumulating and dirt was getting created from the sand and deteriorating plant material.

Today is another trip day. We don't know where we're going, but I'll bring my camera!


click on any pic to enlarge

Sunday, September 28, 2014

The Rise of Fall

 This was probably the best day this year to go leaf-peeping. A bit of a cold spell but with little or no rain meant leaves had started turning without getting washed off the trees. Some trees have gotten past their prime color and some haven't started changing, but there are plenty out right now in wonderful autumn covering. Today was warm and sunny and Carrie and I both had the day off, so off we went.













 for bigger pics, click on any leaf