May Days: Mother's Day

We spent Mother's Day, as is our occasional custom, at Dodge Point in Newcastle. It's one of my favorite places to hike because the trail goes along the tidal portion of the Damariscotta River with three beaches to stop at along the way: the brickyard beach, the sand beach and the pebble beach. Sometimes we find horseshoe crabs along the way (this time we only found--and brought home--a horseshoe crab's spiny tail).

After a late lunch/early dinner in Damariscotta, we stopped in Damariscotta Mills and saw the alewives migrating up the fish ladder. It was quite a sight to see a river solid with fish, just sort of hovering in place in the strong current. The seagulls were almost as entertaining, if not more, especially when one caught and swallowed a fish whole, and you could see the fish flopping around inside its chest. Imagine how that feels?

Their shrieks and screeches sounded an awful lot like the cafeteria at the boys' school (to which I was lucky enough to visit twice this year as "lunch buddy."

E and Z gave me lemon-sugar scrub they made at school, which was exciting because it's something I've wanted to try for a long time, but it just seemed too messy (it is a little known fact that I have an aversion to messy things; you would never know this by looking at my house).

M wrote this "poem" for me:

Mom

Nice,

Beautiful, Loving,

Cooker, Writer, Helpful

Creative, Ingenious, Artist, Author

Blogger, Understanding, Bold,

Pretty, Wise,

Kind,

Wonderful, Unique

Patient, Thoughtful, Trustworthy

Unselfish, Humorous, Honest, Sympathetic,

Generous, Forgiving, Affectionate,

Gentle, Special,

Giving,

Positive,

Ace, Dependable,

Considerate, Amusing, Entertaining,

Loyal, Role model,

Friendly

I started to get all weepy until I read "patient" and then I knew he must have just pulled a handful of descriptor words out of a bag, because patient I am not. My favorite is "Ace." Not sure what it means, but I think I'm going to adopt that as my new nickname; just call me Ace.