Friday morning we got up around 7 to shower, iron our nice clothes, pack everything into the car, and drive up to Maine for the memorial service at 11. The ride up took a little longer than expected and we arrived just 5 minutes before the service.
I had mixed feelings about the service itself. The entire protestent ritual of standing and singing, repeating verses, and responding to the minister with a set script seems a bit dry. And I suppose saying things like “life on this earth is meaningless and only the afterlife matters” comforts Christians who believe that they and their dead relatives are going to heaven, but to me it just sounded depressing to the living. On the bright side, the minister told us of his time with my father. How during his last few months he came to God and became a part of the church. How he’d had meetingss with the minister and others from the church, and went to a few services, even in his weakened state. My father had some hope in the end, it wasn’t a dark, depressing end for him. I have the church to thank for that, no other organization that I know of can fulfill such personal needs in a time like that.
After the service we went to a restaurant down the road. It was a pretty typical “Maine Seafood Diner” with paper napkins and a small menu with a lot of fried fish on it. At lunch I was able to talk to my cousin Melissa a great deal, it seems she’s been playing “big sister” to my younger sisters a lot lately. She’ll go up and spend time with them, take them out. It’s really great of her. Annette is her same old self, always talking, a bit bouncy. Heather is doing well, she seems happier now that she has a set future in mind with her fiancee.
Following lunch was a trip down to the ocean to spread the ashes. It was quite a personal experience. The weather was beautiful, the only nice day we had up there.
From there we said our goodbyes and we drove up to the Maine Mall to meet my mother, who was down in Portland to pick up Annette. At the mall we spent about 20 minutes with my mother, sisters and my Aunt Elaine. We had plans with friends though, so left around 4:30.
We then drove to Oxford, Maine to see Morgana and Bob! The ride up was fine, and it only took about an hour. When we got there Morgana had a delicious meal waiting. It was an Ethiopian lamb, lentil and flatbread dish. My mouth waters just thinking about it! I admit to eating 2 helping worth – delicious!
After dinner we watched a movie, had some wine that we brought up, and then had some absinth (well, I didn’t, I was a bit too tired). Then we got to get online for a bit. Just before midnight I surrendered to my sleepiness and went to bed.
Saturday was a great day. We stayed in bed until nearly 11, showered, had some homemade blueberry muffins and got online for a while. So we spent the late morning and early afternoon just hanging out with Bob and Morgana in the computer room. Finally some relaxation! At 2pm we got our shoes on and drove to Freeport for some shopping at L.L. Bean. I don’t like clothes shopping, but I can get excited about shopping at L.L. Bean, because I know they’ll have clothes that I like and fit me properly. I picked up a few shirts and a nice rain jacket, and Michael picked up some jeans, and a gift for Michael’s mother and some toys for Caligula. We managed to get out of there for under $300, but agreed that we’d need to order some things from the catalog when we got home.
We had planned on doing a little walking through downtown Freeport, but since it was raining we skipped it and went right to dinner. We ended up at the Muddy Rudder. It was a really nice place, only about 40 minutes from Portland, I’ll need to keep it in mind the next time we go up and are looking for a nice place to eat our lobster dinner. Michael ordered the traditional lobster dinner, and I tried their “lobster pot pie” meal. Yummie! I also got their version of a Bloody Mary, which tasted like cocktail sauce, had a bunch of veggies on top of it (olive, onion, lemo
n, lime, and of course celery) plus a cocktail shrimp! It was quite a drink. We also ate dessert before going back to Bob and Morgana’s completely stuffed.
We spent the rest of the evening at their house, drinking and watching episodes of Coupling. Around 11:30 we retired to our bedroom.
6am Sunday morning the alarm on my cellphone went off. It was time to get going. We showered, packed, and Morgana made us a great egg breakfast made with fresh eggs from their chickens. We were out the door by 7am.
The ride down to Manchester was pretty traffic-free, and we arrived at the airport around 9:45. Dropped off the rental car and went to check in. We sat in the terminal watching some episodes of the West Wing on Michael’s laptop, and discovered that the airport offers broadband Wi-Fi at a daily rate of $6.95, which is pretty neat, especially if you’re a business traveler or geek ;) But we were only there for a short time, so didn’t see it as worth the trouble. We had lunch and then got on our plane around noon.
The flight home was bumpy because of the rainy weather in New England. Ugh, I hate bumpy plane rides! But we arrived in Philadelphia a few minutes early, around 1:40. We got our luggage and got on a train to Glenside. Arrived in Glenside (where Michael’s mother lives, where our car and Caligula were staying) around 3:45. I was tired, and when Michael’s mother offered to feed us we accepted. After dinner we packed Caligula into the car and went home.
Home, it was so good to be home. We unpacked a few things, started some laundry, and then I fell asleep on the couch around 7:30. Got up a bit later and went to bed for real. What an exhausting day. But a good trip overall.