Have You Ever Noticed That A Moose Can Look Like A Special-Needs* Horse? (Part Two) (*Thanks to Heather for the correction)

 

8/4/10 1900h

We meet our friends Laura and Andy at the previously agreed-upon location on Main Street in Rangeley. They are just as concerned about food as Christian and I are. The four of us could be described as food and drink enthusiasts, chowhounds. We walk the handful of blocks on Main Street to pick out the restaurants we would consider for dinner. There seemed to be three kinds of dining establishments in Rangeley: sports bar & grill, established older local restaurants – a pizza joint and a diner – and new eateries. Correction: one new eatery.

The four of us decide to go the rental cabin first and come back for dinner. The cabin perches on a steep hill over Lake Rangeley and is quite charming. It has the right amount of lakeside Maine hokiness: wildlife-themed upholstery, sturdy wood furniture, wallpaper featuring a family of black bears playing in front of a log cabin without tipping over into campiness. After the business of deciding bedrooms, unpacking cars, opening windows, and a general freshening up, we head back to Rangeley ready to eat.

8/4/10 2015h

This is a pleasure: going down the blocks, reading menus one by one , deciding where to have dinner. The pleasure is in weighing the options, seeing how creative or uniform the menu is, whether a restaurant can re-invent a dish. Duck Fat (in Portland, Maine), for example, uses duck fat to fry their fries. A staple of the menu redone, and so delicious too. All of us hope that there will be a culinary revelation at the next place. Or the next place. Or the next. We even have a phrase for a menu that looks promising: “There are a few things here I wouldn’t mind putting in my mouth.” (yes, really.) We decide that the new place looks the best.

The new place was very new. So new that the staff didn’t seem sure of what to do. For example, we ordered olive bruschetta and received brie and anchovy bruschetta.  The food and drinks were all fine nonetheless. I didn’t mind putting a few dishes from there in my mouth.

8/4/10 2200h

Arrive back at cabin. Since we have come to Rangeley to visit the Wilhelm Reich estate, Christian proposes that we prep ourselves by watching a film he brought named WR. We all agree and, after reading some byzantine instructions posted on the refrigerator regarding various remote controls, the DVD begins.

I fall asleep almost immediately in a padded arm chair whilst sitting up, head drooping.

I was informed the next day that Christian walked behind me and quietly suggested that I might be more comfortable stretched out on a bed. I apparently turned my head, Exorcist-like, and said “I’m fine” and promptly resumed snoozing. Why is it when one is caught dozing one protests no no no, I’m not sleeping? As far back as I can remember, I’ve never heard anyone cop to it, Yeah I’m sleeping and it’s awesome! I’ve tried to tell myself that I should just be an adult about it and not pretend to be in a conscious state when I’m like unconscious. That is, if one is capable of pretending while sleeping. I don’t claim superpowers of consciousness, I just wonder how much the dozing mind is connected to the part of the brain that tells the mouth to say I’m awake, I’m awake.

8/5/10 0745h

I drive to I.G.A. Rangeley. I buy: 1 gallon milk, 1 bunch (5) bananas, 1 lb strawberries, 1 pint Maine blueberries (placed next to the California blueberries, absolutely insane, I know), 4 single-serving size yogurts – 2 peach, 2 pomegranate.

8/5/10 0825h

Coffee making begins, press-pot style. We've figured out that the press pot is really the best way to get the full flavor of the coffee bean. But you have to start with a decent coffee bean to really enjoy it. I like something along the lines of a café au lait, and I probably drink the equivalent of four cups of coffee in a long morning, two in a regular morning. But this is vacation, so this is a long morning. Christian and I drink our first cups in weathered Adirondack chairs on the lake’s edge.

Then, quite suddenly our first meeting with the Ducks. Ducks do not get enough credit in general for how fast they can move when they want to move. There is a Mother Duck and five almost-adult ducklings. They are different shades of brown: light and dark, very pretty. The Mother Duck has some kind of algae hanging down from her bill and the Almost Grown Ducklings try to eat the algae off her bill. It gives the strange appearance that the A.G.D. are wrestling with the M.D. The Ducks storm the banks, squawking, toddling around our chairs and close to us – they are not scared of humans– and scavenge around for a while before plunging back into the lake swimming on. I wonder how the Ducks schedule their days.

More coffee. Breakfast: fruit, yogurt, homemade granola that we brought. Andy and Laura wake up. The four of us effortlessly manage a sweet harmonious state of slowly getting ready for the day and doing other stuff -- reading, talking -- both solo and in pairs and trios. More coffee, some nibbles.  

The decision is made to go to lunch, buy groceries and then to Wilhelm Reich’s estate. Since the shops closed early and we might dither at the estate at the end of the day, we thought it best to get all the groceries needed before we went to the estate/museum.

8/5/10 1145h

As we come into Rangeley proper, we see there is a craft fair on Lake Street, just off Main Street in the middle of town. It stops us all in our tracks. We instantly move dithering to the top of the day’s agenda. It may be a small craft fair, but just the same all four of us drift towards it, as though the beaded toe rings and wooden wind chimes were singing sirens.

In the very back corner of this craft fair I found something I have wanted for at least two years and have never seen: a foraging basket. Picture a basket more tall than wide with a sturdy base, the top an open oval, with backpack straps. Some might call it a papoose, but to me it’s a foraging basket for fiddleheads, ramps, kindling, the sorts of things I find deep in the woods behind the farmhouse.

Foraging basket purchased and wearing said item, we leave the craft fair and do some shopping. There is a fancy-pants grocery store on Main Street where we buy a few foodstuffs. Over to the fishmonger’s for fresh haddock, back to the cabin to drop off, everything. We stop at a small barbecue stand for lunch (because revelatory cuisine can be anywhere and this place had very good hamburgers -- he put bacon in with the ground beef), and, finally to Wilhelm Reich’s estate.