Yesterday, I received the following advice in a private message: "JEEZUS! Lighten up." The writer had read my post and contends that people need people around them in order to thrive; he even used solitary confinement, or a night in the box, as the ultimate example of the ultimate punishment. I agree with him, but I want to point out I am married to a man who, until just a few years ago, would hitch an RV to his truck and drive to Montana for four months at a time. Alone. He also happily spends 12-14 hours alone in his boat. My perspective is a little skewed, I'll admit. So, read yesterday's post with a grain of salt. But not too much salt 'cuz it's bad for you.
Things are settling. I hopped on the elliptical last night for 20 minutes--it was painful. I really am starting all over again. I iced my ankle during dinner (which was all local and/or traceable yumminess) and I wrapped my leg before bed. It feels okay today, so I'll get on the elliptical again this afternoon.
Oh! Groom and I invented the strangest yet most delicious thing last night! Stay with me here. I mixed cucumber, corn scraped from grilled cobs, avocado, and feta, with a little olive oil and balsamic. It looks disgusting--I regret not taking a picture--but it is so effing good. Mix in some grilled chicken that has been marinated in olive oil, basil, lemon juice, garlic, a squirt of brown mustard, and a dite of maple syrup with a little salt and pepper and you are in business. Holy crap. Good stuff.
This morning, I stuck with oatmeal flavored with maple syrup from a friend's taps and I totally splurged on a grilled cheese for second breakfast. (What.) The bread...not local...the cheese from Pineland Farms, which is kind of a cheat because Pineland Farms cheese feels very corporate to me, but whatever. And, I don't know. There's something strange about that place.
It could be bad juju from the whole Malaga Island thing. (You can find plenty of material on Malaga Island. Here's a link that will take you to a recent article in Portland Press Herald about the Malaga exhibit in Augusta. Take a look at those and then we can continue.)
Oh, all right. To save you some time: In 1912, the town of Phippsburg evicted all residents of Malaga Island. About a fifth of the residents were transported to the School of the Feebleminded (now Pineland Farms) while the others tried to find refuge and a place to settle. Unfortunately, saying you were from Malaga Island meant you were crazy so nobody wanted anything to do with you. Furthermore, the town then exhumed all bodies from the Malaga cemeteries and moved them to Pineland Farms as well. And then they burned Malaga to the ground. This was a mixed race island fishing community, so it could have been fear or the rise of eugenics or stupidity or racism that compelled the town to do this. In short, it's a very black mark on Maine's timeline.
I walked around Malaga Island with my friend Tanya a few years ago. It's a small island and there isn't much there: evidence of a few wells, some shells that indicate people fished there, but that's about it. There are these weird tar-looking pits, which gave me the heebie-jeebies at first but upon further inspection, I recognized them from other boggy spots along the shore, so it wasn't, like, some cursed land or anything. Still creepy though.
And, for the record, the theory of eugenics scares the shit out of me. I linked a short documentary above, but I'm linking it here again to make sure you see it (try to ignore the graphic that looks like a giant sperm at about 8:34 in the video). And do you know what scares me even more? People like Glenn Beck are saying Planned Parenthood and pre-natal testing will take us down the road to eugenics, and no I won't link that. You can do your own homework on that one, but if you stick around to the end of the documentary I posted above, you get a hint of that argument, albeit via stem cell research, which I can sort of understand even if I don't agree.
All right. Off my soapbox. Onto the elliptical.
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