This happened with no interference on my part

Connie

Halloween

Halloween was so much fun this year! I was the super hero version of myself! I made my cape and shirt that day and I am fairly proud of how it turned out. I really just wanted to wear a cape. The weather was perfect for it as well, kind of windy and super warm. It was actually 61 degrees out when we did the West End Parade at 6pm. We went to a new restaurant/bar called Grace, which is in an old church. It was really beautiful and enough fun to tide us over until we could get into the sold out Space dance party.


So excited for Trick or Treaters!!! Unfortunately none came while we were still home, but our bowl was half empty when we got back! I thought so many more would come by since we are in a residential area that is safe. More candy for me!

Weekend at home

I managed to finally see my niece! It has been almost two months, which is far too long when they are so little. We had fun dancing and running around the house. I also went to the Miles Memorial League rummage sale on Friday and Saturday. I scored so many deals and found a ton of amazing old books! There was also a going away party for Alice on Saturday night. It was a surprise party! I was in charge of getting her to the party, which is kind of nerve wracking since I am such a horrible liar. She was surprised though! All in all it was a really good weekend.

My new street

If you remember the picture of my last street, Grant Street, then you can see what an improvement this one is. It is really pretty right now with the leaves changing and falling on the ground! Plus there is no disgusting old furniture on the sidewalks or syringes. We did have a drunk guy, who was covered in vomit, come onto our porch who I politely asked to leave through one of our three windows that look out directly onto the porch. He did.

What I do at work

Tell my coworker to take pictures of me standing in the corner of our office. That's Maine style, specifically due to the rain boots from Reny's. They have lobsters on them!

So much has been going on in the past few weeks/months. I tried out for the Maine Roller Derby League and made it! I've been practicing with them since early September. It is really such a fantastic experience. I'm a horrible skater, but the more I do it, the better I get. I'll be very glad when my semester is over, since one of our practice nights coincides with the time of one of my classes. It's kind of hard to tell the professor that I've got to go do something else when he considers our class to be vital. Plus, roller derby isn't as easy a sport to grasp as basketball. I feel like if I was on the USM basketball team or field hockey team he would be much more supportive.
The pictures are from the Pumpkin Festival in Damariscotta over Columbus Day weekend. There were pumpkin boat races in the river! It's so much fun and there were so many delicious pumpkin food items for sale. I had pumpkin pie soda, which absolutely fantastic. My roommate and I had to fight kids to be able to have our picture taken in that thing. Then I managed to bump my shoulder really hard on the frame and that is when I concluded it was not built for big people.

Wading pool. Deering Oaks

I really want to start trying new restaurants in Portland. I think that one of the first ones I will go to is Bonobo Pizza.
http://www.bonobopizza.com/menu.htm
I've heard so many good things about the place that I think it's time I actually tried it. I often get into a rut of going to the same restaurants in Portland, but it is only because I love them so much. I always want to go to Bangkok Thai and get Rama Tofu. It is my favorite dish in Portland and I am such a creature of habit. I also am definitely going to try the cupcake stand that is in Tommy's park this weekend. I walked by it two weekends ago and I really wanted to stop and get one, but I didn't have any cash on me. This weekend I am going to make sure that I do have cash and I stop to get a cupcake!!! Cupcakes are one of my favorite things ever. I made some the other night that were vegan squash and chocolate chip cupcakes. Normally the recipe calls for pumpkin, but I didn't have any so I substituted squash instead and they turned out fine.
I bought two books at the Maine Coast Book Shop a few days ago. One is called Wonderland and is really more of a comic book, but multiple issues contained in one book. It is the story of Alice in Wonderland from another point of view and the art in it is pretty amazing. I also bought The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which I can not wait to start since I loved one of Kate DiCamillo's other books, The Tale of Despereaux.
I wish I had some pictures to share, but I've been very lazy in taking any photos lately.
I do have this beautiful one of South China. The sky is never ending there.

Last weekend my family and I went to the cemetery in Augusta to visit my grandparent's graves. This is a yearly tradition (since 1990) and then we usually go antiquing on the way home. This was the first year that I had seen the flags out on every single veteran's grave. It was an amazing sight. My brother and I helped put around thirty flags on some of the veteran's graves that were around our grandparents. It was really easy and felt really good to do. They had a lot of volunteers there to do the work, so it went really quickly. My dad was able to put the flag for my grandfather on his grave.

Wedding in Maryland

Last Wednesday my friends, boyfriend and I went on a road trip down to Maryland. I was a bridesmaid in my friend Katie's wedding and my friend Joel was the the officiant for the ceremony. He did a really great job and the wedding was pretty fabulous. The ceremony was outside this old mansion, with the reception inside. I feel like I didn't take enough pictures of the trip, but I took over 150 of them. I will be honest and say about 20 of those pictures are of my hair after the wedding was over and I took out all the pins. It was pretty big and ridiculous.




That was the mansion. It was really amazing and conveniently located on a golf course. It was amusing to see golfers walking by while we were in rehearsal for the ceremony or during the actual ceremony. I don't have any pictures of me in my dress unfortunately, but I'm sure there will be some from somebody else at some point.
On the way back to Maine we made a stop over in New York City. This was the first time that I had ever actually been to NYC, since you can't really count a layover in one of the airports. It is gigantic! We didn't do much more than go to our friends apartment in Queens, where we were staying, and then visit a playground a few blocks away.

In the morning we got some breakfast in the upper west side. The trip there required going through Central Park, which is beautiful! It would be nice to go back to the city, but I do like being in a place where I can see where I need to go/am going without my view being blocked by gigantic buildings. I don't know how anyone can get around there.

We have a new roommate. Well I guess two if you count Zach. Frank had to stay in the bathroom while Zach was moving all his stuff in to the apartment. Let me just say that Frank was not too pleased to be shut in the bathroom. He likes to rule the apartment with an iron fist and tin foil balls.

This morning Nick and I went to the Good Egg Cafe, which is the Pepperclub's breakfast/brunch version of itself. It was fantastic. I really want to go again, but I feel like there are so many other places in Portland that I have to try first. It is definitely my new favorite though. They have a really good vegetarian selection and their english muffins are so tasty. Last night we went to Sillys, which was the first time I had ever been there. I love their vegan menu and the sweet potato fries are so delicious. They are thick cut, have a little bit of salt on them and very tasty. We also had some fried pickles, which were weird, but also good. We were going to try the new raw/vegan restaurant GRO, but it turned out to be closed. Going to Sillys instead only consisted of extending our walk a little bit further. It was probably good that we walked there, since we needed to burn off a few of the many calories we consumed.

My neighborhood

http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=103893&catid=2
This is at the end of my street. Pretty much a block away from my apartment. I thought it was further when I looked at it on Google maps, but then realized that I can totally see the street from my apartment. I think it's a sign of what kind of neighborhood it is when they lock the porta-potty when the construction workers leave. There is a big chain around the entire thing and a tree. I woke up last night to yelling, again. This time however it turned out that someone had stabbed another person with a kitchen knife (turned out to be a butter knife when I saw it this morning in the street). Sometimes I can find the humor in these situations, since nobody really got hurt (it was just a butter knife and I saw the guy walking away). They were all yelling "Is that the cops?! We are all going to jail!" The girl yelled "GO, BABY, GO! I CAN'T LOSE YOU!" I am also pretty sure it was the girl that stabbed whoever she was yelling at to leave quickly in case the cops were coming. These are the reasons I don't go out of my apartment at night by myself though. I don't want to run into people that say they would all go to jail if the cops found them. The warmer weather just means I can hear the crazies more easily in the middle of the night.

I have noticed that there is a lack of "Yo PETE". Pete must have moved or yo pete must have not made it through the winter? I have also not seen my old arch nemesis Dr. Snuggles and the other cat whose name is also Pete. I am thinking they might not have made it through the winter, but there have been cat paw prints on my car, so maybe they are just being sneakier.
Next Wednesday I am going down to Maryland for a wedding. If anyone has any travel suggestions for the DC area they would be more than appreciated. I have no idea what to do down there. I know there are a lot of things to do, but I also don't know if we will even have much time to do anything besides wedding things. I'm getting a little stressed out about the travel and money and everything, but I know that once everything starts happening that it will be ok.

Yesterday I managed to hit up the new thrift shop in Damariscotta. I had already asked Erin about the place, hoping for a really positive review from her. Unfortunately, the shop lived up to what Erin told me, which is that it is pretty much for older women. They did have a pretty nice yellow coat that I thought about getting, until I saw the price tag of almost thirty dollars. Old lady clothes at an old lady price. They did have some cheese and crackers, but I decided against staying in there any longer and went over to Renys.

Yesterday was one of those days where you could wander around the city for hours on end. This is in fact what I did! The temperature was in the high sixties maybe even reaching into the low seventies at some point in the afternoon. After a trip to the Portland Head Light earlier in the day, I decided to take a three and a half hour walk around the city. I made sure to stop at a few of my favorite stores along the way and I even re-found one of my favorite clothing stores from a few years ago. I thought they had closed for good, but it turns out that they had just moved to another location. There was a gigantic upsetting event for me that occurred while I was walking down Exchange Street. Normally I wouldn't read signs that are on doors of my favorite stores as I walk by, but this sign was blue and I thought to myself "perhaps I should turn around and see what that sign says". That sign said that Books Etc would be closing for good next Friday. This is very, very upsetting to me. It is one of my favorite places to go in the city when I have any time off. The owner of the store is really nice and to have the store close seems like such a loss for the area. I know there are a lot of other bookstores, but Books Etc was my favorite in Portland. It was really sad to walk down Exchange street and see how many stores had closed, were going to close or were moving to another location. Thankfully the Books Etc in Falmouth will still be open, but it's just not the same.
My old digital camera broke recently or at least I realized it didn't work anymore. I did buy a new one the other day and once I figure it out I will hopefully post some new pictures.

Frankendog

Turns out that mass was a cancerous tumor. Now we just wait until Woofie heals and the vet sees if they got it all out. No idea after that. Woofie is in good spirits and so are the rest of us.

I've been home for a few days recovering from a particularly nasty stomach bug. Woofie is also recuperating, from two surgeries done at the same time. One of them was to take a mass the size of a softball off his right side and the other one was investigatory in his bladder. He's been having a bit of a leaking problem that has plagued him for months. The vet has no idea what the cause of it is, nor does he know what the heck the mass was. The only thing he said about the mass for sure was "it was the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen". Poor Woofie. He seems to be in good spirits and hasn't skipped a beat in his begging for people food. He even whined while I was having yet another bout in the bathroom and came down to sit next to me on the floor to keep me company. What a good little chap he is! I have managed to finish the last two Sally Lockhart books by Philip Pullman. The third one is by the far the best, since the last one barely even has Sally in it. I also read the "Tale of Despereaux", which is utterly fantastic and now I really want to see the movie.