This is easier than picking your own. This apple orchard owner sets up a booth in the back of his truck in the Gifford's parking lot. Since Gifford's Ice Cream is closed until March, this works out well. I paid $4 for a bag of apples that had at least 14 apples in it. I can't eat that many apples. I made Waldorf Salad and gave some away and I'm eating a lot of fresh apples. I bought Cortlands. Yummy.
It's the day after Halloween and WalMart is just bypassing Thanksgiving and going straight to Christmas. They were playing Christmas music over the intercom system, too.
Last year was my first Early Bird Special event. I had so much fun, I had to go again. It is a fascinating tradition. I arrived at Reny's at 6:03am so I didn't get any photos of people standing in line like last year. But I did get some good shopping done. I ended up spending nearly an hour in Reny's, then hit the Hallmark store and the book store. I got my movie passes, too. The local movie theatre, The Narrow Gauge Cinema, only charges $5.00 for its movies. And they have comfy stadium seating and a decent sound system in all of their theatres. They show first run movies. If $5 isn't bargain enough, you can buy a 10-pack of coupons for $55 which is $5.50 a coupon. Each coupon includes a movie ticket, a small popcorn, and a small drink. $5.50 for the ticket, popcorn AND a drink? How can you beat that?! Oh wait, you can beat that. During the Early Bird Special, you can buy a $55 10-pack for only $45. That's $4.50 for a movie ticket, a popocorn, and a drink. If you come visit me, we'll go to the movies and it will be my treat. I bought 2 coupon books today (there's no expiration date).
As you can see, Reny's is not the only store to celebrate the Early Bird Sale. It's now a whole town celebration. But I love the creativity in the celebration. :-)
This is big news. Now you don't have to drive 4 hours to Boston to get to an Apple Store. You can do it in 2 hours by going to The Maine Mall (get it . . . the main mall?? and it pretty much is the only big mall in the state) in Portland. I'm part of a team from Farmington that was awarded a grant called the Maine Community Heritage Project. It's very exciting and I promise to blog more about it later. But we needed a computer, so I volunteered to go pick it up. w00t!
How fun is this?! Mary S., one of the chums, a longtime friend in Dallas, and the current tenant at my house back in Texas, was in Bangor, ME for work this weekend. She works for Susan G. Komen Foundation and the Bangor affiliate had their race and big fundraiser this weekend, so she worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning, then needed to be in New Hampshire for a meeting Monday morning. So on her drive from Bangor to New Hampshire, we rendezvoused in Augusta and I took her to Hallowell. It's that quaint town that we drove through but didn't stop at on one of the Celebration Tours. We arrived a little too late on a Sunday afternoon to see most of the shops, but we found a few that were open and mostly just enjoyed the stroll up and down the streets and the chance to yack and catch up in person. I'll be seeing her (and staying in her guest room in my own house) in December in Dallas, but it was very fun to see her in Maine. I hope more Texas friends will do the same!
In this same shop, I treated myself to a cute brass pin in the shape of a moose!
In keeping with my pledge to give rides to anyone who needs one to try and pay it forward for the semester I didn't have a car . . . there was an email across campus asking if anyone was going to Portland because our visiting artist (here for two semesters from Liverpool, England) needed to pick up some supplies for a faculty art show next week. So I replied that I needed to go and could squeeze it in on Saturday. All I really needed in Portland was to pick up my shoes at the shoe repair. I had dropped off 6 pairs to be polished, waterproofed, re-soled, have taps added, etc. and told the shoe repair guy I would pick them up next time I was in town. I dropped them off on July 2nd! Good thing I wore tennis shoes all summer. But now the school year was starting and I needed some real shoes and they were all in Portland. I really didn't have time to go to Portland 'cuz I needed to get a lot of school work done, but I needed the shoes and Jeremy, the artist, needed his stuff before Monday. So we had planned this quick trip to Portland on Saturday. Then he had a chance to hitch along with the student excursion to New York City. For $45, leave on a bus at midnight Friday, arrive 9am Saturday, take a tour of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (tickets for that were included), split up and do your own thing for the rest of the day, leave at 11pm Saturday night and get back Sunday morning. I had even been tempted to sign up for that price but had decided against it. So Jeremy went on the bus tour and I went to Portland by myself and picked up his package of stuff and my shoes. I arrived at University of Southern Maine at the Area Gallery at the predetermined time and called the number I had been given. "Go on inside and wait in the gallery and I'll meet you there," the security officer said on the phone. So I did and this is what I found. The entire gallery was filled with an exhibit of Jeremy's work and Jeremy's name was painted on the wall! Wowser! I can't wait to meet this guy in person and find out more about him and his work. :-)
BTW, I successfully picked up my shoes as well. They look really great. This guy Steve works out of his garage in a residential area of South Portland. He's really nice and now I know that he does really good work for a reasonable price. After that, I treated myself to a little shopping and got 2 sweaters and a jacket. I just have to get used to traveling 4 hours round trip to run errands.
