7/19/08 First Harvest . . . and Margaritas

Oh, you're going to be so jealous of the amazing and wonderful landlords that I have! I hate to call them "landlord" and "landlady"--they're really great friends, Darlene and John, who happen to live upstairs. But technically, they're also my landlords. Here's a great story about them and about how lucky I am to be their tenant.

So I'm sitting outside on the verandah, reading a mindless book (what better way to pass the time of a guilt-free summer, eh?) with the radio on in the background, waiting for the Red Sox game to come on. I hear "knock knock." Not the sound of someone knocking, but the actual words, "knock knock." I look up and Darlene and John are standing on the grass a few feet from the edge of the verandah. "Come in!" I reply laughingly. John needs to paint a few spots on their sundeck (my verandah ceiling) that Darlene was not able to get to last week when she painted while he was out of town. She points and describes the places, then he gets the ladder and drop cloths and sets out to painting those spots. He and I start chatting about the ball game while he's painting, then we talk about his time in Dallas doing his pilot training, and then we talk about Abuelo's restaurant. During the time he was down there, Darlene flew down for one of his 48 hour breaks to celebrate their anniversary and they went to Abuelo's. MMMMMmmmm yum. Good Mexican food! He then mentions how much Darlene enjoyed the mango margaritas. Mango margaritas? I love a great margarita but had never had a mango one! Then the game comes on, we listen to the game for a while, he finishes painting and leaves and I stay on the verandah reading and listening to the game.

Soon Darlene comes through with her bucket and gardening tools and she's on her way down to the garden. Next thing I know she's back on the verandah with handful of green beans. "Do you like green beans?" she asks. As I'm nodding yes, she's putting a handful in my hands. "There's not enough there for the two of us, but we'll have plenty in another day or two." Oh, were they yummy. I ate a bunch of them raw and then saved the rest to cook for dinner.

Later I finish the book and go inside. Next I hear the rattling sound that means someone is knocking on the screen door. I look up and it's Darlene and John and they have glasses in their hands which are obviously filled with mango margaritas. But they have three glasses. :-) So we sit on the verandah and enjoy mango margaritas together. We talk about lots of things including that Abuelo's wouldn't give the recipe for mango margaritas but gave them a general idea of the ingredients and so they were trying to recreate them. For a first attempt, these were incredible. I couldn't think of anything to make them better 'cuz I couldn't imagine them getting any yummier. As we all finish up our drinks, they decide to go make a second batch and see if they can refine it. They invite me, too, and next thing I know, I'm in their kitchen as they perfect the mango margarita and then I'm sitting down to watch the rest of the game on television. The Red Sox may have lost the game but I certainly had a winning afternoon and evening with my neighbors!

First harvest of green beans from Darlene's garden.

7/19/08 Maine Community History Project

Back in May, MRM contacted me about being involved in a grant proposal. The Maine Historical Society had a new program called the Maine Community History Project (MCHP) and she wanted to get together a team from Farmington to apply. She pulled together interested folks from the required participants (library, historical society, and a local school), plus she got a cool group called Center for Community GIS (CCGIS) and me--a faculty member who works with future teachers in the area of technology integration. The five representatives from each group met a few times and did some work via email and pulled together an application in a very short period of time. In June, we found out that 50 communities had applied and 8 had been awarded . . . and we were one of the 8. Yeehah!!

On June 27, three of us (MRM, Wendy--an English teacher at the local middle school, and me) went to the all-day training session in Portland at the Maine Historical Society (MHS). On July 7, we had our first official meeting as a participating community where the two staff members from the MHS led the meeting. Our team can have as many meetings as we want, but once a month we have a meeting with the MHS folks and they give us direction and guidance and we keep them updated on our progress. It's a very interesting way to accomplish a project like this.

Today was our first meeting on our own since the proposal-writing meetings. We met at the Historical Society building and just got a glimpse of the amazing stuff that they have and tried to get a handle on what we want to do and how we're going to do it. It's really overwhelming as well as exciting. Our goal is that with this grant (and the help from MHS and the funding that we're getting) we will be able to accomplish what MHS wants but also lay an organizational foundation for the Historical Society and future projects like this, even when we don't have funding.

Oh, so what is this project, you're asking? MHS has an amazing online artifacts collection called The Maine Memory Network. To quote their website, "The Maine Memory Network is a statewide digital museum that provides unprecedented access to over 13,000 historical items from over 180 museums, historical societies, libraries, and other organizations from every corner of Maine. Step inside to see rare photographs, documents and artifacts; to explore online exhibits; to access resources for teaching Maine history; and to learn about how you can participate and help preserve Maine history." Our goal is to digitize at least 150 artifacts from our community (and trust me, we have plenty . . . the Farmington Historical Society has well over 5,000 artifacts that they've catalogued and a bazillion more that they haven't been able to catalog yet) and create an online presence to share Farmington's rich heritage with the outside world. AND we're getting students in the area involved in the process. Since every 7th and 8th grader has a laptop in Maine through their amazing Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI), they actually bring a rich resource to the project. And of course, on top of that, you're looking at hopefully getting the next generation involved in capturing and getting interested in their own heritage and history.

For me, it's going to be a heck of a lot of fun personally, but it's also going to enrich what I teach and how I teach it at the university. I'm very excited.

7/19/08 Dog Days of Summer

I never really have understood the meaning or the heritage of that expression "Dog Days of Summer" . . . I've heard it has something to do with the constellation Canis Major whose brightest star is Sirius (I think that means "scorching hot" in Greek or something). But I've only seen the constellation Orion with his dog Canis Major in the winter, so what's the association with summer?

Whatever the expression meant in the past, today it meant that everyone and their dog (literally) were out and about in town. Every car that drove past me or that I walked past had a dog in the back seat. There were a few passenger seat dogs, but the majority were back seat dogs. It was wild! Farmington is a pretty dog-friendly town but I've never seen this many dogs. And none of them were out walking, they were all riding in cars. Usually when I see dogs in Farmington they're out walking their masters. Not today! Go figure.

7/19/08 I think I'm officially a local!

Today as I walked through downtown Farmington, a van with Massachusetts license plate pulled over next to the sidewalk where I was walking and the woman in the passenger's seat asked me if I knew where the Farmington Conference Center was located. I looked enough like a local that she asked me for directions!! Even better than that, I said, "Conference Center? Do you mean Community Center?" To which she replied, "Yes, that's it." And I knew where it was and told her how to get there!! Whoop!* I'm a local now!!

*Whoop is a Texas term as I know it. It's not dissimilar from the 2007 Word of the Year: w00t (note that those are zeros in that word and not the letter "O"). Whoop may be a regional term but it's definitely older than w00t.

7/18/08 Pampered Chef...Maine Style

I was invited to a Pampered Chef party! Julie in Dallas will be sad that my first party was not one of hers (and I'm sad about that, too) but I thought it odd timing after the beef strogonoff incident. Actually, I had accepted the invitation before the strogonoff event, but it's still great timing. Rhonda, our hostess, lives about 30 minutes from campus. When she sent directions via email, I noticed that Kirsten was on the list, so I emailed her and asked if she wanted to carpool. She said yes! Shwew! That meant I had a navigator to help me get there OR a friend to be with in the event I got lost. Getting lost can be a fun adventure if you have a friend to share it with.

I loved getting to yack with Kirsten on the way out. We had been on a committee together this spring but the committee work was so intense, no one really got a chance to know each other on a personal level. It turns out that we both have sisters very close to our age, we both worked at summer camps as counselors and then as directors, and a few other fun things we had in common. The drive out was through gorgeous Maine hillsides and forests with plenty of lakes (ponds) nearby. The beginning of the trip was similar to the route I took last December to go to Harry's town supper in Chesterville. And very soon after turning left at the bridge, we drove past the Chesterville Town Office, which was the location for Harry's town supper. The next landmark was "the closed country store" and I was guessing that it was the then open country store where I got directions to the Town Office. Sure enough, it was. Only we were coming from the other direction. There really were angels out that wintry December night that got me to Harry's supper! Seeing it in daylight without snow told me how incredibly fortunate I had been that I even got to that supper that night. And just a little further down the road, we arrived at Rhonda's. Oh my! She lives on a real farm! There was a barn with heavy equipment outside and animals in the field and a dirt road to drive up to get to the farmhouse. It looked so "country"! It was fabulous.

The party was a blast. I don't know for sure since this was my first, but I'm pretty sure that this party was just like any Pampered Chef party where a group of women gather at a friend's home, someone does a fun demonstration of wares, then you sit around eating, yacking, and flipping through the catalog. This was no different until the Pampered Chef representative got to the part of the demonstration where she was talking about the boning knife that they offer. She showed its flexibility and explained its purpose and quality and then gave examples of how and why to use it. "You'll save those precious grocery dollars if you buy the whole chicken at Hannaford's and cut it into pieces yourself instead of buying the package of boneless breasts," she said. Then she got my attention when she said, "And for those of you who raise your own chickens, you can easily butcher them yourselves with this handy knife." Wow. I just don't picture housewives from the suburbs of Dallas being able to relate to that advantage of the boning knife!

Sylvia from the Computer Center was also there and the three of us hung out together most of the night. There were a lot of other nice people there, but I really enjoyed these two women. I had so much fun I forgot to take a photo, but on the way out of Rhonda's lovely farm house, I saw the pigs in the field and wondered if some day they'd meet the edge of a Pampered Chef boning knife.

7/17/08 Where the Sidewalk Ends

This doesn't quite capture it, but my walk home is eight tenths of a mile from my building on campus and the last tenth of a mile is uphill. It's not a steep climb, but it's noticeable. And near the top of the hill, the sidewalk ends. Fortunately, my apartment is not very far from that. In the winter, I don't know if the sidewalk will be plowed that far up like it was in my old house. We'll find out. Meanwhile, it's a most pleasant walk and twice as much exercise which is a good thing.

7/17/08 Sheriff Andy Taylor?

As I was coming out of the post office, I spotted MRM going in to Dunkin Donuts. This would be the second time in a week that I bumped into her in downtown Farmington. I dodged across the street, stopping traffic in both directions (as a pedestrian in Maine, that's my privilege) and followed her into Dunkin Donuts just to say "Hi" so that I can count this as another "running into folks on the street" event.

This week in particular I keep bumping into people I know as I walk down the street . . . Jo on her way to the post office to mail a package, Chris on her way into the Homestead with friends visiting from Michigan, Maggy and Harry on my way out of the post office. Part of it is that I know more people, part of it is that it's summer in Maine and nobody's hanging out inside, part of it is that this is a small town and your chances of running into someone you know are far greater than they are in a big town. But whether it's mathematical or magical, it's a blast.

I was sharing my enthusiasm for this activity with Rodney who said, "Next thing you know, you'll be bumping right into Sheriff Andy Taylor on the streets of Mayberry." He's right. And I look forward to that day.

7/16/08 Red Sox Rule

Tee hee! Gotta love it. This shirt exemplifies the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry. I know I saw these right after the World Series last year, but I had forgotten about them and how clever-yet-tacky they really were.

7/15/08 Dinner and Ice Cream

Are you sitting down? Last night I cooked. I know. It's hard to believe. Ashley will never believe me again when I tell her that I don't cook. It was such a departure from all that I know to be normal. Is it the air in Maine? Is it the after-effects of a guilt-free summer? Enquiring minds want to know. But until we know those results, here are the details:

It's Monday in the late afternoon and I'm sitting in my office pretending to get work done. Suddenly, I'm struck with the desire to eat beef strogonoff. Where did that come from? As a kid strogonoff was always one of my favorite meals. (I think any combination of dairy and pasta is good--mac and cheese, pasta alfredo, . . . ) I never fixed it for myself but in the last 10 years or so, my mom has gotten in the habit (and what a great habit it is, too) of fixing strogonoff one night when I'm in town whenever I visit. That means I only eat it two to five times a year, but that's better than zero which was where I was at before.

Anyway . . . so I get this urge for strogonoff and I start looking online for a recipe. I found one that sounded good and was meant to make only 2 to 3 servings. That's a desirable recipe for anything that can't be frozen when you're cooking for one. But it involved making it from scratch. There was even something called a "roux" involved in the process. Eeegads, what was I getting into? Oh well, I've got the time, why not?

Next, I'm shopping at Wal-Mart because not only do I need the ingredients for this recipe, but I need a pan, too. My little 4 pan set that's barely getting me by for frying eggs and making granola does not have a pan big enough or heavy enough for this task. I finally get to the meat aisle where I'm looking at beef tenderloin which is what the recipe calls for. Eeegads! Have you seen the price of beef tenderloin??! I quickly shift down to the stew meat section which is what my mom always uses. Hmmmm, this looks good but the smallest package is 2 pounds. But even so, 2 pounds of stew meat is cheaper than 1/2 a pound of tenderloin. I decide to rethink the concept. I whip out my iPhone and start searching online for beef strogonoff recipes that use stew meat 'cuz I know when my mom makes it, she "stews" the meat but I never paid attention to how she did that. I find another one, double check that I've got the ingredients for that one, finish my shopping and head home.

It's now 8:30pm and I'm just starting to make dinner. Oh well! It's an adventure! I've decided on some combination of the two recipes 'cuz the one tells me how to do the stew meat part but the other ones sounds yummier with fresh dill and some other cool ingredients. That means I have to triple the one recipe to make it fit the quantity of meat I have. All this for a non-cook. Why not start out simple? Because that would be too easy! And away I go, whisking flour into melted butter and searing stew meat in my tiny kitchen with no countertops. I put a cookie sheet over the two burners I'm not using to create a flat worktop and keep hounding away. Three hours later, the end is in sight. I decide not to cook the noodles that night and in fact, I'm going to eat it for dinner tomorrow. It's too late to eat it now. It turned out fabulous except for the very very last part where I should've drained the concoction the mushrooms were saute-ing in before I added the roux. Now I have very yummy beef strogonoff but very runny beef strogonoff. RATS! Oh well.

Hmmm, if you've read this far you're wondering why I called this post "Dinner and Ice Cream" on the 15th when I'm writing about the 14th. Well, it's just a long lead-in to [thank you Paul Harvey] 'The Rest of the Story'.

This morning as I was coming out of the post office I ran into MRM walking down the street. I love it when that happens! We start chatting and I'm inspired to say, "If you and RBF are free tonight, would you do me a favor and help me eat some beef strogonoff that I made last night. It's yummy but runny so I'm not inviting you to a dinner party, I'm asking friends that I trust to come help me clean out my refrigerator." Even though she rarely eats meat, I promise her I'll have enough salad and veggies that she can get a meal out of it. Then I call Rodney and invite him to the same event.

Of course, it did turn into a quasi-dinner party 'cuz I needed something a little bit more than just strogonoff. I went back to the store for some lettuce and crescent rolls; I had enough other stuff. I also bought some corn starch to see if I could thicken up the strogonoff sauce just a tad. I had spinach and artichoke dip plus the chips left over from Games Night, so they really were helping me clean out the refrigerator. We "dined on the verandah" and had a really good time. MRM was able to make pasta salad out of what I had available so we all ate to our fill. The strogonoff was a little less runny but now had a funny texture to it from the corn starch. I don't think I'll try that trick again. But I will try making strogonoff from scratch again (not during the semester, though) and I will invite friends over for dinner again. All in all, it was a worthwhile and not unpleasant endeavor.

After dinner, we all went to Gifford's for their famous ice cream. It was my first trip of the season to Gifford's. MRM and I split a strawberry shortcake. Wowser was that good! No matter how mediocre the dinner had been, the dessert made up for it all.

7/13/08 Yet More Theatre!

Andrea, the choir director at church, plays piano for many events in town including the summer musical theatre camp for kids. Rodney knew one of the participants and I'm always up for a musical, so we went to the Sunday matinee of Willy Wonka Jr. It was so well done and very fun. Apparently these "junior" plays are getting quite popular with children's theatre programs--they're scaled down versions (Reader's Digest versions?) with the same plot and all the music but simpler lines and choreography, etc. Andrea said the Into the Woods Jr. play is essentially the first act only of the original Into the Woods. I can handle this! It helps for the youngsters putting on the production but also for their friends and siblings in the audience. For those with short attention spans in the audience (grownups as well as children), this is a bonus.

7/13/08 Field Activity Continues

More work in the field. But look how the strip they already harvested has started to grow back. So they alternate between cutting the stuff and baling it into traditional bales and baling it into those big round bales. I've learned the word "tedding" which is when they cut it and then spread it out for drying. It's been quite fascinating watching the process slowly but surely happen over a period of a few days. Those in the know have told me that they'll harvest this field two or three times in a single summer. That means I get to watch this and learn more about it some more! I have no desire to become a farmer or anything that rural, but I do find it all fascinating.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dr. Theresa Overall
Assistant Professor
University of Maine at Farmington
Secondary/Middle Education Department
office: Education Center 220
phone: (207) 778-7049
email: theresa.overall@maine.edu

7/12/08 Games Night

Games Night was at MY place! This is our sixth Games Night and I got to play hostess. It's actually my second time to host 'cuz MRM and I co-hosted back in April. Whooop! We started on the verandah and actually just sat around and ate, yacked, and drank for 2.5 hours until the darkness and the mosquitoes got to us. Then we went inside and played Tri-Bond and yacked, ate, and drank some more. People brought chairs (I was worried I wouldn't have enough), food, games, and FLOWERS! I liked that part! Here are roses from Michelle:

and here are sunflowers from Pearia:

7/12/08 iPhone 2.0

On June 9, Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone and all the new features in iPhone 2.0 software. The good news for those of us who invested in the first iPhone is that most of the new stuff is available for us, too! Because the iPhone is software based, a software upgrade gives us most of the new features. Whooop! So I've been anticipating the new software for quite a while now. and yesterday was the day. My techno-geek friend Rodney and I promised each other that we would upgrade our iPhones together. We tried but there were so many people upgrading on that day, plus we both had additional issues (my laptop hard drive was almost full and so it wasn't operating fully; he had just received a replacement iPhone and it hadn't been activated yet), that we didn't have any luck on Friday. But we got together today at the library (free wireless Internet) and pretty soon we were both up and running. Actually, he eventually got his up and running last night without me and had already downloaded a bunch of the new apps. Twit.

For all the details about the upgrade, check out my technology blog. (You'd think I already have enough blogs, but I'm thinking one can't have enough.)

So now that we both have the software, we wanted to find a place where we both could play on a wi-fi connection. The library was closed and in my office, only I can get it. So we headed over to The Big Burrito, a little restaurant in West Farmington that has free wi-fi. Here's Rodney sitting across from me at The Big Burrito (notice the wall-e watch).
He's totally engrossed in his iPhone while we're waiting for our lunch. We both were. At this point, I think he's installing Loopt software which I also installed. It's supposed to allow you to see where your friends are using the GPS or (in our case . . . on the older iPhone) cellular phone triangulation. It should probably be called "Stalker" software because if you didn't have the ability to block people from seeing you (you pick who you want to know your location and you can turn off the ability to be tracked at any time), it really would be software for stalkers. The funny thing about it was, it showed us to be 7 miles apart. That's a really big table at the restaurant! We figured the cell phone triangulation software only had 1 or 2 cell towers to work off of out here in rural Maine and that was as close as it could get.

And how are the burritos you ask? Well, to quote Trig (one of my fourth graders from a long time ago) when he found out I was in Maine, "My best advice is, 'Don't eat the Mexican food.'" I can highly recommend the ginger lemonade at The Big Burrito and the food is really good unless you're expecting spicy Mexican food.

7/9/08 An Evening at The Theatre

I'm sad to report that the great photos I had of this event got lost in a software upgrade. :-( But the memories are still there!

Luke is a UMF student who was in our Block classes in fall 2007. I saw him one day before the spring semester was over and when I asked what he was doing this summer he told me he was going to be Gilligan in The Lakewood Theater's production of Gilligan Island, The Musical. He told me I should come and I agreed it would be fun but I don't think he really believed I would make it. And we certainly surprised him when all 3 of us (Beth, Grace, and I) that teach the Block classes showed up!

The Lakewood Theater is America's oldest summer theater. What fun! We had dinner reservations for The Lakewood Restaurant which is just across the driveway from the theater. It was classic, too! The service was great. The food seemed to be one extreme or the other. My shrimp was particularly good and the cheesecake was yummy. We don't recommend the black bean cake entree.

The play was hysterical. I don't know how they were able to cast talented people who were sooo much like the TV characters that we all remember and loved. Even if we hadn't personally known the actor playing Gilligan, we would've enjoyed the show. But knowing Luke made the show about ten times funnier. I don't think I'll be able to call him Luke when I see him again--he will always be Gilligan from now on.

Here's my autographed program. It says, "To my Texas Theresa, Luke Ellis."

7/7/08 Old Crow Indian Band in Concert

Every Monday night throughout the summer at 7:30pm in the gazebo of the town park, the Old Crow Indian Band gives a concert. Yes, this is the same group that marched in the 4th of July parade. How fun is that?? I've actually heard them from my verandah, but this was my first time to purposefully attend the concert in the park.

I was helping a friend pack for his move when his cousins called from tonight's concert. We needed a break anyway and so we headed to the gazebo. It was everything you'd hope it would be. The music was good. There were long pauses between songs and no published program or list of songs. I think it might be more of an open rehearsal than a concert. But who cares?! Kids run around in the grass and climb over the monuments in the park, grown ups chat amongst themselves and wave at friends coming and going, folks sit in camp chairs and listen to the music, . . . it's all just good clean fun accompanied by live music.