Dave’s blog

Over Memorial Day weekend Dori and I went up to Portland, Maine, for a quasi-early anniversary present to ourselves. We also visited Karin, my co-worker from MoveOn, had a lobster BBQ, and just kinda relaxed around town.

We kept it to a short trip; I went up Friday to meet Dori in Portland, since she was able to get a ride back from her work event in Augusta (apparently Mainers call that town ‘Disgusta’ - nice!). She got to our hotel first, so I got to skip the formalities and just show up. The hotel was really nice, but oddly our room was one that didn’t have a proper window, rather it had a large skylight. It was interesting, and frankly didn’t make much difference; I suppose that’s what you get when you convert an old armory.

Later that evening we met up with Karin for the grilling festivities. Dori and I loved Karin’s place. She has this giant garden that her landlady uses as therapy, and the house itself has a cozy charm that makes it very welcoming. Or perhaps it was our gracious host, with her mild, delicious mojitos. Either way, we felt at home.

I mentioned we had a lobster barbecue; this was a first for all in attendance so I, being a purist for experience, insisted on killing the lobsters myself rather than having the guy at the fish store do it. The procedure sure sounds simple, take large knife, find the point to start cutting, cut its head in half, and the lobster is now dead. The above instructions, which we used at the BBQ, fail to mention that the lobster will not only wince in pain as you cleave its head ajar, but it will continue to move and flail about if you fail to fully sever its spiral cord (I was 0/3). There was lobster poop all over the place, and a massive amount of blood dripping down the table. Most gruesome was the sight of one was still moving as we put him on the grill.

Being both a real and philosophical omnivore I have somehow pushed aside the moral arguments about killing animals to eat them. I make no effort to refute them, nor to rationalize my behavior. That said, I have tried, almost as if through an effort to appease some cosmic karmic force, to appreciate my food. To understand that the animals I eat have somehow given me their life, and to thank them for it, even if just in my own thoughts. Why? I’m not sure honestly. Maybe guilt.

The experience of killing the lobster was one I think I’ll remember for a while. Its a single ray of light into the dark world that serves me my favorite foods.

And - they were very tasty.

The rest of the trip did not revolve around killing lobsters. We did a lot of your typical day-trip-in-a-new-city type things. We went shopping for condiments down at the old port (what, you don’t buy jam in every city you visit?), we took a ferry to Peak’s Island (where we rented bikes), ate dinner out, and generally just walked around and explored. Portland is definitely a very fun town, the city is clean, and there are nice benches and little squares to sit around the sip a cup of coffee from one of the ~75 coffee shops. Ok, exaggerating there, but there are a lot!

On Sunday we were leaving early, so we had a delicious brunch at Bintliff’s, then visited the Promenade at the eastern end of the peninsula (about a stone’s throw from Karin’s house on Munjoy Hill). The prom, as its referred, is really a fantastic bit of land. Sadly Google’s street view doesn’t have data for Portland yet, or I’d link you. Its a steep, grassy hill with a few criss-crossing paved walkways (with benches dotting the paths) and a road that winds down to a few boat launches. There is a sandy beach at the bottom and walking trails that extend a ways in each direction. There’s also a fairly ridiculous looking old train that would ferry people around. The view from the hill is of the bay and of several of the nearby islands.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 11:20 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.