There were two stores I missed in Maine. The first was in the village of Wiscasset as we drove up the coast. Amid antique shops and cute houses on the main street, I saw a shop window painted with the word "Smitten" as we drove past. "Oh, a store" I said as we drove past. Eric asked me if I wanted to stop, but we were already on the bridge, so I said that we could stop on the way back to Portland, but we came back a different way on Sunday and so I never got the chance.
The other store was in Portland. We arrived back on Sunday with about an hour to spare, enough for a very late lunch in an Irish bar called the Ri Ra (I taught Eric the full phrase, "ri ra agus ruaille buaille," which means ruckus, of either the party or brawl kind. A perfect name for an Irish pub!)
After I finished my salad, I said I would be back in 20 minutes. I wanted to take a little peek at the stores of Portland. I walked along the docks and up into the town, along cobblestone streets. It didn't rain on Sunday and it was warm and pleasant.
I kept seeing adorable stores a little further away, so I kept walking even though I knew I should be getting back. That's when I saw the perfect store, my kind of shop. It was called "Edith and Edna," and it had just CLOSED! I pressed my wistful face against the window and saw all kinds of handmade art, bags, jewelry, and other gorgeous stuff. I Googled it today and came across this post by Soule Mama, which makes it clear that it was indeed my kind of shop and I wish I had gotten the chance to visit.
Then I really had to run, and by the time I made it back to the pub Eric was standing outside tapping his watch (or he would have been tapping it if he wore a watch.)
It just means I have to go back to Maine, because there is nothing I love more than browsing cute stores.
Here's another Irish Pub in Portland called Brian Boru, who was a High King of Ireland in the eleventh century AD.
I happen to have a Brian Boru joke:
An American fancier of Irish history and antiquities is on a tour of all the ancient places in Ireland, the sites of ancient battles, seats of kings, that sort of thing. He finds his way into an old antique shop and amid the piles of dusty old things, spies a human skull, tucked away on a back shelf.
The proprieor approaches and sees him holding the skull. "That, my friend, is the skull of Brian Boru, famed high king of Ireland."
The American nearly drops it, so amazed is he to have made such a rare find. He quickly pays the man the 5,000 euro he's asking for the skull and takes it back to New York, where it has pride of place in his Irish antiquities display cabinet for the next ten years, the subject of many dinner party conversations.
Time passes and he decides to take another trip to Ireland. He finds the same little village and visits the same antique shop, hoping to make another special purchase. On a back shelf, he sees another human skull, this one a little smaller than the first.
The propietor, somewhat older and more hunched, approaches and says, "I see you have found the most extraordinary thing in my shop. That, my friend, is the skull of Brian Boru."
The American collector is outraged, and splutters, "I was here ten years ago and you sold me a skull you claimed was the skull of Brian Boru."
"Ah yes," says the proprietor, "But you see that was his skull as a man. This here is his skull when he was a child."
I've been a painting fool these last couple of nights. It's good to get back to it. I'm doing a lot of wrestlers, and some girls and trees. I'm also doing more of the 49 Mile Drive sign, an iconic sign posted all over the place in San Francisco. I'm playing with it: using other birds besides the seagull, and new colors. I have tried a few skulls, although I'm a bit discouraged that they are SO hip right now. Actually, I think they've gone beyond hip to be so ubiquitous that they are totally un-hip. I need a new motif, something no one else is doing. Armadillos? Llamas?
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