Three days in Camden. We ate out twice, dined on leftovers on our little deck, hiked, photographed inlets, drove up Mt. Battie, and read a lot. Peaceful.
Mt. Battie views below.
I brought a handful of quilt scraps to work on but only this long-ago-revamped sleeveless top got any attention. Mindless.
My favorite picture of the trip
This next bit could be a Yelp review. Sorry, not sorry.
To say, as I did at one point, that our accommodations “narrowly missed being a dump” wasn’t quite fair. More like, I expected a bit more for the price. For instance, for $300 a night I expect better than plastic utensils at breakfast. Maid service. We had a cute deck that overlooked a creek, but it was garbage-strewn. But worst of all was the much-touted floral pedestrian bridge. Picture after picture online showed hanging baskets overflowing with flowers. I was really looking forward to it.
The reality? Every single pot contained dead plants. Ick. I was perhaps prepared to cut these folks a little slack given how very hot it’s been down here and knowing how quickly a plant can become distressed in such heat, until I saw a hose curled up at the end of the bridge. C’mon!
But! The pluses were significant. Plenty of towels. Thoughtful blackout curtains. And even if the sight of the creek wasn’t that great, the sound of it soothed and delighted. And the lights from the ice cream shop across the way were pretty.
Me: you think they’d send someone down to the creek to pick up the garbage. It wouldn’t take more than 20 minutes.
Husband: they were too busy watering the plants.
Oh! And! We got to see Lisa on the way north.
Post script (text from Deb L) (me slapping my head):
Someone asked, and so I share this partial and ever changing list on August 22, 2025.
I subscribe to the NYTimes (Sunday paper, the rest digital), The Boston Globe (TH to Sunday paper), Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. I listen to Maddow’s Monday program and catch as many Lawrence O’Donnells as I can. I used to religiously listen to the first hour of Nicolle Wallace but stopped after the election not sure why.
Late night: I often catch Colbert and Kimmel recordings with my lunch.
However, most of my news intake is from reading online and a couple of podcasts. I prefer reading to watching videos, otherwise MeidasTouch would be on this list (it recently surpassed Joe Rogan I heard).
Rebecca Solnit: brilliant, incisive, inspiring. Recent post entitled: On Not Surrendering in Advance (Or At Any Point Thereafter). Her thoughts on hope are must-reads. I’ve read that Substack has some Nazi influencers (or owners?) so I’m guessing that’s why she has her own website: Meditations in an Emergency.
Robert Hubbell: like Heather Cox Richardson, his enormously popular newsletter started as a way to keep his kids informed. He combines to-the-moment news coverage with a grounded optimism. I listen to him almost every morning while I get dressed because he has an audio link (I listen at 1.5 speed bc he talks slowly). I subscribe to free version of Substack but sts wish I paid because he interacts actively with his audience.
Tim Miller of The Bulwark is one of my favorite commentators. (I almost said, “one of my favorite former Republican commentators” but he’s just one of my favorites, period). He does a lot of good interviews on his podcast. Here’s today’s. He is gay and lives in New Orleans.
Charlie Sykes, also of The Bulwark. Here’s Sykes’s his interview with Ben Wittes on the Alaska Summit. I like him a lot. He has two gorgeous German Shepherds (used to see them more over on Twitter).
Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American: hugely popular and increasingly influential historian offering daily updates, often with in-depth historical background. She teaches at Boston College (or used to?) and lives in Maine. I used to read daily and don’t anymore. Again, not sure why.
Democracy Docket, Marc Elias et al fighting for voting rights in the courts. Paid and free versions. I get the free email daily.
Stephen Beschloss: Journalist (not related to historian Michael). Good analysis of the news. I get free version of his Substack newsletter by email.
Today from him I learned that Bryan Stevenson wisely erected his Legacy Museum and Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama without taking a penny from state or federal funders, so he is exempt from the current push to whitewash slavery from our history.
Joyce Vance, a former federal appellate litigator from Alabama, can be relied upon to “get in the weeds” with the legal status of cases. I listened to her more when there were active cases against Trump. She has a newsletter, Civil Discourse, (again, I subscribe to the free version) and a podcast, Sisters in Law, which she hosts along with Barb McQuade, Jill Wine-Banks, and Kimberly Atkins Stohr (start podcast at 8 minutes — lots of chatter and ads before content). Her father in law, formerly a judge in Alabama, was murdered and she has four kids, so she brings not just legal expertise to her discussions.
I guess going to hear them live makes me a super fan?
Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord have renamed their podcast to Main Justice. I used to listen more often when there were active cases against Trump. Weissman teaches at NYU Law and among other things, served with Mueller on the Russia investigation.
McCord teaches at Georgetown Law School and according to their website: McCord was the Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2016 to 2017 and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for National Security from 2014 to 2016.
I love the way she says, “rhetoric” (RE-TRICK).
Sherrilyn Ifill, civil rights lawyer, democracy warrior. I pay for her newsletter.
For pure inventive satire, I read The Borowitz Report. That guy is brilliant.
Another irreverent commentator, Jeff Tiedrich, is among my favorites. He eschews capital letters and employs a crude, no-holds-barred style of writing. Recent headline: insane dictator wanna-be hosts batshit European leader play date. Substack, free and paid versions.
For incisive, SCARY, analysis of the “international crime syndicate,” with special expertise on Russia and Ukraine, read Sarah Kendzior. I stopped listening to her podcast, Gaslit Nation, because I got sick of the “I told you so’s” (justified, but still). She’s a midwesterner who has written books, one called, View from Flyover Country.
Boston protest signs quote from Sarah Kendzior
I occasionally listen to The Daily, a podcast of The New York Times. Runs about 30 minutes. A good supplement to read-news.
I pay for Roxane Gay’s substack newsletter, The Audacity. It’s focused on books but she does an interesting weekly roundup.
I still sometimes check in with the Pod Save America guys. Dan Pfeiffer, the smartest of the lot in my view, is on Monday’s.
I got lazy with links, but all can be found easily with an online search.
I also get Talking Points Memo, Simon Rosenberg, Peter Beinhart, Jess Craven. And more. So maybe there will be a part two.
I know some who follow Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway’s podcast, Pivot. It’s long and I just haven’t added it to the rotation. Both incredibly smart.
Drop your favorites in the comments, if you feel like it.
Today: bliss. No rowdy kids’ camp over the fence, no yard crews, no tree work, road work, or house renovations. Comfortable shade. A trickling water feature. AND BIRDS!
We have: sparrows, grackles, cardinals, blue jays, nut hatches, woodpeckers, finches, and titmice.
There were three grackles on the feeder moments before this photo, looking positively mythic.
The brads which Ken hammered into the fence post have helped deter squirrel launches but don’t appear to be particularly bothersome to the lightweight sparrows.
Such peace is necessary, always, but maybe especially on a day that began with footage of our traitorous, delusional leader meeting with Putin. The red carpet! The changed tactics! The grinning, handshaking, the references to Alaska as Russia (a third gaffe on the jet saying he was ‘going back to the States’?)
Picture this: me propped up with pillows reading my phone. It’s after nine and I’ve just woken. Ken comes in, refreshed after a shower. He’s been up since seven. I say (first words of the day to him), “You gotta read Masha Gessen’s piece in the Times today.”
So yeah, birds. Flapping, swooping, bathing, pecking, bickering, flying, calling, feeding — BIRDS. Doing their thing.
*****
Here’s a gift link to the opinion piece if you’re interested.
Thunderstorms threatened all afternoon but never materialized, a disappointing pattern probably related to climate change. It happens all the time.
As the sun started sinking, it inflamed the clouds into such gorgeous colors that a bunch of us found ourselves on the sidewalk taking pictures. Thunder rumbled now and again and occasional flashes of lightning appeared to the west. Pure magic.
It was a communal moment that made me laugh. iPhones held up to the sky.
My corner-house neighbors and I chatted a bit. We moved in to our houses on the same weekend in May 1993 — she with her three sons, me weeks from getting pregnant with my first.
One of her sons, also taking pictures, shared that he turns 50 this weekend. I almost fell over.
Then he shared a funny story about my first born, who I have to tell you talked early and in full paragraphs. People were often stunned. He was intelligible even with the ever-present binky in his mouth. (He would slide it to one side and talk through it, not unlike an old man with a cigar).
Anyway, he might’ve been three when this happened. A dragonfly flitted near the lot line and he pointed to it and said to my neighbor, “Look! It’s iridescent!”
This is supposedly the last day of this heat wave in the Boston area (it’s the third one this season). August 13, 2025.
We will walk Finn after supper.
My hands are a mess from weeding.
Sometimes I like rogue ferns. Sometimes I don’t.
Every week, this protest is happening I’m told. Twenty minutes north of here. Today? It’s really hot and I have a workshop til one. Next week, we’ll be in Maine. But after that? I’ll go.
This is one of two miracle rhodies. I chopped them back in the spring — ALL their leaves were curled, rust-colored. I thought they were dead. Didn’t want to look at dead bushes. If I’d taken a minute, I’d have learned it would be prudent to leave them be. That’s a lesson for me. Slowing down. Taking a beat. But today I’ll take the other lesson to heart and that is the regenerative power of a seemingly dead stump.
