Heart Beet

Greetings!

It’s been awhile since I last wrote and my only excuse is this: It’s
February, the most miserable month of the year. This winter has been
the coldest in Maine since the early 70’s and yet, I’ve still managed
to swim in the ocean once a month for the past 5 months. The most
recent swim was last Friday…36 degree water…30 mph winds… a “wintry
mix” of precipitation.
I went with the usual crowd of Patty the lobster woman and Kaitlyn the
postmistress. Kaitlyn's mother had recently given her a box of old clothes
and within that box was a pretty little black negligee (neg-le-jay).
Kaitlyn, when deciding what to wear over her bathing suit the day of the
dip, thought that the negligee would be perfect for wearing down to
the beach. So there we were standing on the beach, me and Patty in our
bathing suits and Kaitlyn in a tight black negligee- because she couldn’t
manage to get it off. In we ran, submerged ourselves, and out we came-
screaming as usual. Kaitlyn’s scream was different though… “Ahhhhh! Help!
Ice! Get this damn thing off of me!” Her negligee had frozen to her
body! Because hypothermia is a legitimate concern, Patty pulled herself
together enough to try and get the thing off. I wasn’t so successful;
it was the funniest thing I have ever seen and thus the situation
rendered me useless. In the end, a razorblade cut that tight negligee
off and Kaitlyn has vowed to never ever wear anything like that again to
dip.

Part of my job is to try and get everyone on the islands to do a self
home energy audit. I’ve gotten the town to buy a bunch of devices
where you plug in an appliance and it tells you how much energy it
uses (Kilowatt Hours). I also got the town to buy a laser gun
thermometer. I intended this gun to be used for detecting where the
cold spots in your home are (so you could seal them up), but one
particular islander had another use for it. Last week, I got a phone
call from the librarian and she said: You have got to get down here,
Charlie has checked out the laser thermometer and someone just spotted
him entering his pig pen with it! Realizing the potential of this
gossip gold nugget, I ran down there only to see with my own eyes,
Charlie taking aim at a pig’s rear end with the laser thermometer. I
watched undetected for a little while until Charlie got within 5 feet
of the pig’s behind and I then I exposed myself by asking him what he
was doing. “Oh, just zapping the pig’s [privates] to see if she’s in
estrous.” What! “Eyah, the heat coming off her [privates] will tell me
whether she’s ovulatin’ or not.”
God, I don’t know if it’s just a February thing or what, but these
islands just keep getting weirder and weirder.

Among other stories, I got a wedding proposal last month from a man on
the big island (the one I don’t live on) and it went a little like
this… “Sorry for the house mess, I don’t have a woman to clean up
after and take care of me. I sure am lookin’ though and I think you
would do a fine job, want to be my wife?” I would have shrugged this
off with a huge amount of laughter and snide remarks if I didn’t
already know his past… He is a carpenter/handyman on the island who
owns a variety of commercial equipment, including an excavator. The
last woman he liked was dating someone else on the island and he just
couldn’t handle seeing her cavorting with a man other than himself.
So, he took matters into his own hands and one night, the man’s ocean
front house managed to fall into the water, belongings and all.
The only things left were a chimney and pair of excavator tracks. I don’t
know exactly how I’ll handle this situation, but the good thing is
that I don’t own any property!

To make this post even longer, I’ll quickly tell you about a recent
episode of mine when I thought I was dying...it’s a little gross so
you might want to just end the email here. Last week I noticed that
my urine was red, but there was no pain. I called the doctor and
explained this to him and he told me that he would like to see me as
soon as possible, because it could be my kidney’s failing and I might
just happen to have a high tolerance to pain. Well, the day went on
and I planned to go off on the late afternoon boat if my condition
persisted. Sure enough, by 2pm it was still red. I was pretty scared
by this point and asked the librarian: What do you know about
mysterious pee colors?
Her answer: I know that if you eat a lot of beets, it will turn your urine red.
BEETS, I HAD EATEN BEETS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE THE NIGHT
BEFORE! What a relief! My kidneys weren't shutting down, it was
beets all along! For you people out there who have never eaten beets
before, don’t make the mistake I made! You will survive and live to
pee clear again.

Alright, that’s it for this update.

Stay warm!

-Eliza