Looking for Lunch in All the Wrong Places

Finding a good place to eat lunch when you're traveling can be a challenge. Sometimes you're lucky to find any place - good, mediocre, or worse. Last Sunday was one of those days.

We were driving from Bucksport, Maine to Newburyport, Massachusetts. We were still looking for lighthouses and there was one just south of Portland. As we drove through Portland, I noticed that they had dozens of places to eat. But it was still too soon for lunch so we pressed on to the lighthouse. After spending a half hour or so we went south toward Cape Elizabeth because there was supposed to be another lighthouse there, but we never found it. After touring most of the residential areas of Cape Elizabeth, we decided to try to find the lighthouse at Biddeford Pool. Again, no success so we decided to look for a place for lunch - preferably a place that offered fresh seafood and overlooked the sea.

The next stop down the coast was Old Orchard Beach. The traffic was ridiculous for a small village. But it seems that everyone goes to the beach on Sunday afternoon. We finally spotted a seafood restaurant that looked like it might serve something other than fried food. We pulled into the adjacent parking lot and the attendant wanted $40. We asked where the parking for the restaurant was and were informed that they didn't have any parking. We would have to pay to park. Did he seriously think I was going to pay $40 to park so I could eat a lunch that would probably cost me another $40? We went off in search of free (or at least cheap) parking. We did find a restaurant that had free parking, but they didn't open until 5 PM - a bit late for lunch. The cheapest parking we could find was $20. Clearly, if you don't intend to spend the entire day at the beach, the merchants and restaurants of Old Orchard Beach do not want your business. We pressed on.

It was pretty much the same thing in Kennebunkport. So we gave up on having a seaside view at lunch and got back on Route 1. We spotted a Greek restaurant and decided to give it a try. It didn't look special and the patio overlooked the parking lot - but hey, that's a bit like Dallas - we'd feel right at home. When we asked if we could sit on the patio, the young man at the door said we could. What he didn't tell us is that we could sit out there all day and night but no one was going to come to take our order. After ten minutes of waiting, we decided to resume our search for a place to eat.

On our way back to our car, our complaints were overheard by a young man on a motorcycle who seemed truly shocked by the lack of service, but recommended a place we'd obviously passed and overlooked. I can't really remember the name of it, but as we pulled into the parking lot I remembered that we'd rejected it as we drove by. The parking lot was just a bit too empty for Sunday at lunch time. But now that we were on the verge of starvation, it didn't seem to matter so much.

We went in and found the restaurant (on the other side of the gift shop) but there was no hostess. No visible wait staff . Just a few patrons with plates of food. Mark and I looked at each other and then looked around. There was no sign that said "Seat Yourself". We decided to give it a few minutes and see if anyone turned up. The hostess returned to her post and seated us. Most of the menu was indeed fried, but Mark ordered a sandwich and I ordered a bowl of clam chowder. I probably made the better choice. Mark's french fries were frozen rather than fresh cut, although his sandwich was fine. The clam chowder was home made with good sized chunks of clam. But you know how there are places you go and the food and the service are just so great that you come away thinking it was just fabulous? This wasn't one of those places. But as the saying goes, it filled the hole and let's face it, Mark and I are both a bit cranky when deprived of food. (Okay, maybe it's just me.)

Flying Lobsters

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Flying lobsters. Not only do they fly, but Captain Jack has trained them to alight on his hand, just like a homing pigeon.

Look, here he comes. He flies through the air with the greatest of ease.

And then he spots Captain Jack's outstretched hand.

Next he zeroes in on his landing spot.

 And here he is. Safe in Captain Jack's hand.

I may never eat lobster again.

.

The Elusive Lighthouses of Maine

We told people we were going to Maine to photograph lighthouses. Really, when you think of Maine, what comes to mind (besides lobster)? As we drove up from Massachusetts, it seemed like we no sooner got into Maine than we spotted the Cape Neddick or Nubble Light. We stopped, got out, and took some pictures.

Mark bought a cap to keep the sun off his head and out of his eyes. The shop was staffed with volunteers who had apparently never rung up a cap before. They did it this time with great difficulty. In fact, they were joking that Mark might not actually need the cap after they completed the transaction because the sun might be down by that time.

But we were excited and anxious to continue on up the shoreline. We hugged the coast as much as possible. In many instances Route 1 moved away from the coast so we had to drive back to the coast to go to Kennebunkport, Wells, and other towns along the coast. We were planning to drive as far as Bucksport, which is not that far from the Canadian border, so we thought we'd see lots of lighthouses on the way. Truth is we didn't see another one all the way to Bucksport.

Well, that was a bit of a disappointment. But not to worry, Mark found a little magazine in the hotel lobby "Discovering Maine's Lighthouses & Harbors". We learned that Maine has about 70 light houses. But when we left our hotel in search of them, we forgot to take the magazine with us. Rather than return to the room to get it, Mark found a lighthouse museum listed in the attractions on our GPS - in Rockland. A lighthouse museum will be housed in a lighthouse, right? We were very surprised when the lighthouse museum turned out to be housed in an ordinary building. A bit of a disappointment, but we went on a cruise of the harbor and much to our delight, there was the Rockland Breakwater Light and we sailed close enough to take some photographs. We could also see the Rockland Harbor Light, although it was a bit distant - too distant to show up in a photograph.

I remembered from my scan of the magazine that there was a lighthouse near Bucksport at Stockton Springs. With a little luck, we were able to find the Fort Point Light on our way back from Rockland. (We were not successful in finding the Celtic Festival in Belfast - no matter what the sign says, so finding the lighthouse was a big plus.)

The next day we set off with the magazine in hand. However, even with the magazine and the maps and the directions, we were only able to find one - the Portland Head Light. (There were supposed to be four others in this general area, but we couldn't find them.)

After the Portland area, there were supposed to be two more on the south coast, Wood Island Light and Goat Island Light. They were shown on the map as being near Biddeford Pool and Cape Porpoise. We never found either of them so we're guessing they must be on islands that aren't quite visible from the shore. But we had to get back down to Newburyport, Massachusetts to check into our B&B around six, so we gave up looking for lighthouses in favor of looking for lunch. 

Pot Luck Revisited

I had to go back and revisit this because the first post on this topic didn't really convey what I was feeling about the whole thing and I gave up on it because we were traveling and I had to use the laptop with the touchy keyboard that jumps you around the page as you type. The choices were to leave that computer alone and wait until I got home to resume posting or have the computer at the bottom of the Penobscot River. Either way, I wouldn't be able to post anything until I got home. (We still have the computer.)

But you just can't imagine my surprise/panic/annoyance (insert just about any word here) when I saw that we were booked into a hotel in Rochester, New York. It's no where near Boston. I know Mark was born in Rochester, England but that still didn't explain why we were booked into a hotel in Rochester, New York. I couldn't find a Rochester, Maine so I wasn't sure where he intended for us to spend the night. It didn't really matter, I was going to have to cancel the hotel in Rochester, New York before we incurred any charges. I did see that there was a Rochester, New Hampshire, but I wasn't sure how close it was to where we were going and I really didn't have time to investigate. But this wasn't the first time that Mark had booked us into a hotel in the wrong city, or the wrong country, or on the wrong night. And I knew he was going to blame the website. Because he is techno savvy and does not make such mistakes. Any such mistake must be attributed to poor website design, lack of usability, and the web designer's lack of skill and good sense.

And I knew that I couldn't mention it. Because if I did, I would find myself in the position of making all future hotel reservations. (I think it's enough that it's my job to make all airline reservations.) But as we were heading back to Boston from Maine, Mark was driving and so it fell to me to make the hotel reservations.

Hotels Tonight listings aren't posted until noon and we needed to return the car to the airport by 11:30. We wanted to be able to check-in to the hotel and have enough time to take the car back. Hotels.com usually has pretty good prices. We wanted to be as close to the city center as possible. My job was to find the balance between affordable and convenient. Wow! They were all expensive! But I finally found one that was !.9 miles from the city center, not too far from the airport and less than $300 per night. Click. Enter credit card details. Bingo. Done. Now to plug the address into the GPS and drive there. We arrived at the address, but couldn't see the hotel entrance. A nice young man tapped on the window to see if we were trying to check into the hotel. "Yes, we are." But upon further discussion and him looking at the Hotels.com confirmation that was displayed on my screen we were able to determine that the hotel I had booked was NOT in Boston, but in nearby Somerville. Near Boston, not IN Boston. Not really convenient to anything. It must be 1.9 miles from the Somerville city center. I'd searched for Boston hotels. How did I come to be in Somerville? I may not be quite as techno-savvy as Mark, but I'm not a novice. Clearly this was the website's fault. Poor design. Badly constructed. Not user-friendly. The designers of these websites should be flogged. 

Pot Luck

When I was printing off all our travel documents, airline tickets, hotel rental confirmations, etc., I noticed that our first hotel reservation was for Rochester New York. While this might have been good, we weren't actually going any where near New York. We were going to Maine. I searched the Internet for hotels in Rochester Maine, but there wasn't one. There was a Rochester New Hampshire, but I wasn't sure if that is where Mark intended to go. I was able to cancel before we incurred any charges, but I didn't have enough time to book another hotel.

So it turned out that we arrived without a place to stay. We were forced to take pot luck. I'd spent enough time on the Internet to know that we'd be able to sleep in one of those cookie-cutter Holiday Inns or Microtels, so we weren't worried.

When we stopped for lunch in Newburyport, MA we were very pleasantly surprised. We thought it might be a nice place to spend the night so we stopped by the chamber of commerce. We found the Clark Currier House. It was wonderful. A pleasant, antique-filled room, pleasant guests at breakfast and a very pleasant host. We'll be staying there again on our way back down to Boston!

Rethink!!

Rethink the possibilities! AT&T. Rethink the impossibilities! This company represents the absolute worst in customer care. Perhaps it's just part of their DNA, left over from the days when they were a government-protected monopoly.

I've had phone service with them for pretty much the entire 30 plus years I've lived here. I've had DSL with them for over 10 years. I tried leaving them once. A new company was offering service in the area - SuddenLink. It was more like SuddenDeath. The internet connection went down at least once a day and took the phone with it. I worked from home and had to upload and download files on a daily basis. I just couldn't have unreliable service. And as much as I disliked AT&T's lousy customer service, the phone and internet service is highly reliable.

So what made me dislike them so much? It's been more than a few years now, but we had all our cell phones and mobile devices with them. Mark had a personal phone, I had a personal phone, we had a business phone, we had an air card (which almost never worked, by the way) and then we started a new business with a partner and we got a phone for that. After about two months, the partner decided he didn't want to be in that business and we decided that we could continue the business but keep it within our existing business rather than have a separate entity. Consequently, we no longer needed or wanted that phone. Silly me, I thought that since I'd been a loyal AT&T customer for 23 years and that we still had four other contracts with them that they'd cancel the contract on the fifth phone. Boy was I wrong! They would be happy to cancel the contract but I would have to pay out the balance. Keep in mind that we're talking about less than $20 per month on this phone. But in principal, I don't like to pay for things that I'm not using. But everyone I talked to at AT&T reminded me that I had "signed a contract". So I had. And I determined that as soon as each contract expired, I would port the phone over to Verizon. That's when I started getting calls from the customer retention department.

"But Mrs. Elliott, you've been with us for 23 years! We sure hate to lose you as a customer."

"Yes, and I'd still be with you if you hadn't jerked me around. I hope the $200 remaining on that contract was worth the business you're losing now." (Our bill with Verizon averages between $300 and $500 per MONTH, but AT&T couldn't see past their $20 per month to the bigger picture.)

And then they wanted to ask me some customer service survey questions. "Yes, you were polite. Yes, you were sympathetic to my problem." The fact that they were collecting this type of data indicated that some suit in some office was going to sit back and point to what a great customer service organization they have. The fact is that just because someone is sympathetic and polite while they're NOT helping you is irrelevant. They listen to the problem, repeat it back, and then say they understand. They don't solve it. It's not helpful. Because AT&T isn't actually concerned with solving customer problems. They just want to appear to be helpful.

So that's the history. What's happening now? The DSL connection kept getting slower and slower (deliberate on their part, I'm sure) and then one day last week we got a letter offering their super high speed u-verse. Mark talked to them and set it up. They were supposed to install it yesterday. They warned us that they would need to turn off the DSL prior to installing the u-verse. An inconvenience, but it was only for one day. They gave us a 12 hour window. A 12 HOUR WINDOW?? Someone would come to install it between 8 AM and 8 PM. This is the best time estimate they can give us? I can be on another continent in 12 hours. They cut off our DSL connection as promised, and that's where their end of the bargain stopped. I phoned them at 7 PM to find out what happens when they don't actually turn up. I was assured that they still had an hour to get there and they would be there. No sooner had I hung up the phone than the land line rang. It was someone from AT&T informing me that no one would be coming until the next day. (Do you think perhaps the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing?) I had shifted around an important appointment so I could be home for them and they don't even turn up. Great! I get to sit around the house without an internet connection for another 12 hours. Who is going to take these checks to the bank? Who is going to go to the post office? Who is going to pick up prescriptions? Not me. I'll be sitting here waiting for them to turn up. Again.

But I need the internet connection to schedule Mark's appointments. I need it to work. I need to get someone to turn the DSL back on until they're actually going to install the u-verse. I called them back to see if they could do that. What a waste of my time. No one can do that. All they can do is say they are sorry for my inconvenience and assure me that tomorrow everything will be made right. I have Irene's personal guarantee. Irene gave me a number to call this morning. After 45 minutes on the phone with them, I'm really no closer to a solution than I was last night.

My efforts to speak with a supervisor were resisted until I became insistent. This is what I learned from the "Manager" of the u-verse scheduling center:

• My priority is 80%. (What does that mean? Why isn't it 100%?)
• The scheduling manager does not know how many jobs are scheduled for an individual installer in a day. (How can you be the scheduling manager if you don't know what's being scheduled?)
• We have to allow for delays like traffic and installers not being able to find the house. (I understand traffic, but unless you're in England it's not going to cause a four hour delay. As for getting lost, don't these guys have GPS systems or smart phones? Come on AT&T you're a communications/technology company. Communicate! Embrace technology!)

This manager has promised to phone me when the technician has been assigned. Not when he's on his way, mind you, but assigned. I suspect that the scheduling center is in China, which probably has something to do with why they don't know what's going on here. 

"I will call you when the technician has been assigned. Do you have any other concerns?"

"Believe me, I have a lot of concerns."

"Anything I can help you with?"

"It would seem not."

"Thank you for choosing AT&T."

"Let me be clear. I did not choose AT&T. Where I live, I have no other option."

"Thank you for calling AT&T."

It's now after 10 AM and I'm still waiting.

Posted using Mark's Verizon hot spot. And Verizon, if you're paying attention, please bring FiOS this way. We're beyond ready. 
 

I Hate Housework

I hate housework. It never ends. If you are lucky, you can enjoy your clean house for a few hours at most. Because it won't take long for someone to come in with muddy or dusty shoes. (This could happen before the kitchen floor is even dry.) Or it will be time to begin meal preparation. A cat will come in covered in burrs. Someone will splash toothpaste on the bathroom mirror and sink. People set things down on the table until it is covered in things that don't belong there and you have to move it or find another place to eat. All kinds of things happen. Over and over. Monthly. Weekly. Daily.

It's also a thankless job. I can't remember the last time anyone said "Wow, honey, the house is spotless. I am so appreciative!" I can't remember it because it never happened. I just can't stand for it to be dirty and I'm not happy when it's not tidy. I just wish someone other than me was cleaning it.

I should probably look for someone to do that. Whether you want to call said person a housekeeper, a house cleaner, or a maid doesn't really matter. I think it may be time to look for one.

I've had an assortment of them in the past. I had two teenaged girls who came and cleaned. They were a bit too generous with that deoderizing powder that you sprinkle on the carpets and then everything smells artificially nice when you vacuum. They got it all over the baseboards and didn't vacuum it up. It was really noticeable on the stairs because it looked like thick white dust. They didn't like it when I complained about it. But the final straw came when I pointed out that the toilet had an outside as well as an inside and that I expected both the inside and the outside to be clean. That did it. They quit. (Apparently the single guy they cleaned for had absolutely no complaints about the way they did things.)

Then I had a more mature woman. She brought her kids with her. I didn't mind the kids but I instructed her not to let them play with my computer because I used it for work. I know she let them use it because I had a secret switch under the desk. If anyone turned it on or off without using that switch, I could tell because when I flipped the switch, nothing happened. Dead giveaway. It also seems that she never cleaned the top of the refrigerator because my ex-husband was tall enough to see that and he complained. She ended up getting a job at Texas Instruments which pays far better than cleaning houses.

So I started looking for a replacement. One of my friends was very happy with the person who cleaned her house, and the price she paid was less than I paid. And her house was bigger than mine. I asked her cleaner to come over and give me a price. She came over and asked me what price I'd been paying. Silly me. It's just in my nature to blurt out the truth. Oddly enough, her quote was exactly the same as what I'd been paying, even though my friend was paying significantly less for a bigger house. No thanks. Not having her based on principal.

And then another friend recommended her cleaner. The price she quoted was in line with what my friend paid and so I had her come and do the cleaning. I was happy. She also had a partner and they didn't throw rug deoderizer everywhere. Both sides of the toilet were clean and so was the top of the refrigerator. Life was good. But then I was downsized and couldn't afford to keep them on. And besides, with no corporate job, I certainly had time to do the work myself. When I started doing it myself is when I noticed that there were some jobs that apparently never got done. For example, removing the plastic mat in the bathtub when cleaning the tub. My goodness! The underside of that mat and the tub underneath were the nastiest things I have ever seen. I ended up replacing the tub and I will never again have a plastic bath mat in my house.

Right now we are incredibly busy. Answering the phone and managing Mark's schedule takes a significant amount of time. Not to mention that some days I just need to stare at a stock chart. And when it's nice out, I'd prefer working in my garden to working in the house. But I still can't stand it if it isn't clean and Mark is far too busy to help me, so I'll probably be looking for help. I can hardly wait. 

Yo No Habla Espanol

Sorry, but I don't speak much Spanish. I know enough to indicate that I would like one more of whatever it is I have and I can communicate that I'm looking for the bathroom. That's pretty much it. I took French in high school. At the time, I lived much closer to Canada than to Mexico so French seemed a better option. And let's face it, high school French was such a long time ago, I only remember enough to do crossword puzzles. Although I do remember one or two useful phrases like Je t'aime (I love you) and Je suis le crayon rouge (I am the red pencil). Not that I wouldn't like to learn Spanish. I would. But Rosetta Stone gets mixed reviews and I'm not ready to take the month long immersion course in Barcelona that Mark wants to do.

But I guess whatever I decide to do, I'd better decide and learn quickly. I just had a flyer stuck in my door and it's in Spanish, which is a bit surprising because while I don't know everyone in my neighborhood, I do know quite a few people and they all speak English. I think there is one Hispanic family across the street, but to be truthful, that particular house changes occupants so often I can't keep up with who lives there.

Has Prestonwood en Espanol got their demographics wrong or have my English speaking neighbors moved out? I'm assuming that in their arrogance they've got it wrong.

I applaud their zeal in reaching out to the Hispanic community. But if their target is the Hispanic community, they really should find out where the Hispanic community is.

To their credit, they didn't compound the waste by mailing these flyers. They were hand delivered. But why not ring the bell and hand it to me? If they'd done that, they would have realized that I speak English and they could have given me an English flyer if they had one or they could have apologized for ringing my bell and asked me to point them in the direction of the nearest Spanish-speaking people.

Since I have no real idea what this says, I can only hope that it is a useful ministry and that it will have a positive impact on the people it reaches.

Want to know why I called them arrogant? To be honest, I haven't thought much of the way they do things at Prestonwood since a group of their kids turned up at my door a year or so ago and asked if there were any chores they could do for me. I thought they might be trying to earn money for a trip or something so I asked what their rate was. They weren't charging anything but they seemed so eager to do something that I had them spread mulch around my garden. They rang the bell to let me know they were finished. I couldn't leave well enough alone. I had to ask the young lady who seemed to be the leader why they were doing yard work at no charge. Did she tell me that they were there to reach out to people in the community? No. They weren't even there to invite me to church. It seems they were practicing doing things for "disadvantaged" people before their mission trip. I hadn't realized until then that I was disadvantaged. And I was a bit put off by it. My husband and I both have advanced degrees, we're members of a country club, we take at least two trips to Europe each year, and we have three vehicles for two people. Oh yeah, none of our cars are BMWs or Porsches and our house is smaller than 3500 square feet. Of course! By their standards, we must appear severely disadvantaged. And apparently there were no disadvantaged people in Plano to practice on.

I hope they make a better impression on other people than they've made on me. (Their professional production Christmas pageant didn't go down well with me, either. I'd rather hear the neighborhood kids sing Away in a Manger.) Anyway, I hope that whatever disadvantaged group they've targeted will look past them and see God's love. And really, if God loves you, how disadvantaged can you be?

And if anybody has any idea what this says, please let me know.