sunrise sunset

sunrise:  5:00

Isn't it weird how you feel so exhausted some mornings when you had plenty of sleep, and then other mornings you get up after 4 1/2 hours and you feel pretty great?  Today feels great, maybe because I had such a nice yesterday.

Okay - full disclosure:  This is not my back yard, and it is not a sunrise either.  I am guessing that if you are as tired of gray mornings as I am, you might enjoy the break from the usual routine. 

This is what today's backyard outing had to offer...

now we'll go back to last night in Bar Harbor.

J. finally has a couple of days off.  We took a little trip down to Bar Harbor yesterday to visit T's workplace, where she is still happily thriving.  Any work that brings you home saying, "I LOVE my job!" three or four times a week is pretty darn good. 

What a fantastic evening on multiple fronts.  After watching the Germans win third place in the World Cup (congratualtions to my German friends!), we got ready to go down to Mt. Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, and other really cool sites and sights, sounds and sounds (well - one sound, Somes Sound, the only fjord in North America, or something like that).

Bar Harbor was bustling but not oppressively crowded.  It may be a mob scene next weekend with people headed to the area hoping to catch a glimpse of our First Family on vacation.  The Obamas clearly have exquisite taste in vacation locales.  I hope they see Maine's coast at its best.

T. did a great sales job in her element.  We tasted just about every vinegar and oil in the place and left with many bottles. 

We stopped in a local book store and J. heard someone mention the title of a Rachel Field book.  I asked about their interest, and it turns out they are ancestors of Captain Samuel Hadlock, the old Maine sea captain that Rachel wrote about in God's Pocket.    Now I have their contact information in case they might have something interesting to add to my research (and they might buy a book some day!)
 
 Dinner at the Bar Harbor Inn, serenaded by my spectacularly talented piano teacher.  It is like magic, how music can soothe the soul. 

He played a few of our requests, and a song that he helped me arrange a couple of years ago, and when everyone was ogling the sunset, he broke into "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof.  The piano is like an extension of his fingers - they seem to just fly in an effortless dance.  So amazing.  That song about children growing and time passing particularly reached me since I've been feeling the hollow ache in my stomach lately.  I am struck by how much I'm going to miss my dear little girl, my laughing buddy, my household companion who's going off into the world.

Crab stuffed sole with lobster hollandaise helps.  Glass of wine.  And then that sunset out the window.  I was a happy camper.

T. joined us as we finished up, just in time to hear our piano playing friend playing a Beatles medley.  In fact, he was playing "In My Life" as T walked in, the song she played for her Dad at the spring Cabaret this year!  She was sure we had orchestrated it, but I think the piano man must just be psychic.  It was all as perfect as it could have been - and just the thing for a work weary and laryngitis-fighting husband.

The hour and a quarter drive each way was worth every minute.  

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I don't usually eat before posting, but I had to sample a few of these black raspberries as I walked by this morning.

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correction:  TODAY, the second 5:00am sunrise,  was the last repeated sunrise hour, not 4:57am from a few days ago.  oops.