JustMattHenry.com: gossip, life and humor

it’s late and i’ve been sucked into yet another episode of animal hoarders on animal planet.  it’s heartbreaking to see these sad, lonely (mostly) women give up their 87 dogs.  apparently, animal hoarding happens most often in middled aged women who have given up on men and just can’t bring themselves to get with a woman.  although there was a lesbian hoarder on this episode.

obviously, delia would never allow another dog near me or her home, so the chance of me becoming a hoarder are slim to none.

i think i’m going to go cruise the area shelter websites.

well, it’s been one month since my car was near fatally injured, and as i called today to check in on the repair work, the service member, who has gotten so used to me calling that he doesn’t even need to ask who it is, started tossing around words like axel, suspension, and euthanize.  i know the damage, both literally and monetarily, for the frame and body.  then they had to dig deeper since dude hit the wheel, and you know how sometimes you might fall down and hit your head but you think you’re fine, but then the doctor takes a deeper look and there’s all kinds of shit messed up inside and he’s all like, “molly…you in danger, girl.”  well, that’s what is happening to my car.  as the estimate goes up, so does the likelihood that i will probably get rid of the car.  it won’t be the same!  it won’t drive the same!  but then, because i tend to do this with inanimate objects, i feel bad about it.  how awful will my car feel if i get rid of it due to an accident that it had no fault in?  that would be like if my sister broke her leg and walked with a limp the rest of her life and i’m like, well, you’re not my sister anymore.

so i haven’t made a final decision.

and then–AND THEN–we discover that while the motorcyclist has car insurance, he actually doesn’t have any that covers his bike.  of course.  we are inferring that from the fact that he won’t give any information regarding any insurance for the bike plus the fact that he’s wants to just reimburse my insurance out of his own pocket.  uh huh.  sure.  that’s all nice and honorable for him to say that, but then when it comes time to pay the bill, guess whose number changed?  and guess who no longer works where he works?  and guess who ain’t payin?  which is all more my insurance’s problem than mine except when it comes to the diminished value i’d like to wring out of him.  but that’s probably not going to happen without suing him and i don’t know if i want to do that.  plus, there was no actual engine damage which is really where value goes down after an accident.  sigh.  this is such a bummer.  i just want my car back!!!!

because it was senior day (i’m not kidding) at the g-town theater, i decided to go to a movie that absolutely no one wanted to see.  even those who had planned to sit by the pool and soak up the last rays of summer, when the sun was a no show and temps were cooler than ever, chose to stay inside and watch Romy and Michelle, instead of coming with me to the movie.

anyway.

Piranha 3D will probably be on my yearly top ten.  it’s by no means a great movie, but it knows what it is and makes to qualms about it.  it’s part soft core porn, part girls gone wild, part cliche, part ham, and all gore.  seriously, the massacre  scene will go down in film history and be studied for years to come as one of the best killer-fish-spring-break-boobs-massacre ever.  seriously, not only was that scene a little disturbing (i will not go in a lake any time soon), but at the same time it was…hysterical.  i mean, the ways in which hundreds of (annoying) spring breakers were just slaughtered by the fish, i was disgusted, riveted, and laughing all  at the same time.  good times.

there are actual moments of suspense.  it’s a fun movie.  people get killed like crazy:  richard dreyfuss, the dude from Desperate Housewives, Adam Scott, jerry o’connel, some porn girl named riley steel (who we will get to in a minute) and hundreds of students.  it was a riot.

now, unfortunately, there was one girl who i thought would make it to the end of the movie alive, but alas didn’t:  kelly brook

i don’t know who this bitch is, but if this (soon to be cult) movie makes anyone a star (it probably won’t), it’s her.  she’s beautiful and british and boobalicious.  she’s the new megan fox.  even when her face was getting eaten, i was kind of like, she still looks good.  she has a rather absurd and very much extended nude swimming scene with the porn star girl with basically everything out in the open.  it’s kind of funny just how long they run the scene–i mean, obviously, who is the target audience?–but it was like ten minutes long and not once did i see either girl come up for air.  not that i’m looking for realism in a movie about prehistoric fish who prey on spring break party people.

and elizabeth shue…what can i say?  i’ve always liked her.  she’s always been a bit peculiar with her movie roles.  but this is all in good fun…and check out these guns.

the only thing i remember about bar harbor from our family vacations there when i was younger was the time my mom said “up your’s, lady!” to some woman who had parked  too close to our commuter sized van and wouldn’t back up so that we could get out more easily.  she’ll probably deny that it happened just as she denies ever putting me in  the car with a bag of clothes and dropping me off on a street corner and driving away.  i have these memories for a reason–because they happened.

anyway.

this was our little inn.  The Balance Rock Inn, named after this “balancing” rock right down the lawn on the rocky shore line:

the rock is just on the other side of those bushes.  it’s huge.  i have pictures of it on my phone but i guess i didn’t download any to the ‘puter.  oh well.  it’s a rock.  you will see plenty more pictures of those coming up.

this lawn was great because delia could run all over it without a care in the world.  and eat it.  our room, though not the fanciest in the Inn, had its own little porch and entrance and opened up on to this lawn and beautiful view.  sort of.

the inn was cute and one might say…quaint?  or…had character?  which means, it’s a little old.  but it was fine and there was a pool and a beautiful view.  we were also very close to the hustle and bustle of bar harbor.  our first day there was spent eating and shopping.  tomorrow, adventure…but today was all about consuming.  ps there is an ice cream shop every ten yards in bar harbor.

our first full day was going to be spent in acadia national park, however, at some point during our first day, i saw that there were whale watching tours and even though they were a little expensive, i kind of really wanted to go.  even though i’m not a big fan of going on boats that take me out so far from land that you can’t see a trace of it.  i need to see land so that if the boat sinks i know which way to swim.  anyway, at first mikey didn’t want to go, but after some mumbling and grumbling on my part, he changed his mind and suggested that maybe we spend half the day in the park and then get tickets for the sunset whale watch later in the afternoon.

so here is acadia:

that’s my house on the left.  i’m actually not sure if i took this picture while hiking or driving.  i certainly hope i was hiking at the time or at least stopped the car.

this was taken along our hike from Sand Beach (where dogs were not allowed) to Thunderhole.  it wasn’t a long hike by any means, but had some beautiful scenery.  i was scared that delia was going to fall off a cliff at any moment.  she’s very agile on rocks but it still made me nervous, like she might slip and then hang herself on her own leash and collar.

that’s a nice image.

so then i have to wonder that if she does go over the edge, should i drop the leash and hope that she’s able to swim through the pounding surf and then maneuver onto the rocks and climb her way back up?  or do i hold onto the leash, pray she doesn’t snap her neck, and then use the leash to pull her back up over the edge?  this is why we didn’t get any closer to the edge.

this is Thunder Hole which was not so thunderous today.  a few years ago a rogue wave swept over the viewing area and took some people out to sea, never to be seen again.  mikey is somewhere in that group down there at the end.  the pooch was with me.  i’m not losing both to a rogue wave.

the water in Otter cove was just calm enough to let delia off the leash to frolic in the water.  we did not see any otters.  and we did not see any seals in Seal Harbor just down the road.  and we did not see any Cadillacs on Cadillac Mountain.

look how well behaved she is

we tried to go to jordan pond for lunch, but there were a thousand people there and it seemed kind of fancy and if anything is the antithesis of fancy it’s me and the dog.  so we took a quick picture of the pond and head on back to the inn for a dip in the pool before whale watching.

back at the inn, mikey went for a swim in the pool.  now i know people from maine don’t know what cold water feels like because they are used to it, but that water in that damn pool was damn cold.  mikey didn’t seem to mind:

this is what i did:

lounged on a chair and stared at this:

although, since it was low tide, i did venture down to the shore to explore the tide pools.  i got attacked by a crab and collected a lot of shells.  plus, the water in the ocean was much warmer–and that’s not really saying a whole lot–than the water in the pool.

so soon it was time to go whale watching and when i purchased the tickets, the girl said that since the boat takes us about 30 miles out to see, that we should bring a jacket.  bitch was not kidding.  it got cold on that boat, and not just because of the wind.  it was cold out at sea.

on the boat.

so whale watching was one of the coolest things i have ever experienced.  top ten at least.  i was worried that we wouldn’t see anything, i was worried that the water might be super choppy, i was worried that the boat might sink and i wouldn’t know which way to swim.  it was, however, amazing.  we saw puffins, harbor seals, porpoises and about 8 or 9 different whales.  some were really close to the boat.  now, because i am a slow photographer, none of my pictures of the whales turned out very well.  because every time our guide was like, “oh, there’s one over on the left side of the boat at about 10 o’clock” i would have to fumble with my camera, turn it on and by the time i lined up my shot, the thing had disappeared back into the water.  the first whale we encountered, Flyer, was a humpback about 30 years old or so our guide said, whom they had not seen in two years.  he was breaching at the surface, slapping his tail and pectoral fins on the water and showing off.  it truly was awesome.

i have some film footage of the whales however i have to figure out how to get it off my phone and onto my computer and then to youtube or something, but i am going to leave this entry with a picture of just how calm the sea was, glasslike and very almost not-real looking:

there are several different tours you can take in and around Casco bay.  we thought maybe the mail tour, which hits several islands, might be good..  you can take the dog, relax, but it’s three hours long and we weren’t sure we wanted to be on a boat that long.  we opted instead for taking the ferry to peaks island sans dog where we could rent some bikes and bike around the island.

on the ferry, some townies mentioned that there’s this structure hidden in the middle of the island and that if you found the right path, you could go exploring.  i said count me in!

i think the last time i was on a bike was in the outer banks with legally fawn in 2006.  but goddamn if i don’t love bike riding.  i’m totally getting one for christmas.  not to ride around in the city.  i hate bikers in the city and i don’t want to be one of those assholes, constantly in the way of drivers.  but i want a bike to take to other places so that i can ride on trails etc.  i had a picture of mikey on a bike, but had some problems editing it and now it won’t upload.  so, uh, mikey on a bike…how can i describe that?  well, i think he hated it.  i’m pretty sure that the entire four miles around the island he was giving me the finger behind my back for making him do this.

here’s mikey sitting on some rocks at one our stops.  for some reason, i have a sizable collection of photos of mikey sitting on rocks.  i don’t know why we do that so much on our trips.   while he was taking a water break, i was exploring tidal pools–mostly snails and seaweed.

here i am being a tool:

i actually think i hurt my back getting up under that overhang.  sigh.  old age.

so we found the townie trail that led to a mysterious building and the fact that we had to discard our bikes to follow this trail deep into a marshy creek was probably a sign that this was all a very bad idea.  this is how people die:  following townies down scary blair-witchy trails.

but we did it anyway.

this is seeming less and less like a good idea.  but really, what could really happen?  so on we traveled…until we came upon this:

is it a spaceship?  an old fort?  a giant secure caged environment for a pack of velociraptors?  maybe.  it reminded me of when my friend livie and i would go explore run down abandoned houses and burned down trailer parks in high school.  and sometimes we’d find these random building that were deserted and littered with porn magazines, beer bottles and stained mattresses.  livie would take pictures.  we were very artsy.

but this alas, was not so exciting.  walking in that front opening, i walked into what was surely a hot spot in the rave filled mid to late 90′s:

now, there were far darker scarier reaches of said interior to explore, but neither mikey nor the townies would venture any further in–which is probably a sign that i shouldn’t either but i, you know, i was all about new things on this trip–MUSSELS!–so what’s so scary about a long pitch black passageway to who the fuck knows?

now, that’s about as far as i stepped down this passageway.  and just barely long enough to snap this picture.   i’m pretty sure i saw the glowing eyes of some rats or the faint flicker of someone’s crystal meth pipe or some pale rat-people who wait until townies come to deliver stupid tourists to them so they can feed on them.  so i left and i’m pretty sure i saw mikey crying when i mentioned that i wanted to climb to the top of the structure.

as we traveled on the northside of the island–i think–we stopped at this rocky section where people have created their own rock sculptures.  there are literally hundreds of them, and despite mikey’s desire to knock them all down, i built my own and hopefully one day when we return to maine it will still be there, maybe even when we return as elderly old men.

after a we rounded the island, we stopped for a bit of ice cream–and when i say a bit i mean like a cantaloupe sized scoop of black raspberry ice cream…hey.  i asked for a medium scoop, i can’t help it that their servings are so large.   since we had some time before the next ferry back to the mainland, we watch these psycho kids jumping off the pier.  it was super high up and these kids showed little regard for their personal safety or the cold ass water.  but gina says it’s like a right of passage among local kids and vacationers.  a right of passage?  hm.   maybe i should do it.  fuck no.

tomorrow we shall head to bah-hahbah.

let’s get some complaining out of the way:  traffic in maryland and jersey sucks.  i borrowed my dad’s jeep grand cherokee hemi and had to fill the tank every twenty minutes.  why there are toll booths on the GSP that are ‘coin ony’, i have no idea.  who carries coins?

whew.  i think those are the only three negative things i have to say about our trip to maine.  it was good to have the truck because the pooch (who is shitting and throwing up everywhere right now–pray for her) had the whole rear cargo area to herself.  i’m not sure taking my (beat up) car would have been the best thing because i don’t know if i could stand having her breathing on the back of my neck for five hours at a time.

our first stop–well, our first stop was supposed to be lunch with mikey’s parents at their home in pearl river, just outside nyc.  that, due to traffic in maryland and jersey, turned out to be dinner, which was fine because i was starving and delia needed to run around in their yard.   then it was another three hours to providence.

i like providence.  it’s small and cute and looks like a movie set on a disney back lot at hollywood studios.  at 8 in the morning when i was walking the dog it’s deserted save for a woman looking very sad sitting on a park bench along the river.

it almost looks like something out of Inception like any minute now it’s going to start folding in on itself and ellen page is going to show up and be annoying.  our hotel was nice and dog friendly.  we went out for a drink or two–the first being this random dive irish bar that amy and i had been to when i was last here in 2001.  i’m pretty sure the same trashy people were sitting at the bar.  then we went to some gay bar that was really small and crowded and whose name i can’t remember.  we didn’t stay out late.

as i always do on vacation, i get up super early so as not to waste the day.  i took the pooch on a long walk around town while mikey snoozed.  then we went to Tazzo for breakfast–mmm…blueberry french toast.

we got to portland super early because, uh, i overestimated just how far away it was from RI.  it really isn’t far at all.  so we checked into the hotel, but our room wasn’t ready, which was fine, so we dropped off our shit and took the pooch out to explore the city.

this is delia and i on the pier:

i thought about quitting DC and becoming a dock worker in portland for a hot second until the thought of winter crept in and i was like, uh, no.  there are no people of color in portland.  or anywhere in maine.  we saw some black people in bar harbor who all had amused looks that sort of said, look at all these white people!  shoot, there are so many of them! seriously, when there’s a cute lil white girl working the hot dog cart, you know you ain’t in dc anymore.  i kept thinking that when Cord goes to maine with grandpa people must think he’s like a unicorn or something.

delia only tried to attack one dog in both portland and bar harbor.  the first, in portland, we were eating at a little creperie in old port and i wasn’t paying attention to the foot traffic passing by our little table.  so of course, there’s some gays with a lab–ps portland is full of gays.  who knew.–and delia pulls a marley and me nearly taking the table, my chair, and my crepe with her.  bad dog.  the one in bar harbor was entirely the fault of some bitch who wasn’t paying attention to her dog because she was too busy sight seeing and let her lab (again–how very maine) wander over to my (restrained) dog.  well, the pooch wasn’t having it, sort of spring boarded off a nearby van and lunged, triggering gasps among the people on the sidewalk.  and i was like, look, i had my dog restrained and bitch here was too busy lookin’ at white lady shops to pay attention to her own dog, not our fault.

anyway:  CREPES!

if only maine wasn’t so cold in the winter, i think i could totally live in portland.  i miss maine already.

i could drive a water taxi.

our first night in portland, my sister Gina took us out to dinner at The Front Room where i had mussels for the first time and they were so good.  i think we ended up having mussels every night on our trip.   after dinner mikey and i headed to a bar called Styxx for karaoke.  now, i know portland is not like a major city, but our arrival at said bar just about doubled the number of patrons.  mikey managed to befriend two misfit toys who seemed to have wandered away from their island:  diana and todd.

todd was the more normal of the two.  diana was batshit crazy.  bitch be CUH-Ray-ZEEEE.  not only did she keep trying to make me eat the free bar food that was sitting ignored by the wall in a hot plate, she herself must have eaten three helpings of the mac and cheese.  i’m sure they had to offer food as some sort of licensing thing, but diana was the only person eating it and to me, that says crazy.

the next day we wandered along the water to Fort Allen Park where delia could go swimming in Casco Bay.  she looks like a drowned rat.

and just up the hill from the park…my new home!

the sad thing is that i probably pay more per month for my 900 sq ft. than these people pay for this house.  sigh.  i want.  ok, we’ll end here for now.  tomorrow, we will explore peaks island (hidden paths to a rave, a blair witch stone garden, and mikey ona bike!) and head to Bar Harbor!

this sort of looks like the gateway to jurassic park, and i will mention that book/film again.

Just trying this out on my fancy phone…and one of my favorite pics from bar harbor. This balance rock, after which our little inn was named

i’ll be working on my photo update this week. i’m back home although really i feel like i should be sitting behind the wheel cursing at women drivers (or those that i automatically assume to be women drivers) on to the next stop on my vacation. sigh. i wish.

breakfast in providence… I will also be updating via my phone on twitter @justmatthenry

so of course i’m just making a million calls trying to deal with my car and one of those calls was to the metropolitan police department to obtain a copy of the police report for my insurance company. see, the MPD will mail a copy anywhere in six weeks which is stupid, but i can pick up a copy downtown as long as it’s ready to go. so i call about five minutes ago and the woman was a such a bitch. sometimes i hate city workers and here’s why:

me: blah blah blah, i was wondering if police report #…. was available and if i might come down to pick up a copy?

bitch: hold on let me look.

me: okay.

bitch: what’s your number?

me: do you mean my phone number?

bitch: NO. i don’t need your phone number. what’s the report number!

me: oh. it’s…

bitch: that report was rejected.

me: well, what does that mean?

bitch: rejected? do you know what rejected means? like rejected.”

me: well, i know what the word means, but i’m not sure i understand what it means for a police report to be rejected

bitch: REJECTED! R-E-J-E-C-T-E-D! like when you put a coin in the soda machine and it spits it out. how you not know what rejected mean?

me: wow. can you tell me why it was rejected then?

bitch: i don’t know. i don’t work there. i work downtown.

….seriously?