Alls quiet on the Pine Tree Front....

ARC Girl at Oktoberfest 2008

Probably shouldn't say that because then all He-- will break loose..but my god it was quiet this week at ARC! Went to the Bangor office on Thursday to break the monotony, pickup some stuff etc and Hillary was feeling the pain too...looks like the "disaster Princesses" have no idea what to do with themselves when there is nothing to do! Literally we had no fires, almost no meetings no disasters, upheavels, major issues or anything to deal with this week....BOOOORINNG!!! So what do we do...catch up on all that stuff we don't have done? Yeah right! Like Lynn says..you guys don't know what to do with yourselves with nothing to do!!

Its true...I tried really really hard to finish up the Northeast Harbor cases which need to go into CAS and I did ...almost! I had a ton of health forms to put in...didn't....did start on my Emergency Services directors course stuff for the workshop at the end of the month...but really did not accomplish a grand lot this week!

Don started in Boothbay on Monday but was back by Tuesday night and worked at Hewes for the rest of the week...then of course all I heard was about the stock Market...had to check the internet before I talked to anyone, every evening...scary stuff. Glad I work for an agency that doesnt have any money to begin with...where can it go from here??

Tylers college fund is taking big hits though! Don't even open the retirement fund envelopes.

Heading to DC next weekend...Diva daughter had a play last weekend that I missed due to Oktoberfest...which was subdued this year!! but fun none the less.

She is designing the costumes for the Mainstage production this fall, so I will see that..and her internship companys show is up and running, will see that also. They have asked her to train with them. They said she has "the look" they want! Hmmm a real job...in theater even! We shall see!

So happy autumn all...oh and by the way...I am the proud owner of my very own ticket to the Drop Kick Murphys concert at UMO next month....god save the Princess!! Have to take Ty and Henry...yikes!

ARC girl

Updates from me!

Hey less than a month and I am posting again....scary!! Things have actually quieted down at work, now that its "officially" fire season and we are getting at least one a day. NOT like this summer when entire villages burnt down, or major apartment complexes, or giant hurricanes as in 4 at a time hit the gulf! I mean really, what's a fire a day compared to all that?

This weekend was a little interesting as an unnamed storm on Thursday all of a sudden decided it needed to form into a Hurricane named Kyle on Friday and head north! Nice! It was a good exercise. Things that had been on my mind to do... like cleaning out the old shelter kits and redoing them..done! Labeling the new cots..done! Getting that order of comfort kits in....done!
Printing off the new forms and shelter handbooks...done! We were ready. Alot of volunteers put themselves on standby. The two affected EMA directors were great to work with, lots of calls and communication, and in the end, nothing to do...but it was good to have a few things in order.

Ty very busy with Soccer. Games or practices take up my afternoon schedule. Show choir and band going well also. Pep band has played at a couple of the games..funny to see the JV's get off the field grab their instruments and go play for the varsity game!

Oktoberfest this weekend...hope the weather is nice. I have alot to do between now and Saturday and little time to do it! good thing I can do this party with my eyes closed mostly!

Well before I fall asleep....good night everyone ARC Girl

Its the Middle of the Night....

Hey, I have time to post....when else do I???? Now I get up at 6, shower, coffee, dry hair and then drice Tyler to school to be there by about 7:45...get some more coffee and head to the office. Check email, eat breakfast, and then start the day....of course the end of the day is now soccer games, practice or something like that in between...picking him up and feeding him and bringing him where he has to be next!

Just read Sib #2's blog who took her oldest off to College for the first time...wait till you do it for the third time and think...I am not sure she is coming home anymore....

And Sib #3, she can't catch a break with her achilles tendons.....and that is why they have that conotation of being you're "achilles"

Sib #5 is apparently engaged...no mass email here to announce this and I have not been formally told, but that is the word thru the grapevine

Lets see what else is going on in my world tonight at 1 am..oh yeah I am officially full time at ARC..duh, been that way for months but had to push to get the final paperwork on it!
Oh and hubby has a new job...In Boothbay Harbor...no we are not moving...he is ...sorta
Kinda one of those commuter kind of things...really good position with Hodgdon Yachts, CFO, and they gave him 4 day weeks, and housing etc. so works for everyone...

Well, I think this foot cramp which got me up in the first place has finally susided and maybe I can go back to bed...See you all in the AM, which means I probably wont see you here again!!
ARC girl

I'm BAAAAAACK.......maybe!

So where has ARC GIRL been you ask??...Well lets see, the last day she blogged July 24..about 5 days later she got a phone call..5;30 am, downtown Northeast Harbor...on fire...Main Street, at least 3 buildings, apartments many homeless. out of control....ARC girls home town.

I drove over, got thru the barricades, parked the car and walked over hoses and past companys of trucks and men to find the chiefs of the operation, They were at the rear end of the buildings that were still completely engulfed. At least 18 homeless they said..not sure of whereabouts...

Hours later I had processed over 22 people, Hillary had come down, and then left, 14 Russian national students had been re housed. The State had been notified there would be documentation issues and I had started to help different organizations set up relief funds, centers and central contact places. It is now September and I am still picking up bits and pieces from this disaster. The home town girl just couldn't be allowed to get away....it was one of the most rewarding yet difficult disasters to date. I did PR, I did fundraising, I did foreign diplomacy and government liasion work, I did chapter health and client case work, I did disaster mental health and psychological first aid and most of all I gave back to a place that gave me alot growing up.

Thank god for Hurricane Season, so I could get out of Northeast Harbor!! Gustav, Hanna, Ike, and Josephine have wreaked havoc with my one week vacation and all the weekends in between as I deploy people and the ERV's to the south. Then the storms think about heading north and everyone up this way wants a volunteer, an ERV, a red cross!! Its the job you love to hate sometimes!!

Then there are the back to school duties..Ty in Ellsworth, JV soccer team, practices etc. Caroline back to DC, life is never dull. Believe me I can run circles around Sarah Palin!!
And quite frankly...The ARC girl is more qualified than her to be a heart beat away from the Presidency! I know CPR!!

Work for ARC? Use a Pencil on your Calendar!!!

Ok...Typical DAY for ARC girl....Thursday July 24 2008 Schedule looks like this:

9:30-11am Volunteer subcommittee meeting at Jackson Lab for MDI Pan flu committee

12:30-4pm Ellsworth office

6pm Peninsula Ambulance Board meeting.

THEEEEN.....the ARC Board of Directors decides to have the Staff interview Patrick Adams for the Executive Directors Job...ok...Cancel Jax Lab meeting. Meanwhile find out that there is a Hancock County meeting regarding Heating crisis at 10am ...nope can't attend that either...have to go to Bangor for the Board meeting.

So, get up, drying hair..power goes out..damn...put hairdryer in car and head to Ellsworth office to get ready for Bangor meeting...phone rings.,.power out in Ellsworth and MDI...hmmm! Call Ralph Pinkham EMA director, he's on his way to EMA, doesn't know whats going on. Phone rings again...power out in Bangor, all of Penobscot county....Hmmmm! Head to EMA....Ralph is talking to the Hydro and MEMA in Augusta...Huge outage...ALL Bangor Hydro Customers are off line! Ok, so we are not going to Bangor today...that meeting is cancelled!!
Governor comes on radio stations that are on the air to say they are working on the issue.
Power comes up in Ellsworth first. Yeah!!!

Ralph and I decide to attend heating meeting...the 'third option' I had for the day..but didnt think I could attend because of Jax lab meeting, and Board meeting. Back to Ellsworth office at 12 noon, by 2pm...TORNADO watches!!!!! All the counties completely surrounding Hancock county...OK!! Me and toto know where to go, the basement at the courthouse!! Its not here in front of these floor to ceiling windows I can tell you that!!

Hillary calls...says "I want a schedule" so we can figure out where to be, how to dress, if we get a shower, and our hair done in the morning?????? Yeah Right!
Welcome to our world...
No Day is ever the same, and NO DAY is ever as you planned!!!

You can not keep a neat date book...so don't even try!!!!!!!!!!!! For some of us type A's this is a very hard thing to get over!!!!

ARC girl...hanging on to the Ruby slippers.

Why do they call it the "MOTHERBOARD?"

So, why DO they call it the MOTHER BOARD??? Do you want to know why I haven't been posting...because of the Mother board...it died!!! Yes I turned my laptop on and it didnt turn on!!
Tried all the things you are supposed to do, no luck. Took it to my husbands office..he turned it on..nothing...took to the IT guy...nothing...so I took it to Circuit City...no Geek squad, but guys in Geeky green polos at a certain desk..."Guy" in polo turns it on...looks at it and then shuts the cover. Says to me..do you want the bad news or the good news first? Just tell me!!!

"Its the Mother Board" Now, I know nothing...NOTHING...about computers and electronics in general except the on/off switch, but I do KNOW that the word MOTHER BOARD means BIG trouble!!! He tells me its gone...so I say what is the good news about all this?? He says, all HP 6000 Mother Boards are failing and have been recalled...I say and this is a good thing????????
Yeah, because you get a new MOTHERBOARD! Well grand!! How much is this, and what about my data and when do I get my computer back??? Free, we will back up your data, and 7-10 days!!

Well, we are on day 5 now and ARC girl is suffering miserably without her laptop...at least she is in her office today with a computer to herself to play on!! It has not been fun! So why do they call it the Mother board..not the father board..because everyone has to have a mother?? Because females are the "control" of everything?? Huh?? I mean seriously why?? Did a man come up with this name?? I am guessing so!!

So what else is up...or down...as the situation may be??? Took three teens to a concert in Portland on Friday.. they had a blast, (Tyler and Kyle even ended up ON STAGE with the band!!) and I went to a barbeque with my sister in law and it ended up being Old Home Week with all these MDI people there!! Some I had not seen in years!
Came home and took Caroline and Aisha out to dinner for Care's 20th and Aishas last meal in the USA before three weeks in Africa on a Grant project. Then took Aisha to the Bus the next morning..She is an amazing young woman! I am so proud of that one!

Then to top it all off coming down the stairs the other night a couple of heavily framed portraits came down and one hit my leg directly on some veins, causing quite a bit of swelling and bruising and alot of pain. I was petrified I was going to have phlebitis or compartment syndrome or something the way it was looking...it went down a little overnight and then I had it looked at the next day..out of work for a day and I am back...no worse for the wear... a little swollen and black and blue...

Well the office is very warm today, no AC for ARC girl...don't want to overstay my welcome today!! Have a good one...and take care of your MOTHER>>board!

People...Keep your fires to yourself!!

You wonder where I've been? ARC girl, deputy director of disaster etc...has her hands full!
What on earth is wrong with people..its summer! In the past week..we have had two apartment fires two trailer fires and three house fires!!!!! IN one WEEK!!!!!!!!! three of them over the 4th!! Not sure what the problem is here but it's one-a-day...two in one town!! Lots of homeless people!! Now if this was the middle of heating season, that would be one thing....NOPE!!!
DO NOT leave your citronella candles burning, or your cigarettes burning out on your porches...!!! And if that was not enough, there were three terrible car accidents on the Blue Hill Peninsula this weekend that invovled kids, life flight helicopters and two deaths from a burning auto..not pretty.

BUT on a nicer note, the weather was perfect for the weekend. Attended the Brooklin Parade, a very small community parade that the former owner of the Sedgwick Store used to have a float in (moi!) and win first prize every year!! Then had some fun friends over for a barbeque, hung around the house on Saturday working on my poor neglected flower beds and pots and enjoying my backyard, the Reach, and the sunshine.

Busy week this week, travel to Washington County, Staff meeting in Bangor and then..taking three teenagers to a rock concert on Friday!!! Wish me luck on that one!!
I'll be "Shippin' up to Portland" for DKM...luckily I am not a ticket holder, just a chauffeur...dont mind the music, but only for about 30 minutes or so..then it starts to sound the same!!
So this should keep me off the list...until next time, "Tessie is the maiden....

Summer in SEDGWICK yoo hoo!

So I have not fallen off the face of the Earth...YET!!! Just a little on the busy side..!! As you can see by the pics Tyler graduated from Sedgwick..Handsome as ever..Class Salutatorian!! Just like his Mom in Junior High. Before he gave his speech, he said "I want to make one thing clear..My mom made me wear this!!" I sure did and he looked Fantastic!! As you all can see..he actually picked out most of the attire! I just steered him the direction of the Mens department instead of the skate board department!!

After Graduation we had a party at the house for family and close friends, that Tyler wanted, including girl friend Becky and her Dad Mark, The Sullivans, Henry being one of Ty's oldest and dearest, Ian, and Bjorn, The Buckinghams and the Dentino's family friends. Caroline and Tyler who have been working on a few duets entertained the group with three numbers, she singing he playing the guitar..including a Rolling Stones song, A Cranberries song and White Stripes piece..this is the first time they have been able to collaborate together as their skills have finally caught up with each other. Pretty cool! and a pretty proud moment for Mom!

A week later Alex came up for a visit from DC..making Caroline the happiest girl on the planet.

Lobsters were the entree on Saturday night..steak and chicken for Caroline and Gretchen who are allergic to the red bugs.

Speaking of RED...the ARC girl does not stop! She gets to Portland tonight on her way to a neices graduation party and there is a three unit apartment fire in Hancock county! Ugh! Spent the night on the phone! The volunteer on call was not reachable tonight for some reason..oh well it was my territory and my fire department guys so we all worked it out over the phone..!

Besides that we have had a National Review of the Floods in Aroostook County, some major upheavals in Portland, been named the State coordinating chapter for Disaster Response until further notice and had another annual meeting!! NOt to mention the midwest is up to its neck in water and the west is on fire...

So, hope you are all having a good start to the summer season..you may hear from me again..before Fall! If nothing else I have to try to stay off Ginnys list!!

ARC girl

THE WALL

Its done! Tyler's eighth grade project! A full wall size mural designed for the Sedgwick School, approved by the Principal and the School Board and finished the week before graduation!!

Big Sis picked him up everyday after school once she got home from college so he could stay late and work on it!! Then took photos for the final display project for Graduation night. Tyler hopes to continue Art in High school

and pursue some type of arts or graphics program in College some day!! Being the first student to ever get his work permanently on the walls of the Sedgwick School is probably a good start on his career...yeah Ty!

She did it!!

Thats right...Aisha Anjali Woodward graduated Saturday from Bowdoin College with a liberal arts degree in Government and Legal studies. I can not say how proud I am of my "other girl"!

She was also the receipient of a couple of grants for further study as well as the award for Initiative in Leadership and Public Service. In a month she will travel back to Ghana to do some

community work after studying there last year. In January she plans to travel to Italy to teach English learn more Italian, study Dante and then apply to Grad school.

She took advantage of every opportunity Bowdoin offered her, and gave it back three fold. She helped research and author the second Mitchell Institute Study on secondary education in Maine, she took two groups of students to the Bronx to teach during spring breaks, and she continued to help find ways to make entrance to colleges like Bowdoin something every Maine student has an option to do...

Whatever effort we put in to getting her there, pales in comparison to how she ran with her education once there...she made everyone that helped in that process very very proud.

It was a wonderful day, sun stayed out as long as possible, the speakers were for the most part very good, the traditions of a campus like Bowdoin are always so nice to see, Alumni in their straw hats, the band marching the grads all over the ENTIRE campus before they hit the stage,

statues dressed in caps and gowns!

We all went out to lunch afterwards, Aisha her two brothers, sister Becky and husband Tom, Nancy Buckingham and our family, to Jamesons Tavern. Then we presented the "little wanderer" with a suitcase, from LL Bean, so she doesnt have to drag back packs and duffels throughout Europe!

She is a wonder and a delight and we are so lucky to have her in our lives...I look forward to seeing what she will accomplish in the years ahead..

Ok she is somewhat back on the planet..sorta

Hello fans...Now let me explain that last blog..I actually wrote this long detailed blog about where exactly ARC girl had been and the darn website lost it so I was just too exasperated and tired to deal so I just left it that way..it actually had a better effect! Besides do you all really care that all I do is work, work and more work...?

Well I do have a little bit of a life if you call going out for a drink at 10 pm in the county after driving thru a hail storm .. and singing broadway tunes from the sirus radio broadway station with Hillary to annoy Pat Adams a life well than there you have it!!

Honestly folks its been nothing but the Bangor office and flooding and FEMA for weeks. With the exception of a quick trip to DC to pick up the diva daughters stuff but not her..she stayed behind for boyfriends graduation and flew home this week... and do you think those people from National ARC left me alone..nope..the staffing person (Beeethhh)
actually called me in the car on the way to Washington..that woman never did get it!! AND I almost had to room with her in the county because there were not enough hotel rooms...I had Pat Adams put a stop to that one!! He of course is now our interim executive director and finding me to be a "tiny bit" high maintenance! I mean really! MOI???

So I have been in the Ellsworth office this week two days...this is a record..I havent been there two days in one week in a month!! Tommorow though I head back to Bangor for Suzans party and then to Portland, as Aisha (my adopted one) graduates from Bowdoin on Saturday morning.

In other news my dearest friend is a new grandfather...as of last Friday. Connor is his name and he is very sweet, I actually had the opportunity to see him as I was in Bangor the day he was born. Grandfather Mark is very proud and quite smitten. As well he should be.

Caroline is home with all her attendant stuff...it will take weeks to put it all away ...and Tyler is slowly finishing up his Elementary school career with his eighth grade project of a mural on the wall of the school..its really quite incredible.

So there you have it...I am alive..and well not necessarily well but getting there!! Looking forward to the long Memorial Day weekend...Hello Super sibs!! xo

ARC Girl

Where oh Where is ARC girl??

"water water everywhere....

So..Do you want to know what ARC girl has been up to? Or do you? Heard of those Floods in Northern Maine?? yep! We have been preparing for such an event for well over a month now...the fact that it would be a 100 year event though is not lost on this newbie to disasters that require DR #'s and telephone calls to Washington DC..because we no longer have a service center..closed the day of the flood!!

Last Wednesday the flood waters reached that 100 year event in Fort Kent and as I was driving to work, I was quickly diverted to Bangor..and with the exception of a quick drive home that same day to pick up clothing I moved up there to take over chapter disaster operations and Hillary moved up to the County. It was "hell on wheels" for a couple of days. The phones literally never stopped ringing...and at times I had my cell on one hand and a regular phone on the other. They rang through the night..and when they were not ringing we were on conference calls..the situation changed rapidly, but nothing was as telling as the calls I got...I had the Chapters phones for all flood related calls, so I would get these calls from some small town, and a person saying...I am flooded out, the roads are all closed where do I go what do I do? Some of these towns were miles from open shelters..some I could not find on maps as I talked to these people thru the night..

Thursday, the National Red Cross gave us a disaster relief number and we started to put into place the makings of an operation..unfortunately without the normal advice of a service center the process was thrown into chaos and it was one of the worst days I have ever spent!! Friday National was up and running..bare bones but none the less we had a place to put our complaints and issues...I started to deploy volunteers from the chapter Hillary meanwhile went toe to toe with the EMA directors and relief operations at the EOC!! I think she was the only woman in that building in Fort Kent!!

By Saturday we were exhausted but we knew we were both going to go home and sleep in our own beds!! She left the county and I left Bangor...
NO the phones have not stopped ringing and things are no where near normal...but we made it thru the first 72 hours and then some and even though the hassels and communications and frustrations have been immense..we haven't lost anyone yet..we are delivering the best our chapter can under the circumstances..and we did when it counted the most!! And we will continue to push forward with this relief operation and in the end will be better directors because of it...

In the mean time send chocolate, coffee and wine in care of Hillary and Gretchen
ARC Pine Tree Chapter...

Playing catch up...

And actually having some time to do so!! Whoo Hoo! After ARC girls week from another place you don't want to go to ...it has been nice to not have the phone ring.



Friday morning Myself and another volunteer drove out to Eastbrook again and met with all the teachers at the school where the young boy attended that died in the fire last weekend. They do not have a guidance counselor on staff, so they are borrowing one from another school. We shared our perspective of the family, the brother and just basic psychological first aid for the students and the staff themselves. Really liked their superintendent, who got them all together for this, and who had done this with other staff before. And that folks was the end of the week, I went back to the office and closed it!!!!! Hillary was going to be at a wedding all weekend but everyone knew my number, I had checked all the weather service flooding reports and everything was status quo except the Canadian Border..and quite frankly...thats not exactly my chapter..so until it becomes bigger than they can handle...I was "going home"



Don went to his Dad's for the night to straighten out Red's finances and go out to camp and check on it...still snow and Ice on the camp road and in the lake!

Tyler had Becky over for dinner so Mark drove her and we had sausages and potato salad and a pre summer BBQ meal for a Friday night! Spring and Summer might actually be on its way!



Now its Sunday, and I have Guiness Brownies in the oven, a couple of sewing projects to do and some free time...what a luxury! Don't think Tyler is looking forward to going back to school but he is definitely on the down hill slide now..Graduation will be in about 6 weeks, with lots of stuff going on, in between including a trip to DC to get Care's stuff. Plus he is in the middle of his mural project, so he has something to keep him very occupied.
So happy Sunday all....

Day off!!!!

The ARC girl had a day off from ARC!! Fresh off two television appearances, phone interviews and basically the weekend from you know where...she took the day off and NO one was allowed to call her cell!!! AND it worked!! Ok, ok, I really don't need an agent, just mental health!!
Besides I promised Tyler I would be at his "Beck and Call" for the day.


Which meant Beck-y! New "friend". So we headed out and picked her up...(the daughter of a dear friend by the way!) and off to Bangor, for some shopping, lunch and a movie. First stop of course though the ARC office to meet Pat and Hillary. Tyler got the full scoop on how the "wanted" poster of his mother came to be, and Hillary and Lynn were overwhelmed by his height! (not that they wouldn't be, sorry girls you are short!). Then off to AC Moore to buy paint for his 8th grade project which is a large mural on one wall at the school. It is the first time a student has ever been given permission to do something like this. He had to take his design before the school board and principal for approval.
After that we had lunch at Chili's, where those two continued to chatter away, which they had been doing since I picked her up in Ellsworth.

Movie for the afternoon was Forgetting Sarah Marshall...funny, cute, and boy do they show alot in an R rated movie now...or am I just a 'conservative mother!!' Yikes! Ok, I know its not PG 13!
Then back to Becky and Marks house for some chili..(and some wine!)

All in All a great day, spent with two kids who just laughed and giggled the whole day, and I didnt have to think, cook, or answer the phone! Of course I did tell everyone if they did have messages for me not to call but just send it in an email...(19) when I got home...still worth the peace and quiet of a true mental health day!! (other than of course that consistent hum coming from those two kids who never ever stopped talking to each other!)

Back to work tommorow ...ARC girl

TM 4/19/08

Do All the Good you Can
By All the Means you Can
In All the Ways you Can
In All the Places you Can
At All the Times you Can
To All the People you Can
As Long as Ever you Can

-John Wesley 1791


All I can say.... after Saturday April 19th, and responding to a fire that resulted in the death of a
12 year old boy, his father the fire chief air lifted to Portland, and a large extended family dealing with their losses, and the complicated scene before them.

This work is hard at times, but I can honestly say that was truly the most complicated and difficult scene I will probably see in a long while. Jean Dickson was my right arm, and did an exceptional job for her first case...the fire departments really leaned on us to take care of certain aspects of the day...and we all functioned exceptionally within the chaos. Everything I have ever learned or read probably came into play. There is much more to do on this case, but for now ..

Enough is Enough...

ARC girl

Calls, Concerts and Conferences..

Ok, there has to be an end to this constant roller coaster ride...called work...yesterday there were two conference calls one was 2 hours long! and I ended up driving to Bangor between them, to help out with an AFES case, ended up getting a fire call and I honestly don't remember what else..and then on the way home I get a call that the fire client lost...LOST the debit card! So I start to head back to the Ellsworth office to activate another one...just as I get to town, they call from Presque Isle to say he found it!! Good thing..I was heading home to pick up Tyler for a concert back in Ellsworth.

Jefferson Starship, which should have just renamed themselves (again!) Jefferson Airplane, because that's the music they did...and quite well...played at the little old Grand Auditorium in Ellsworth Maine. A friend and I took our two teenagers who seemed to just love it. There was a female singer who apparently had the role of Janis Joplin off Broadway and she did Grace Slick like nobody's business. She was worth the concert alone...one of the original members..looking like an old hippie straight out of Haight Ashbury had the audience roaring over his Catholic and Pope jokes...all in all an entertaining evening.

Speaking of which...the diva daughter calls during Conference call #3 this morning and says she is behind a barricade waiting for "his emminence" to drive by in the Pope mobile! An hour or so later I get a picture on my cell phone of the Pope in his little car driving by! So funny, we were in DC the day he was elected, on the campus of Catholic University..that was a trip..all of a sudden it was innundated with Press etc...almost three years ago exactly!

So tommorow I get a quick trip out of town for a conference on Friday on the clinical aspects of emergency preparedness, like how to treat patients with chemical, WMD or biological exposures!
Great breakfast topics!! Get home on Friday afternoon sometime and We head back down to Portland for the weekend on Saturday! Oh well I am not driving....
Thats it from the Ellsworth office today...ARC girl

My Kingdom for a girl....

Don't get me wrong, I love all the boys who clutter up my house...but eventually all that testosterone, plus the husband with the basketball, baseball, golf whatever on TV...it all becomes a little loud, a little dirty and a little old. I begin to crave anything Pink or quiche or chick flicks and I start to count the days until Caroline lands evening out the gender gap in this household.

Tyler and friends are just about the funniest crew going, but they are tall, (most around 6 feet), loud, and messy! And boy do they eat! I left for the grocery store today, after picking up Ian, skate board and a some kinda long skate rail, and was told to get subrolls for sandwiches...Don said we had roast beef for lunch. So I arrive home..counter is cluttered with dishes, cheese, mayo covered knives and a cutting board. Well fine I can eat my sandwich in peace...after cleaning up their mess and putting the grocerys away, I take out one of the rolls I was instucted to buy and go to look for the roast beef....GONE!! I have rolls for a sandwich and nothing to put on them! Jeez!

A while later they reappear with vanilla cokes in their hands..."where did you get those?" Tyler said that he and his dad bought a case of them...(yuck...why not regular?) Tyler says they remind him of the store (my old business!) Ian says "they remind of the first video game he played"..he says this mumbling and I whirl around because I think I have heard something else and say "WHAT did you just say?" He looks at me quizically and repeats what he said. What did you think I said he asks me, by that time I had to tell them..I said I thought you said...

"It reminds me of the first time I got laid" The boys are hysterically laughing at this point because once again they have gotten me bad..and didnt even try!!

They are currently upstairs banging on guitars and making the kitchen ceiling shake....ugh!



So Friday was Ginny's retirement party...a fun time was had by all...Paul Clark and Dave Francoer came up from Portland, Pat Adams stopped running all over New England to come back to the chapter, several volunteers, our staff and John from the board..it was great. Paul and Lynn snapped a ton of pictures including one of Hill and I sneaking up and leaning on Ginnys shoulders! Should be cute! God knows she has been "our Mom" and we will miss her! Paul had Hillary feeling guilty all afternoon with his knee brace, and reminding her that if he had not knelt down in Augusta for her...it wouldn't have happened! She kept asking him if he wanted her seat!
And one month from now a Party for Suzan who leaves us at the end of the month to go to work for the Humane society! She has been a great Exec. but she is ready to move on..so things are definitely changing in ARC girls little world.

This week is Pat Simmons (last!) Hurricane conference call...2 1/2 hours two days in a row..yippee and Pat Adams is having an afternoon "call in show" for us to ask questions about whats happening next in ARC land..so if I cant comprehend anything by Tuesday afternoon its because I have been on the phone..LITERALLY all day!
Tyler and I are going to see *Jefferson Starship* at the Grand that night with a friend and his daughter so that will break up the misery!!
Thursday I head to Portland for an early morning conference Friday on clinical treatment of Bio terrorism, WMD's etc...nice breakfast talk!

So that's it from my post here on Sunday afternoon on the Banks of the Benjamin....the Masters Golf tournament is on TV, the boys are banging on guitars and there are dirty skateboards and sneakers in the mud room....where is Lily Pulitzer when you need her? I need PINK!!
ARC girl

Could it be....

Spring? Two days in a row...sunny, warm...pleasant....its almost too good to be true. Its Maine though and we all know Mother Nature will throw us a curve ball and that awful stuff they call
"poor mans fertilizer" or something like that..in other words the late spring snow storm will eventually happen.

In anycase the sun has made what could be a really rough week exceptionally pleasant for "moi".
Monday morning started with an email, that I was not expecting, in the form of a very late apology from a young man who should have never behaved the way he did in the first place...so 4 months later...I guess he can wait for me to respond to that email...cause I havent quite decided what to write yet....

Then there was ....yep...a fire...Saturday actually but in typical Hancock county fashion...oops. We didn't call the Red Cross...so I get the fire Chief on the phone, and then plan to head out to Sullivan...BUT not before going to my office to check on ......YOU GUESSED IT....the FURNACE!!! Yes, ARC girl stopped into the office on Sunday to take care of shelter drill messes and such, and no heat....so she goes down to the dreaded basement and finds out the oil tank is empty....OH JOY! Calls the building manager...the ever helpful Nancy...and leaves message...
Calls Hancock Oil on Monday morning who says...no cash no oil....The owner of this mall is about 800 years old and on his way out and living in New Jersey!! So I call Suzan, the Exec Director and she is not in a good mood and asks me what do I want her to do...well I say, I have called everyone...but my hands are tied otherwise and I do not have the check book! She then ordered some oil....and then a little later in the morning..She called a meeting and resigned her position as Exec Director!!! Yeow! (not because of the oil mind you!)

So Monday, is going well...fire client just barely got out of her house, lost several pets and all her and her husbands belongings...I saw the house...the fire was devastating. As all fires are, this burned very hot and hard from the looks of it. We are up to 127 fires now...a real record year and a huge strain on the disaster budget, director has resigned effective end of the month, Flooding is still imminent in the county and elsewhere, and the furnace...but its sunny.

Its Tuesday and Sunny again. and warm..Red Sox are back at Fenway, Tyler is out on his skate board every afternoon ....meetings today, new volunteer from CA who will be an excellent addition to our chapter with an ever decreasing staff of directors!! Someone asked me if I was going to leave today and I said "heck no...I am going to stay to watch this whole thing shake out, I certainly do not want any of their jobs, but it will be an interesting next few months...no service center, new emergency services dept...new executive director or acting director...BIA drill and of course that omnipresent threat of floods from 18 feet of snow in the county!!

So off to Bangor tommorow...get the car in for service and meetings at the office...maybe it will be Sunny again!!!

ARC girl has Spring fever!

No rest for the weary...or is it the wicked?

So here they are in all their Glory...the Princesses of PTC....the disaster dynamic duo....ARC girl and the Gigabyte queen herself..Miss Hillary. We survived about 50 boyscouts, 20 something college students from New Brunswick, 12 or so PTC and two Portland Chapter volunteers, EMA directors from Hancock and Penobscot county, a slew of fire and police men, parents, scout leaders and a somewhat surly janitor! Oh and the Press and Sib #3 Kim in the Gym who happens to live in Brewer and of course had to see what was going on in the Gym!!



After a long day at the office and a BIA drill meeting at EMMC we headed to the auditorium and set up, with in a half an hour the first casualty walks into my health office holding his hand and dripping blood into the sink....John Buckwalter! He was trying to open a cot that snapped on his finger tip...it was a nice little mess! Who would have thought I would do Staff health before the clients!! Luckily as far as nursing goes he was the worst of it...the rest were basically "bandaids for boyscouts"..kid you not!



The kids arrived just after the "power failure" and we went on the generator. Supper was spagetti and salad.. and then it was a kids everywhere...although some were working on merit badges. Noise level did get a little high on decibels in the gym...Lots of papers, TV and radio came around to talk to us...The EDGE, an alternative paper had their editor sleeping over with his son and a reporter there..they brought copies of their April fools edition which we were all sitting around reading about 9:30 (waiting on those late college kids) I got to the Horoscope page, read mine and thought wow, that was a good one, so I read a significant others and .....

IT WAS THE SAME HOROSCOPE!!!!!! They were all the same!! April Fools! Cell phone rang and Sib #3 had to come over and join the fun for a few minutes...she and Brenda Moody quickly hit it off and sat there making jokes back and forth! Kim said "really you guys nothing this exciting ever happens in Brewer!!" We had hit the big time...of course we couldn't convince her to stay...as the college kids started to arrive..one van at a time....

By 11 pm Hillary and I told the volunteers they were all set to be on their own and we headed to her apartment for a few hours sleep, but not without a glass of wine first! That of course was only about 4 hours and then we were back over there by 5:30 to help with breakfast checkout clean up and so forth.
All in all it was a great drill, we learned what we need and what we can do better and what we do well and that we really can open a shelter if need be...like when the St John floods in the next month or so!

ARC girl is quite exhausted, and she has a big dinner date tonight she cant really get out of as its been on the calendar for two months!!! Oh well...I guess I better get off this couch and find something decent to wear and some makeup for those dark circles under my eyes!!!

Keeps the flood waters at bay please....and dont start any fires....I am tired!!!

Bandaids for Boy Scouts

Oh I am soooo looking forward to Friday night when ARC girl and the Gigabyte queen, alias potato blossom, alias the New Emergency Services director of the Pine tree chapter..Miss Hillary and myself get to host 75 to 100 boy scouts at a shelter at the "posh" Brewer Auditorium. Oh and get this ...about 20 extra homeless college students from Canada who are supposed to be staying at UMO, and apparently there is no room there will also be "bunking with us"!

Big Daddy Paul, blew out his knee so he will not be coming up from Portland to take care of the kids..(Hillary and Gretchen), which means we have no one to whine to!! He does entertain Potato Blossom and Sunshine!...darn.

Patrick seems to think he's going to grab sib#3 who lives in Brewer and hit a few pubs and then finish up with a bar in the Parking lot...right! My friend Mark said he'd actually bartend inside...oh and that goes sooooo
well with ARC and Boy Scout law! He seems to think Hillary and I will need it....medicinally of course! Uh Huh. Guess I better check with the Chapter health Nurse about that!

Speaking of the Chapter Health Nurse...alias ARC girl..she spent the day making sure there were enough bandaids for the boys...as well as cough syrup, tylenol, ace bandages and... antidiarreah medicine in case we have those kind of issues! Packing up the chapter disaster health kit, and taking inventory. Of course she almost ended up a casualty herself when she unlocked the little ERV door and a 55mph wind gust blew one of the doors back at her head...she moved just in time!!

Tommorow after a trip to Seal Harbor for a meeting I will pack up the health kit and protocols and hope for the best and you all better be thinking about us...this is not a choice way to spend your Friday night you know!!!

ARC girl....whining already..and its only Wednesday night.....

I wouldnt be ARC girl without her....

Ginny that is....first of all she hired me! I really had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I knew I wanted to work for a nonprofit..afterall I was working on a Masters Certificate in Non profit management..and well I had done the "own your own business thing" and the work for someone else and everyone else as a Nurse thing so this seemed like the next step..

I had no idea what the job was, afterall it was a tiny ad in the BDN, and it was for a part time job in Ellsworth...worked for me! Well Ginny and Suzan convinced me this is where I *needed* to be! I wanted that job after the interview...it seemed exciting, challenging and different than anything else I had ever done....and guess what ...IT IS!!!

Ginny was a great boss, friend, mentor and teacher! The respect she garnered from her volunteers, staff, and emergency services people across the state just amazed me! Everyone knew her..!

So somewhere along the line, Ginny starts a blog...and of course she lets us in on the site so we can read it...and of course comment if we want...well in order to comment you have to have a webname. Which means you can actually blog yourself...for awhile I used to just comment on her blog, but then one day that Ellsworth office got pretty boring and I was probably just in the right mood and "ARC Girl" just hasn't gotten off her soap box since.
Lynn came on and Hillary came on....(for awhile)...

Of course I then had to get the sibs on line...and the super sibs...(the upper echelon of the Wilson family) have a place to chat, and read whats going on in each others jobs...so Ginny...really put ARC girl on the map...even when it meant fending off "blog invasions" like Patrick and friends when the Velcro incident occured...

Ginny, you have made my life fun, at times way too exciting, with my job...and given me alot to
remember and laugh about...and if you can't find me anywhere else....I bet you will still find me here!!!

with Love,
ARC Girl

For Ginny...I did the questionaire

45 ODD THINGS
45 ODD THINGS (FROM AUNT SUSIE)1. Do you like blue cheese salad dressing? YES love it.

2. Have you ever smoked heroin? No. 3. Do you own a gun? No 4. What's your favorite drink at Starbucks or other specialty coffee shop? Latte, no flavor just regular











5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? No. 6. What do you think of hot dogs? good grilled or in a ball park with relish



7. Favorite Christmas song?Oh come all ye Faithful 8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Coffee with cream 9. Can you do push ups? Don't like to!10. What 's your favorite piece of jewelry? My grandmothers pearl necklace 11. Favorite hobby? sewing 12. Do you have A.D.D.? No, but I could be getting it...13. What's one trait that you hate about yourself? Interupting people 14. Middle name? Anne

15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment. I have to stop making this survey skip so many spaces, I need to check on the laundry, and I want to listen to my new cd.









16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Coffee. white wine and water. 17 Current worry right now? Tyler and getting him thru the end of eight grade. 18. Current hate right now? endless snow 19. Favorite place to be? someplace warm 20. How did you bring in the New Year? not sure didnt do anything special 21. Do you like to travel? Yes,.22. Name three people who will complete this? no idea 23. Do you own slippers? Yes24. What color shirt are you wearing? lavender 25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? no 26. Can you whistle? Very little .27. Favorite color? Blue. 28. Would you be a pirate? wouldnt want to be mean 29. What songs do you sing in the shower? I hum 30. Favorite girl's names? Caroline, Grace 31. Favorite boy's name? Andrew, Peter 32. Whats in your pocket right now? nothing 33. Last thing that made you laugh? a friend who told a very bad joke, and just couldnt stop laughing 34. Best bed sheets as a child? Don't remember 35. Worst injury you've ever had? hit in the vertebrae by a chairlift 36. Do you love where you live? Love it, I dont my view for granted.37. How many TVs do you have in your house? 2 38. Who is your loudest friend? Amy 39. How many pets do you have? 1 cat 40. Does someone have a crush on you? yes 41. What is your favorite book? The snow goose by Paul Gallico 42. What is your favorite candy? really good chocolate preferably european 43. Favorite Sports team? The RedSox What were you doing 12 AM last night? Talking with a friend 45. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? "I'ts nice to be here"

And the weather is......

SNOW.....again....what is this?? I woke up and the ground was covered with a blanket of heavy wet stuff. YUCK! I mean really! Another wonderful drive in over unplowed Sedgwick roads which now have frost heaves on their frost heaves. I didnt even bother to take the shovel to the ramp...it will melt by tommorow anyways.

Tonight Hillary and I are going to Penobscot Theater Company's production of Little Shop of Horrors! I have not seen the play since Caroline had the lead as Audrey. Everyone seems to think I will have a hard time with that...not so...and the reviews for this particular production have been very good. Hill's best bud Dominick has several parts as well as Orin the dentist, so that will be fun. We plan to meet up at Paddy Murphys for wine and dinner and I am spending the night in town. Its been a crazy busy two weeks, with meetings and stuff so I am looking forward to it.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend....regardless of the winter weather that just will not end!

Heat.....not in my job description!

So I am not sure this week has been any better than last! Busy and of course the typical issues for ARC girl...she goes into the lovely ARC office on Monday and finds by the door a pile of trash from the weekend class..she immediately walks it outside to the dumpster....which is GONE!
Yup GONE! OK, so she goes inside the inner office and immediately she knows....its that crisp chill and extreme silence of the furnace and fans...NO HEAT! OK...no heat no dumpster! She calls the building manager, a flighty type who says "oh you can use my dumpster"...up at the next building! And she will call about the heat...well then before I can take my coat off...and quite frankly who wants to take their coat off the phone rings....

Yep, someone calling from a Hospital in Lincoln about a guy (patient) who escaped his burning home last night and needs ARC assistance. So a half hour later, and trying to work this scenario long distance, I get him somewhat squared away and call the building manager back...no answer.
So I call the oil/heating co. did she call and report our furnace trouble? Why yes she did but you need to call her....hmmmm, I tried I tell them..when are you coming....You need to talk to her they say...TRANSLATION: we are not coming!!

ARC girl is very unhappy by now and just a little cold...its 20 degrees at the end of March! Its 19 degrees in my office...so she forwards the phones and takes the trash into her car and drives up to the next building to put trash in "her dumpster" and find the woman!!! No luck, and my rear hatch all of a sudden wouldnt open and I got covered with salt and sand and had to go into the back of the van and drag the trash out thru the side doors. OK we are really unhappy now..so we go looking for "Nancy" building manager..no where....so just to make myself feel better we drive the van thru the car wash...at least my coat wont look bad! Then back to the ARtiC office.

Turned on all the little electric heaters I bought when we had the last little incident and tried to work....luckily a friend took me out to lunch to warm up! Nancy finnally calls back and says "was I supposed to call you?" HELLO! I say...well Hancock Oil said I needed to speak with you ..whats going on? Oh well the owner hadn't paid the last repair bill and until they got some money...no furnace repair! So I tell her, I will be in the Bangor office (thank god!) the next two days, but hopefully it will be fixed by then......

Tuesday morning...18 degrees, I call her on my way to Bangor...Nancy maybe you ought to go check the pipes in the office..."oh you think so?" Hmmmm! Tuesday afternoon, I have to go to office to pick up and drop off stuff to go back to Bangor on Wednesday...no heat.

Wednesday morning..snowing! I don't bother to call, I really don't want to know, besides I have to go to the office in the late afternoon before going to EHS for a concert. Yep you guessed it...no heat..its really cold in there by now. But I notice someone has at least been by to check the pipes. I call Nancy and leave her a message that I will be in by 9:30 am and I expect a phone call and there is still no heat!

Thursday morning...25 degrees its really warming up! (yeah right) I drive in, and think, this is just going to be an awful day..no heat and negotiating with this woman..so I decide I need a latte.
Then I decide maybe I need a hot breakfast sandwich too! So I arrive at the office drag my stuff and self up the ramp and open the main door...front hall way is warm from the sun, I am thinking maybe I can move a desk out here...I put the key in the inner door and then I hear it...the loud and obnoxious sound of heat!! HEAT, I open the door and it blasts me in the face.
My day is made.. nothing can ruin it now ....I have HEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So for all you non ARC people who have your cushy offices and take your heat and hot water for granted (and electricity for that m atter) just remember us non profits who "suffer for the sake of saving humanity" from famine flood and fire!! I really do need that cape!

And tommorows Friday....ARC girls favorite day!

A Month in a Week, A week in a day....

It was not a quiet week( was it really just one week?) for ARC girl. I seem to remember it getting busy last year in the Spring but this is ridiculous. Monday, a national holiday according to my son..St Patricks day, I sat in front of a computer for 6 hours putting shelter info from a National web site to a spread sheet made up by some "brilliant service area employee" who by the way got a pink slip last week. This redundancy report has taken me about a week all told, between downloading the info that I have gathered to put into the National data base, and then put it into this spread sheet that will ..get this be for "our use" when the data is looked at, and then sent back to us.

So after finally finishing that task, I took the one day I had left in my office this week to clean up, (Wednesday) unfortunately after lunch...all you know what broke loose. First there was Armed Forces Emergency Services Call, for a service member whose mother was undergoing immediate surgery,..they could not find him, the situation deterioriated as the afternoon went on, and after all the back and forth phone calls, the service member was actually not in the States as thought but on a plane to Kuwait, and the mother unfortunately passed away. It was one of the rougher calls I have had. Then I check my email and they are predicting that the storm coming in on Thursday is going to "blast" Aroostook County! As well as cause icing else where, so I email my EMA director,that I will be in Augusta at the Emergency Management Agency, but he can get me by phone..
Then I have my coat on..to leave and phone rings..Fire in Otis..Family with kids, no one home but could I come..? As I am talking to dispatch , I look up and my EMA director Ralph walks in the door to discuss tommorows weather...jeez!

I say Ralph, this has not been an easy day and its not getting any better, and you need to listen to my day before I hear what you want..so I fill him in and he says...I had no idea about the seriousness of this storm, I was in Augusta and got a text on the way home.. I said hey,,.you have my cell but I have to go to Augusta tommorow..He was headed for Kona's for a drink and I said "its better than Otis to a fire..and off we went.

Made it to Otis, house was completely gone, but looked like it had been a beautiful home. Large field stone fire place and cathedral ceiling at the front. Unfortunately no one had gotten in touch with the owners so I say and waited until she came home, not knowing she had no home to come to. To say the least it was one of the tougher cases I have done.

I drove back to the office around 7:30 pm and did some paperwork and finally headed home around 8:30. I am pretty sure I did a months worth of work, at least emotionally in one afternoon. One of the rougher days I have had with ARC.

Thursday and Friday was spent with all the Emergency Service people around the state working on our disaster plans at MEMA. It was a good two days, tiring, but none the less worth doing and always good to connect with everyone else that if the you know what ever hits the fan we will be in the trenches with!!

Today Friday, the EOC was getting messages all day from Aroostook county where roads were closed due to white out blizzard conditions and roofs collapsed including at a dairy farm where several cattle were trapped underneath..not a pretty picture from our northern most part of the chapter..Today being the first full day of spring mind you!

Well its the weekend..started with ST Paddys day and ends with Easter...today being Good Friday,,,I am not sure but is 4th of July next week? Someone let ARC girl know...she is confused and tired!!

Happy St.Patricks Day

Happpy St. Paddys day from Me and Van the Man! The concert was just grand, Tyler and I had a wonderful time in Boston and the songwriter from Northern Ireland was the consumate entertainer.

As sib #2 had said, he does not do alot of talking to the audience except to tell us what he is playing but, he does get the audience off their feet with his blues/jazz revival style that has everyone clapping along with some of his pieces. He arrived on stage in a suit, sun glasses and fedora..all of which he kept on the entire time. He sang for an hour and 45 minutes not bad for a 62 year old guy and when he wasn't singing he was playing his sax. A good portion of the concert was the new CD Keep it Simple sandwiched with old favorites such as Moondance and Brightside of the Road, as well as lesser known Vanlose Stairway, and of course Gloria for the audience encore.

We had wonderful seats in the orchestra at the Wang Center, and I would not have traded it for anything...Boston Globe gave it a so so review but the audience comments on the web..said it was one of his better live performances in years! I'll take it after a 30 year wait!!

In other Holiday News..the Diva Daughter calls from the New York City St Patricks Day Parade...that child takes after her mother...right place at the right time..even sent me two pics on my cell and held it up to the pipe band going by...thanks Care..enjoyed it while I worked on an excel spread sheet all day! Brother Ty wore his Drop Kick Murphys t-shirt to school today and then off to Henry Sullivans to record more video for You Tube..you don't want to see it believe me!

Corned beef, guiness and an Irish coffee for dessert...can't ask for more my friends..

Happy St. Patricks day all......ARC girl

The Princess of Pranks

Soooo, apparently "someone" had a little tiny problem with their computer in the ARC office on Friday! Seems his computer had been just "slightly" altered to write a few phrases when certain common words were typed...you know words like "The", "You", and "I", for example when the word "I" was typed it said.."I am in awe of ARC girl Gretchen!" Hmmmm!
Quite clever I would say!.....especially when all were in doubt of ARC girls capabilities to really get some sweet revenge for the "velcroed office".

I of course was on my way to Boston, when my cell rang and Pat said he was having some trouble working! I did enjoy all the inter office emails as well as the ones from Super Sib #3.

I suppose I will pay dearly for this "little" prank of mine...but to all of you who had doubts the ARC girl, prevailed...for the day anyways!

"The..Princess of Pranks"

...And the Caravan is on its way...

Tommorow we head out to Bean town. Early so we can beat the traffic in and out, and have some time to do whatever. Van concert is at 7:30, have been told to try PF Changs for dinner which will no doubt please Tyler.

So I knew my site was popular..but when you can google Van Morrison and get the ARC girl..see comments on last entry..things have truly gone to another level or have truly gotten out of hand.
Innocent enough I guess, afterall as Caroline would say..MOM she just wanted to know what to wear!! And we all know the O'Grady women have a passion for clothes. So good luck to Alison whomever she may be.

Off to a jazz concert at the high school...and then home to pack..

..."turn up your radio, and let me hear the song..." vm ARC girl who is beyond excited!!

TWO DAYS to GO!!

THIS BROWNEYED GIRL WILL BE IN BOSTON FRIDAY NIGHT IN THE ORCHESTRA AT THE WANG TO FINALLY SEE ......VAN MORRISON!

HER DATE FOR THE EVENING..TYLER!

Its been almost thirty years and counting the days...to see my most favorite performer for the first time!


ARC girl...on her wavelength...

Just how did this happen?

How did I get so busy? And exactly where does my day go? Yeah I can hear the answers now from some of my loyal readers....
Today..I was in the office by ten, answered a dozen phone calls and emails and then decided the NSS ..National Shelter Survey web site which does not like me presently, after trying to run some reports yesterday, so I ignore that report due next week and start to put together a presentation for some girl scout troop that I have to do at 2:30 in Brooksville. Just as I get the place torn apart with bandages, slings and stuff everywhere and am making my notes a fire client walks in, who was supposed to show up yesterday...He actually asked if we were just moving in..I guess I really made a mess today!
All of a sudden its 1pm..and I have one hour to load the car not only for the girl scouts but for a trip to the Bangor office tommorow which includes 4 boxes of stuffed animals ..don't ask! I remember when I wondered what my next project was going to be..now I wonder how I am going to finish what I started...good thing I like this job!

The drive to Brooksville was a treat...more of the Blue hill Frost heaves with tons and tons of road sand thrown in for good measure! But the girl scouts were adorable and so involved in the whole first aid thing..love it!

Finnally there is the ever persistent problem of the ARC girl having to deal with the obvious exaggerations and rude comments by others to her website. You know those people who have to make a DQ sundae out of a simple banana!!! I mean really!
And note to Sib #3, do you really think that I am quite done with my plans for retaliation?
Honestly...get your mind out of the gutter and give the princess of emergency planning a little more credit!

Work weekend

Back from a long weekend in Rockland Maine! The PineTree Chapter hosted a leadership institute for volunteers, with advanced classes that are not always available in our chapter or even in the State. We brought in instructors from other chapters and taught National courses, it was a complete sucess and as always there was fun to be had.
Hillary should get five gold stars for our accomodations. Since the "Bates Motel" episode in Aroostook County we have really upgraded. She booked all the instructors into a new Hampton Inn in Thomaston.. well I have never been to a Hampton Inn with Granite counters and sinks, tile showers, a bath room as big as my two (ok, well almost!) a king bed with duvet, and a really nice room! The place was brand new and obviously one of their "new concept" models or something! I remember going into a Hampton Inn somewhere and it was very very basic. There was a nice room for breakfast and the place was spacious and airy. Couldnt really ask for more.
Friday I drove down with plans to get to the office by 11, made a quick stop at the Market Basket and out walks Maureen Predham! Well that was 30 minutes! We had not seen each other in quite awhile. Bubs birthday was that day and she was picking up the cake so I wrote a note on the box to him...six years tommorow they lost Hillary.
Got to the Rockland Office and "happened" to be the one to answer the phone..AFES call! It ended up being an all day all evening event...everytime I turned around, they were calling me back wanting more info..by the time I got to the institute they called to say "they could not find the service member..no such person or something to that effect!" Great. Several phone calls later it was resolved. Taught a class Friday night and then a large group of us went to Applebees which was next door to our hotel for liquid re..juvenation! Hillary and I stayed up late
talking, and "being girls"..bed at 1am!
SAturday I got to TAKE a class...taught by the Irish Man himself, Patrick.. who taught us all about Diversity! I did manage to find a small square of velcro and velcroed his banana to the front desk... "teachers pet" that's ARC girl!~ It was actually a good class with alot of great funny moments and discussions.
Saturday night Paul our MEMA liasion came to dinner and said his wife called and wanted to know "how are the kids?" meaning me and Hillary..After dinner she convinced me to go to the pool with her after we had hunted down a bottle of wine of course!..I never ever go to pools in the winter.. but I did. A quick couple of laps and then the hot tub, then up to bed thank you!
Sunday I was just plain tired...Daylight savings time..too much on a weekend like that.
Long drive home at 4:30...
Patrick picked up a Drop Kick Murphys T for me for Tyler that he was thrilled with! Suppose he will have to wear that to Boston this weekend sometime!
So I am off for the rest of the day..quiet in the office..good thing!

"Dodged the bullet" as Ralph put it!

I am actually sitting at home typing this...if you said this morning during that potential Ice Storm this is where I would be I would have laughed in your face...Thank heavens it went it's jolly way..but things did not look promising this morning for ARC girl in Hancock county!

It all started yesterday when as I said MEMA held its 107th conference call of the year..and my EMA director said nothing then showed up at my office to say that his office would NOT be manned today and he gave me his cell and email and that he would direct everything from Portland..yep that was confidence inspiring. So this morning its 29 degrees, sleeting and there is a 2 hour delay for all the schools..what does that tell you what the roads are like? Then I hear on my favorite morning show that power lines are down on the Deer Isle Causeway..so I check my Bangor Hydro sites and sure enough 1100 people without power...before I even get to the office!

So I go out to start the car..by the way ENCASED in ice!! So I let that run for awhile and pack up..as I figure I am not coming home for the night..just easier to stay in town under the road and power condititons especially if Ralphie is going to be Outta town! The drive in is pure hell! I have driven thru alot this winter but ususally I hit a good road after awhile no such luck today..30 something miles of ice and slush and snow and ice pellets hitting the window..took me one hour!!

I get in the office and some "crazed" health and safety instructor decided to take her anger out on the H and S dept by throwing a lot of cpr stuff all over the floor! Nice! Professional too!
Now if she thought about it..she would know that it would have been "me" that had to pick it up and not anyone that she really wanted to offend! Hence making my morning all the more pleasant.

The weather got worse and worse with driving icy rain, power outages etc and I figured I was a resident of Ellsworth..but then it all let up..Just as Ralph called to check on everything..power had been restored at that point to everywhere except Washington county and I was just not going to worry about them today(even though I usually give them a call) and things seemed to calm down nicely! Ralph happy and calm=ARC girl happy and calm!

So I came home and hung up my cape...until tommorow anyways...

Back to ARC girls site.....

So I have left this post alone for a couple of days hoping all these people having a conversation on my site would quiet down for the time being...and they have. Good, I have work to do.

Another storm coming in tommorow and of course the State EMA decided to have a conference call..#107 of the winter.. they are rather monotonous by now and quite frankly, we have had no real issues except some minor flooding Valentines day storm. So I took it in stride until they called role and my local EMA director said he had no questions nor did he have any comments...very rare for him! So about an hour later he shows up on my door step to say I need to let you know the EMA office will be unmanned tommorow and I am counting on you and a few others as I will be directing any issues from Portland! ooookaaay! Now nothing usually happens around here. But..leaving ARC girl in charge? I said really Ralph.."you're leaving me alone up here?" Yep, you can do it! He said I've called the Hydro and I have all your numbers, and I will stay in close contact with you...yuuuh! So everyone..pray for rain, no ice, no wind! Thank you!

In other life changing events tonight is the Basketball awards night...Tylers last one at Sedgwick, but even more so.. His Dad's last one as Basketball Coach. I think Don is going to miss that job very very much. He loves those boys, and coaching has really been a great thing for him..I think if something similar comes along he will take it up again. He is an excellent role model and a great coach for young kids as he doesnt have that "win under all costs" attitude..yet he does try to get them to do their best..I have seem him really grow in this position over the past four years.
I am afraid it will be rather bittersweet..I hope he can replace it with something as special.

Off to Rockland and the ARC institute at the end of the week..more on that later I am sure.

ARC girl

Traffic control

My goodness, did someone put out an ABP on the ARC girls website...there is more "traffic" on this site than Curt Schillings after the series...5 comments and they are all to "each other" on the "en garde" post! You people all need to get a chat room! Then they continue with the "confused Kym and the "charming" cough, cough,.. Patrick dancing on the comments page of my last entry.




So lets see if I can straighten it all out...





1.Ginny takes no responsibility for letting anyone know where ARC girl resides..


- That would be true..unless you are a member of her site..and we all know that the current "interlopers" are not..Ginny is responsible for the ARC sisters being on line..the digital land of estrogen that someone so kindly nicknamed it...
Perhaps you would like to tangle with Ms. Barboza ....she knows how to show a guy the door!



And yes 'Kym in the Gym' she knows how the "Super Sibs" came to be a branch of the ARC girls site. In other words Ginny speaks the truth! Unlike some who claim to get their info thru the breezes of the "pine tree's..... chapter"...because of their wit and charm....





2. Patrick claims to have inner knowledge from the ARC camp....the "gigabyte queen" informs me she in no way is involved in Velcro wars.. Sisters are sisters after all...that bond is stronger than any VELCRO!





3. Patrick and the Knight want to meet for a pint...

- 'shudder'..you know the old Irish saying "the truth comes out when the spirit goes in"

that could be a potential nightmare for the Princess/ARC girl, best to keep them in their seperate kingdoms. They are both too clever for their own good! and perhaps way too much in common...



4. Kym in the Gym wants to know if the Irishman is taken...
Me's thinking,
-the answer there would be "Kate the great"! Anyone who puts up with the antics of Paddy Walsh deserves a royal title.......so don't fall for his smooth lines that's the whiskey talking...
(I know all about what kind of trouble Sir Jameson can get you in to!) Stay away from the
on line "nudges" as he calls them too! Hmmmm, eerie.
He's clever..but he velcroed your sister!



Now does that take care of all of you...? After all this is MY website or did you all lose site of that? If not I may have to change my name and go somewhere else! You'd all probably find me though!



So guess what its snowing..storm #327 or is it 328? Can't recall. Wish I had saved some of that left over velcro from my desk top this week, might need to throw it on the roads since the State now claims to have run out of salt..of course Sedgwick never had any in the first place! Doesn't look like this is going to stop anytime soon either. JOY! March first, looks like it could be a white ST Patricks day too!



Speaking of which the ARC girl and that celtic rock loving son of hers just got their Van Morrison tickets in the mail for the concert in Boston St Paddys day weekend. Actually Friday night the 14th. The Wang Center! This girl can not wait..its been an almost 30 year wait to see him in concert. I started to enjoy Van Morrison's music in college and have never had the opportunity to see him live. Tyler always said he would be my date...so we will be off for Bean town on the 14th. Ty says he hopes he doesn't have to wait 30 years to see Drop Kick Murphys live!



Well other than you all enlivening my blog the only excitement for the day besides watching the snow fall from the window seat is the laundry that keeps calling my name....yes I hear it now..

or is that one of Patricks leaves of Barley whispering to me?

The snowed in ARC girl/aka Princess

Stand down..ye warriors

Good heavens how did there get to be so much testerone in the room? The ARC girl, aka the Princess of Sedgwick requests that the warriors retreat to a pub, have a pint and leave the lassies well enough alone! ( By the way take any left over velcro with you!) Yes Patrick I did get the message..Patrick 3...Gretchen 0.... not sure where your figures come from but we all know the Irish can't count. Not to worry..all good things take time.



As for the ARC sisters giving in the goods...WRONG! and blaming Hillary! of all People!!? Sorry but the shoe and purse girl could never ever go for velcro over the real thing. To think that I would fall for that. More like a restless and bored Irishman with nothing to do with his days except check the daily blogs of his coworkers. Or perhaps worried that the ARC sisters might be talking about ye. As for knowing who Kym is...are we reading more than the ARC sisters blogs? We really do have time on our hands! What tree are we barking up?



Now as for the appearance of the Mysterious Knight...in shining armor I presume...another silent fan of the ARC girl's escapades up until now? I wonder what phrase or word ended up on some search engine to lead you to her domain? She thanks you for your chivalry and protecting her honor on line, but do you have the antidote for velcro toxicity?
And she cant help but
wonder how much of the gold you quaffed before announcing your presence....



So Super sibs and ARC sisters I can only hope these two find a corner pub, and leave the ARC girl to continue saving the world from famine, flood and fire as well as raising those two delightful urchins, Ty and Care. By the way the junior Princess of Sedgwick cut off ALOT of her hair yesterday and now really looks like her Mom. Shoulder length and she says ..no its not the same cut as yours!! And the Prince is due for a hair cut , or should I say overdue for a hair cut tommorow..he says it will affect his stress level in taking the MEA's on Monday..ARC MOM said get over it!!

well off for the night..snow..imagine that tommorow..please no conference calls its only a snow storm for heavens sake..
ARC girl needs a day off after this week of pandemics, fires and velcroed phones.

en garde

Well, Well, seems as if ARC girl has gone public...not that her blog isn't in the public domain, but the fact that the IRA can find it amongst all its empty kegs of Guiness, barrels of Irish whiskey and leftover packages of Velcro,and of course the thousand post it notes... leaves her wondering what is sacred anymore!! Wonder who the let the "cat out of the bag" or the "sheep out of the paddock" as Patrick would say!

Since we know it wasnt one of the Super sibs as they have no clue who Patrick is and he is still trying to figure out who Kym in the gym is...we can only guess it was one of the ARC Sisters!!
Hmmmm.

It doesn't change things though, war is war! Be forwarned Paddy, my moat is protected from maruders and pirates and cupcake wielding puppets and you will pay for your little schemes.
One doesnt cross the ARC girl or the Princess of Sedgwick more than once!!

In other worldly news the ARC girl helped prevent mass panic and lawlessness on MDI today as we worked through a table top drill that involved a cruise ship landing with a pandemic strain of flu at the same time as a tourist bus crashes on the Trenton Bridge disabling the bridge for 12 hours or more! Meanwhile during the drill, all the firemen get up and leave because there actually IS a fire on MDI..the chief comes back and puts me on alert..in case they need assistance for the family. Meanwhile my cell phone emergency text goes off telling me this and that road is closed due to the fire...geez! Luckily the fire damage as far as what was relayed back to me was minimal and I stayed at the exercise. All in a days work..luckily there was no velcro in the room.

Then it was off to another open house for 8th graders this time at EHS..which is where Ty is going whether he wants to or not...and fortunately it was a great night..he was impressed with the offerings both in academics and extracurricular and it didnt hurt that a few cute girls already at the school seemed to know him and came up to talk to him, as well as several teachers. His sister really paved the way for him there!

So that's it from this post...

A "sticky" day at ARC

Well, you havent heard from me because the ARC girl was kicked out of her office for three days last week by the Irish terrorist and CPR instructor Patrick Walsh, who was teaching other people how to be CPR instructors. Unfortunately during his lunch hour he also engaged in IRA clandestine terrorism to the poor unsuspecting ARC girl.

I returned to my office today, turned on my computer and tried to move my computer mouse which was VELCROED to the mouse pad...I knew in an instant who had done it and reached for the phone to give him a piece of my mind..of course when I picked up the receiver I picked up the entire phone...velcro!! It took ten minutes to get that phone apart. Finnally got the Bangor office on the phone and they said he was on the phone had one call on hold and another call ahead of mine..I said fine give him a message...You are a little S.....! My Boss Suzan said do you want that to say "love Gretchen"? I said fine..she said I will personally deliver!

All day long I kept finding things velcroed down...once I reached for a package of Tictacs..even they were stuck to the desk!!!!! After lunch I opened my top drawer to get out a staple remover and there was the word "velcro" from the package and "rocks" taped next to it!! Jeeez!!!!
My day was so disjointed by this time I was hardly accomplishing anything. At the very end of the day, I noticed we had a health and safety pickup the next day and I needed to call and find out what time and exactly what she needed as a large equipment pickup was happening the following day..as I reached for the phone book...yep velcroed to the next one! I threw them across the room! I picked more velcro off stuff today than I can ever tell you!! Pay back will be hell!

So Tyler who thinks Pat is a riot says can I have his email Mom..so I go on a new email account I have since getting DSL and there is an email from Pat...with the title "rock on with.."
and there is a link to some band called the Velcro punks or something...UGH!!!!!!!

So thats it today from the ARC girl...You can bet she will be working hard on this one!!!

R A I N

OK, so much for snow...we had about 8 inches last night and this morning, and now its pouring.
AND flooding...everywhere. ARC is putting the girl up for the night in the big city.. Ellsworth. Whoo hoo! The Surry road is apparently impassable, route 15 has a muti car accident, and several areas of Hancock county are under water..so I will be near the office to take care of things as they arise instead of trying to get out of Sedgwick ..if I could indeed get into Sedgwick..
All in all it will make Ralph the county EMA director happy to know he doesnt have to send a pontoon boat out to get me or some other amphibious craft..

Last night a friend and I took our teens to Across the Universe, the movie thats a musical about all the Beetles music...it was actually pretty good. The story came together which I kind of wondered about at the beginning, and the music was great of course..they tied all the 1960's history into it and all in all it was worth seeing. A few metaphorical scenes..some a little iffy.
It was interesting to hear the two of them laugh or make a comment at certain scenes, and us , on others...we lived the time period and their generation glorifies it, or so it seems.

Valentines day tommorow, Ty also had to go shopping for his lady last night. While we were in Rite aid picking up a card, there was a woman in front of us buying saran wrap.., to get this..saran wrap her bosses car!! Now I have heard of just about everything but saran wrapping a car!!!! Tyler and I got in the car and started to talk about how Caroline would react if she came out to find someone had sealed her car in plastic wrap and we got hysterical just thinking about it.

Well thats all from the flood zone...hopefully it will be a quiet night in the big city.
ARC girl

S N O W

Guess what ...it snowed last night! Imagine that..and you know what I think that its going to snow for the rest of the week...Snow. its a four letter word..hmmmmmm.
I have not seen the pavement in Sedgwick in weeks..of course they ran out of SNOW money.. and had to have a special town meeting to move ..get this 70,000 dollars into the SNOW removal budget..which only a few people attended. BECAUSE..they didn't advertise the meeting....WHY you ask...BECAUSE they gave the snow removal contract to someone new this year and they have done such a lousy job all the town officials have gotten is complaints ad nauseum. So with our new infusion of 70,000 dollars what did we get? NOT much...a little more sand maybe.
Once you hit the Blue Hill town line though and see the bare pavement...you just have to wonder. Although today snow removal was not going real well in Blue Hill either....all the way to Ellsworth as a matter of fact...as myself and about 15 other cars can testify as we followed this plow truck from the fair grounds in Blue Hill to almost Westwood Drive in Ellsworth at 20-25 mph.

I wish I had brought the newspaper...or my book group book which I am never going to finish by Wednesday night..I am sure I could have gotten alot done on the way in...25 miles at 20mph is a long time in a car. Didnt somebody write a play called the "winter of my discontent"..

Oh and then there is the guy who shovels my office out....right....no such person...
I wasnt thinking there would be too much today until I saw the drift in front of the door. The wind must have done that last night...at least the parking lot was plowed today..the other day they put a snow bank in front of the building.

Well we can all look on the bright side...we will all have a "white Valentines Day"!
ARC girl

Tuesday

Well I really didnt want to write anything yesterday knowing half of New England was in mourning over the Patriots. So I have given everyone a day to get over it..and hopefully you all have..everyone who knows me closely knows I am not a Bill Belichick fan, but he really should have stuck with the tattered grey sweatshirt I guess! Do feel for Brady though!

Speaking of other competitions my son, reluctantly was in the Union spelling bee last night. He didnt even tell me had made it until one night at 10:30 pm. He made it thru 8 rounds and ended up 4th one shy of placing which is just exactly where he wanted to be...he wanted no part of having to go to the next level..the County bee! Besides this is Tournament week for Coastal league Basketball and he wants to have blue striped hair by Thursday...after all what is more important??!! I am not sure I am going to let him match his hair to his uniform, ugh!

Yesterday my job consisted of Flu..Pandemic and otherwise. I spent the morning on a conference call about a Pandemic exercise going on later in the month. Then Bangor called with a request for a press release about flu and cold season. So finished up and as I was just leaving Ellsworth my phone rang and a very weak voice said...Mom! It was Caroline she had been in the school clinic for 4 hours with a 103 fever, body aches, fainted, ear infection,etc etc. They think she has the real thing sent her home with antibiotics, tamiflu etc. Of course with her asthma she is supposed to get the flu shot every year and I harped but to no avail this year!
Talked to her today and she didn't sound quite as weak, but its hard being the Mom thousands of miles away!

Took almost an hour to drive in this morning in the snow someone forgot to send me the memo about! Now its kinda freezing rain or something for the ride home and I actually did pay attention to the weather for tommorow...like more of the same! HOW nice! Maybe I will give up Winter for lent! Ash Wednesday is tommorow does that work??
ARC Girl

Sittin' in Siberia here...

OK ARC girl is not...NOT a happy camper...NO heat again today...apparently they got the furnace (relic) to start up with some new parts last night after I left but then it quit again..I am supposed to teach a class here tonight that I really want to get out of the way..so I am hoping things can get up and running later today. IN the meantime I have a little warm fan on my desk (which is keeping me personally warm)..and an electric heater which is probably accomplishing nothing in the classroom area. I will have to make a decision at some time whether to cancel or not when these techs finish up.
Can't get a hold of the manager of the building to get permission to do a complete overhaul of furnace which is what Webber oil would like to do...

So for the second day in a row I am not accomplishing much...I will put together my class later, and stay near my warm desk for the day, and I have a bunch of emails and phone calls so I guess I can keep busy. If it isnt one thing with this building its another...

Really hoping for some warmth...

Mobile musings...for Tuesday night

I have been banished from the downstairs because I was playing with my new mobil phone and trying to figure out what the ring was going to sound like and apparently I was irritating everyone! So...I had to come up here and play on the computer instead, after of course trying to figure out the phone..which I think I got to ring..like a phone...I hate having those other ring tones..I just want it to sound like a phone, not some canned musak. It is a pretty nice phone and I guess I really went quite awhile without an upgrade..now I can actually hear people and I bet they can hear me better too!

Today was a not the best of days for the ARC girl...no heat in the ARC office. Walked in the door and just knew something was up. Fuel had been delivered a week ago, so they had to send a tecnician over and told me he wouldnt come until late afternoon but I had to wait for him..great it was about 45 degrees in there! He showed up with in the half hour...but it took all day and several trips for parts including a trip to Bangor..which meant by midafternoon my car was warmer than my office...NO kidding it really was! So I took a ride for stamps and something hot to drink. Left at 3pm, which was an hour ahead of schedule so I decided today was the day to upgrade the phone..of course it will take miss technology here the better part of the next month to get the hang of this phone, but I am liking it already! Except that they banished me upstairs for making too much noise!

Other than that my oldest and dearest friend lost his Mom on Friday to Alzheimers Disease.
She had had it for years, but he said even though you know its coming it is still so hard. The funeral is on Saturday, that will be a little hard.
Well that's it from the techno Princess tonight...
Hoping to have a WARM day tommorow!

Ten Things

Ginny Tagged me to List Ten things I might have done that others might not have so here goes:



1.Went up in one of Steve Fossetts trans-atlantic hot air balloons when I was a kid.



2.Serenaded on several birthdays by a Grammy award winning artist.



3. Didnt have tickets but drove to Boston and Saw Yaz hit his 3000th !!

4. Moved to the exact town my parents desperately wanted to move to when I was a teenager and I thought then was "the end of the earth"!

5. Had my photo in an article for Family Circle Magazine and didnt know it until my sister read the magazine.

6. Owned my own gourmet store on the coast of Maine, frequented by some great customers!

7. Listen to Van Morrison at least once a day!

8. Took job with and became a Red Cross Nurse, a couple decades after my Mom got her Red Cross nurse pin.

9. Look out every day onto one of the most beautiful views and never take it for granted.

10. Have two incredible, talented and beautiful children...don't we all? But who make me smile and laugh and sing and cry and burst with pride every single day!!!!

Rattled..

I know you all expect some witty reparte about me saving the world with ARC or some other incident on the home front that usually has some humor to it...but I have none for you. Instead,
a pretty disturbing incident that rattled the house, and my sense of security...

Two weekends ago, seven car windows were smashed or shot out in the town of Sedgwick, all randomly. Sunday night, while one of the football games was on, we heard a loud cracking sound on the front living room windows. Don was convinced it was Ice on just one window...I was convinced it was both windows. I asked him to go out and check the cars, none the less. He did not see anything. Later he heard another loud noise and again checked the cars, nothing or so we thought. Monday afterno0n Tyler got into the van and the entire back window shattered.
I called Don, who immediately called the police. I took Ty to his practice and on the way we saw other cars with destroyed windows. When the State detective arrived, he wanted to know what I had heard, of course I told him about the cracking sound at the front windows...we then walked to the front of the house and to my horror there were shot gun holes in both storm windows.
We went inside and collected BB shot out between the window and storm. He then told me that every window on all the school busses on Deer Isle had been shot out. As we stood outside talking, trucks would pull up and tell him where another car incident was that he did not yet have on his list. He said they had at least three detectives on this that day because the damages everywhere was so extensive.

There are no leads as of yet, only that both incidents occured on the weekend in the same geographic locations. One family lost their car windows on both weekends. Disturbing? VERY! The second weekend the damage and incidents escalated way beyond the first. We can only hope there will not be a third weekend.
ARC Girl

The top 10 list for the Sedgwick Princess

This was sent to me this week, and I know my super sibs will appreciate it, the rest of you will only get about 1/2 of it but it was beyond "Clever"...the author shall remain anonymous:

TOP TEN SEDGWICK PRINCESS TIPS ON HOW TO SURVIVE THE IMPENDING RECESSION:

10. The butlers complimentary membership to Kebo? gone.
9.The Bentley really can run on regular.
8. Prepaid tuition at GW can often be found at a sharp discount in Uncle Henry's
7. For the nightly milk bath, switch to 2%
6.No more inflight movies on the Lear Jet
5. Dinner guests will never know that your elk meatloaf has been stretched by slipping in a little ground veal.
4. Cancel subscription to wrestling monthly.. (like I would ever have one!)
3. Four or five empty Moet bottles per week make for handsome refund at redemption center.
2. Attention Robin Leach: you spill any more Pinot in the Hinckley and YOU pay for clean up
1. With just a pair of scissors, the hubbys cumberbund becomes the perfect mask to hold up the Irving Mainway!


cheers!