The Retreat, Spruce Point, Boothbay, Maine

The Retreat is a tiny little house (about as big as a house boat) that is for rent on Spruce Point by the night. Tim and I stayed there for our anniversary a couple years ago and I for one can’t wait to go back. The house is very private, and the vista is all rocks and ocean. Feels like the Maine version of Carmel. Ever since we stayed there my favorite mental game is ‘What would I take with me if we were going to move into The Retreat’. What would make the cut? The books? The photography collection? The prayer bead collection? The rock collection? The sand collection? Mildly disturbing, when most of your things have the word ‘collection’ attached.

Bethlehem

What rough beast…………………………..

Sicily, Italy

The old country. My stepfather told us how his father had been discovered abandoned on a Sicilian beach. He was taken in by the nuns and they in turn named him John Pio, pio meaning orphan in Sicilian (mean spirited or just dimwitted?) Needless to say he always hated the name, later changing it to Cantizaro. When he had a falling out with the Cantizaro family (Italian’s always have fallings out), he changed it to Proyetto. In the service the paymaster couldn’t pronounce Proyetto and it was changed to Procetto. Later when my stepfather got into show business it was changed yet again to Milano.

Saratoga, New York

Drank the water.

Revere Beach, Revere Massachusetts (gone now)

When we were kids, my stepsisters Marianne, Paula and I used to go to Revere Beach, ride the Dodgems and get Kelly’s Roast Beef sandwiches. Paula, so skinny she could fit through a keyhole, always insisted on wolfing down two. There was an amusement park there and the whole place had a ‘moth to the flame’ trailer park charm.