This week's lobster roll adventure took us to the bottom of MDI, to Thurston's in Bernard. Visually it was just perfect although it was closed. We ate at Seafood Ketch on the other side of Bass Harbor with a good view of Thurston's across the way. They had excellent Indian pudding topped with ice cream. We checked the Bass Harbor light off Melissa's list. Passing through Southwest Harbor, we were lucky to catch Marge, Miff, and Lane at home for a surprise visit. Of course we had to hit Morton's Moo on the way through Ellsworth.

I have 5 sisters. Four of us would like to pull the 5th back from the Trump cult into which she has heavily fallen. There is no direct way to do that for the same reason there is no arguing with a conspiracy theorist, but we may have found a roundabout way. I found out this week that she also doesn't stream movies or series. That means she is watching fox news every evening. Ok, let's set her up to stream stuff. That will be Georgette's job. We all like to read and to talk about what we read. Although I mostly read non-fiction, we are all agreeing to read books and discuss them. Ingrid is best reader and she picked two books, A Memory of Time by C.H. Lawler and Kindred by Octavia Butler. Reading and viewing shows and discussing them opens up your world a bit. A book Ingrid and I shared was this one by Anne Applebaum. As a journalist and wife of a Polish diplomat, she witnessed the rise of authoritarian regimes in Poland, Spain, and the unfolding of Brexit in Britain. In this 200 page book, she doesn't have to talk about Trump; the patterns are clear. In Chapter 6, she shows how the Dreyfus affair of 1894 is the perfect example of an event that shows the fault lines that had to already be there.

Profound political shifts like the one we are now living throug--events that suddenly split families and friends, cut across social classes, and dramatically rearrange alliance--have happened before. Not nearly enough attention has been paid in recent years to a late-nineteenth-century French controversy that prefigured many of the debates of the twentieth century--a controversy that holds a mirror up to the arguments of the twenty-first century too.

This summer if it's Sunday, we are off to a peninsula in search of the perfect lobster roll. Shaw's Wharf in New Harbor got points for the butter & lemon option rather than mayo, and for being a real working waterfront. It was a hot day and there was no fog rolling in. Walked Pemaquid Beach (nice upgrades to the beach house and board walk) and visited the light house.

Among other things, I'm reading Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. It starts off with a great story in which he proves to his professor that his dog can understand when humans point to an object. It's full of odd tidbits like humans being the only species with white schlera and bonobos being primates that never kill each other. In the book, "domestication" takes on a new meaning:

The human self-domestication hypothesis posits that natural selection acted on our species in favor of friendlier behavior that enhanced our ability to flexibly cooperate and communicate. Over generations, individuals with hormonal and developmental profiles that favor friendliness, and thus cooperative communication, were more successful.
...
If the self-domestication hypothesis is correct, then we thrived not because we got smarter, but because we got friendlier.

Today I learned, first from Deb B who will now be moving away, and then from Maine Public in the car, that Unity College will be selling off its assets in Unity, its whole campus and I suppose the properties it owns downtown and moving to an online only college. The extended effects of this on the town keep occurring to me. What about the library, the park, the theater? It is a huge blow to town. The college has been our main economic driver for a long time. I would hope that UMaine or Maine Community College System or some other entity would buy the campus for a satellite. Otherwise, who buys a college campus? More to come on this as the cold suddenness of the announcement and the email firing of long-term teachers and staff comes out.

Five Islands on Georgetown slides easily into second place behind Macloon's in the great summer lobster roll search. Since there was Reid State Park's beaches nearby, the criteria keep growing. Here are the current criteria:
-- good lobster roll, lots of meat, grilled bun, not too much mayo, extra points for choice of butter or mayo.
-- on a working waterfront with views of boats and islands
-- picnic table on wharf or grass
-- fog rolling in
-- a hike or beach or great scenery nearby
-- masking and distancing enforced

Sara and Tiffany did a little pop-up concert at the gazebo on the corner in the middle of town. And now the gazebo is my favorite venue and I want to see lots of little concerts there. I like the way it glows as it gets dark. People sit in their own chairs properly distanced. We can put about 50 people in that space. It is like a village green. I am shopping for a small PA system for it, and then I'll shop for how to pay for it.