For years Melissa has been tucking hosta into the ferns and wildflowers in our "vegetative buffer," a strip that helps to protect the lake from us. We're thinking of letting it expand, giving us less to mow.

This morning I stopped at the post office to get the mail. Mail is not generally delivered in Unity; most people have post office boxes and stop in for it between 10:30 and noon. This morning there was a man in a Ban Gay Marriage t-shirt trying to get people to sign a petition to trigger a referendum on a civil rights bill the Maine legislature recently passed with bipartisan support that includes the phrase "sexual orientation" along with gender, color, religion. I took my groceries from Market Day home and returned to the post office and spent 90 minutes in the sun talking to whomever he talked to. I was able to talk many people out of signing his petition by explaining that it was a civil rights bill and had nothing to do with gay marriage. Some people wouldn't sign just because there was opposition present making it look controversial; they said they would read more about it before signing. If I stopped even a few people from signing, it was certainly worth the sunburn.

I'm wondering about why I'm more comfortable with taking risks lately and I think it might have to do with the mod 10=0 nature of my next birthday. My promotions are a financial risk. And relatedly I've totally overcome a fear I used to have of standing on a stage and speaking. The CDs and promotional material for Bluegrass Gospel Project (August 20) came yesterday. I put the title tune, Wander On, as the music download so you can check it out. The promo material points out that "bluegrass gospel has evolved independently, outside of the church, and is therefore a populist form of spiritual music." Amen Brother. I love the universal emotions of gospel music, the hard times but keep on walking tenor of it. I figure any religious reference in it is just a local flavor of the universal.
I point out to performers at our theater that this space is used for weddings, funerals and live music, figuring there is a song in it for someone. The funeral people check the music listings before they schedule a funeral, and the music people try not to schedule back-to-back days, leaving room for people to die.