Listy McListsalot goes shawpin and eats

1. Bought new washer and dryer at Sears. Not the sex-ay red LC HE model, but the boring white ones.

2. Went to the Kittery Outlets with my sister, who is visiting from Virginia. I needed pillows, so I suggested we go to the Cuddledown outlet. Score! They were having a big pillow sale. Which is good, because I bought eight.

3. Visited the Brooks Brothers outlet to see whether they had boys' clothing, but they don't. While my sister, who is virulently anti-prep, turned celadon green, and finally escaped to the store next door, bought two pairs of jeans for myself and handkerchiefs, underwear, and a tie for my husband.

4. While my sister browsed through the racks at the J. Jill outlet, I, who was turning a pale shade of celadon green because I am so anti-aging hippy, visited the Cosmetics Company outlet next door. Or whatever they call themselves. The Estee Lauder people. Score! My favorite moisturizer, now discontinued, was there. Also some shite you can only buy at the Duty-Free shop, because they don't sell it in the States. So I bought some miraculous anti-brown-spots potions called Cyber White. Because I'm not just white, I'm CYBER WHITE. Also? BOBBI BROWN. Bought awesome two-layer lip and eyeshadow palette; perfect for travel. Susie, Wendy, and Blackbird: spotted that awesome lip gloss palette I have. Let me know if you want one and I'll pick one up for you. It's makeup heaven in there.

5. Went to When Pigs Fly, a local bakery. Bought bread.

6. Tired. Went home. Energized briefly by changing all the pillows and throwing out the really horrible old ones.

7. Too tired to cook. Went to BG's Boat House for dinner. Too tired to deal with lobster shells; got Lazy Man's Lobster for dinner.

8. Then ice cream at the Ice House. Frozen coffee Heath Bar yogurt, to be exact. See how dietetic?

In which Poppy risks death for her art

I was thinking of taking the kids to the beach, going on another photo safari, and maybe getting the car washed. And so, of course, it rained.

Then I decided to run a couple of errands and take the kids for lunch--fried calamari for them, and a lobster roll for me. I'd take awesome foodie pictures of the local clam shack and ice cream joint--I'd show off my mad food photography skillz for my blogging audience, and they would leave me all kinds of comments about how awesome I am! And so, of course, my camera battery was dead.

Therefore, you'll just have to take my word about how awesome lunch was. My son and I shared an order of steamers that were so good we moaned aloud and thrashed about orgasmically, and we'll never be allowed in the restaurant again. Then my children ate their fried squids, and I had the first lobster roll of the summer.

That damned lobster roll was so good that when a blob of lobster salad fell on the deck, I did what we all spend years teaching our children not to do. I mean, how disgusting to pick your food off THE FLOOR and eat it, but I did. I sure hope nobody saw me do this. It would be so embarrassing to have anyone except the entire internet know how I wallow in filth.

OK, maybe not filth. After all, we were outside, so my salad didn't fall on a creepy restaurant carpet; it fell on some weathered deck planks. We were overlooking a marina, listening to the cries of the gulls, and admiring the boats. So I think I'm safe from everything except cholera, e. coli, and tapeworms.

You did realize that I'm disgusting, right? OK.

Then I came home and found a working camera.



See? It really was raining. And just look at that gutter. It's practically falling off the house. And now you know why this house--if it actually had a name, a la "Windy Acres," or "Upson Downs" or some such folderol--would be named



I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Deferred Maintenance taking pictures of the sublime



and the ridiculous.