full fathom five

Cyber-hygiene

I got an unsolicited e-mail from an organization wanting to advertise on my blog the other day.  I imagine that my blog was picked by robot, because I don't post often enough for advertisers to be interested.   

    I told my husband about it on our morning walk, and he asked if I'd clicked any links in the e-mail.  I said yes, that I'd wanted to check out the advertiser's website, but when I got there you had to register to browse it, and registration required "signing" a fine-print agreement a mile long.  So I got out of there and deleted the e-mail.   

    By this point, my husband had stopped walking, turning to stare at me in the road.  "Never click a link in an unsolicited e-mail!"  he said.  "It's just simple hygiene, like washing your hands after you go to the bathroom." 

    I felt my eyes widen.  "No," he said, "don't worry," and started to walk again.  "But from now on, go to your browser and type in whatever link you want to check out.  Don't ever click unsolicited links directly.  That's just like not giving financial info. over the phone when someone calls you."   

    So now I've got a list taped to the side of my computer.  Is there anything I should add to it besides the above? Or any site you know of where these rules that everyone should know are gathered?     

Cross Country Skiing

Today in the lull between snowstorms, on our first day of sun after about five of constant snow, sleet, wind, and gray skies alternating with white-out, I cross-countried down the power-line corridors with my dog.  I went about 1pm, when I figured sun and temperature to be highest, and I found myself thinking that this is the lemonade we're making of the fiercest winter I can remember, and it's not so bad.  Our Cody frisked ahead, lunging at occasional dead beech leaves that strayed across our trail or lodged in the snowy borders.  The power-line poles laid shadows of french-blue stripes across the blinding-white snow.  My skis scritched through the mealy snowmobile tracks with long schuss-sounds that broke at the ends, more like shutch-shutch.  Level stretches allowed for long strides that gave a feeling of authentic nordic mastery for a few fleeting moments before one edge strays into a deeper groove or I wobble over a patch of pebbled ice.  Conditions are tame enough, though, to glide across the power-line field quickly, and I work up a sweat in fifteen minutes, with Cody lying down in the snow to chew snowballs out of his paws.  In forty-five, we've looped the perimeter, and I'm happy to get back to the car with warm, loose limbs and no falls.          

Winslow Park

Here's the view from Winslow Park, a summer campground whose owners graciously open their gates to dog owners in winter.  We can run our dogs there without leashes, and dog owners have taken to meeting every morning at the point at 8:30 for a dog playtime and confab.  We're surrounded by water on three sides. 

Across the water, below, is South Freeport.

And here, above, are benches facing out to the water.  Some are memorials, as we'll see below.

  Our dog Cody looks for playmates, but we've come late today, and the road coming up to the point is encrusted with ice, discouraging the usual visitors.  My husband and I had to put ice-grippers on the soles of our boots in order to make it here.

Being alone at the point gives us time to read the memorial benches for the first time.  The words above on the pale, top line are: "Forever young, spirited, beautiful, and loved."  And the bottom line reads: "Still waters run deep."   

    The bench's words below are clear.      

Memorials inspired by the sea are always especially haunting and poignant.  They all share the spirit of the first one I ever saw, atop a hill on Butter Island overlooking Penobscot Bay.  It's a marble bench dedicated to the memory of the island's owner, who bought up many islands in the bay for preservation, so that sailors and hikers can enjoy them forever.  On the bench's back is a line from Tennyson's Ulysses: "Come, my friends.  'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."