Monsters in the Couch in Maine

A trip with good friends always includes laughter, ruined plans, at least one unforgettable moment (hopefully more), great conversation, and delicious food. On Tuesday, I experienced ruined plans, witnessed an unforgettable moment, and had a good laugh over delicious food.

Avery and I awoke before the sun again, on a mission to capture the New England sunrise from a new vantage point. The weather forecast included rain but not until later in the day, so on Monday night I told Avery I would wake up at 3:30am and look up through the yurt skylight to make the go/no-go call. If I could see the stars, we'd get up and head to the park. If not, we'd sleep in. In the wee hours, I heard the tinkle of my cell phone alarm clock and laying on my back in the loft bed, opened my eyes to peer through the plastic bubble at the top of our yurt. Twice as many stars as appear in the Cleveland sky twinkled back at me and I smiled. Good morning, Maine.

"Avery..." I whispered.

"Yeah?" she replied immediately from downstairs, obviously already awake.

"I see stars."

And so without another word, we both got up and dressed as quietly as possible and made our way to the park. Two and a half hours later, we returned with windswept faces and a slight disappointment over the cloud covered daybreak. The sky must have become completely overcast on the hour long drive into the park. Regardless, I had crawled around on the wet rocky cliffs taking delayed shutter photos of the surf and had loved it while Avery had huddled, shivering at my side and handing me photo equipment. Needless to say, we were looking for coffee and hot food.

Izzy greeted us as we walked through the door and asked about our adventure. As we spun our tale, she prepared a breakfast of cheesy potato bowls with eggs, the angel, and listened to our story. Avery and I sat down at opposite ends of the couch with our legs extended and feet tucked up under the other person's legs. With our eyes half closed, we dug into the delicious fare with Izzy in a chair across from us, all enjoying our breakfast in companionable silence.

THA-DUNK, broom-broom-broom. I felt the vibration through the couch and thought, "ah-HA! So that's how Avery lost her phone the other day." It must have slipped out of her jacket pocket and slid right through the crack between the bottom and back cushions. The couch is a pull-out bed and two days before, several of us had been standing quite still in the middle of the room with ears straining as we listened for the ringer. We had eventually found it in the couch.

In the instant it took me to have this epiphany, Avery had disappeared. I looked up to find her standing across the room with eyes wide, body halfway facing the door (as if she was preparing to flee), and hands fisted at her armpits. She must have deposited her breakfast bowl on the table at some point but it all seemed to defy my understanding of time and physics. "What. The fudge. Was that?" she asked in a low, measured, and slightly accusing voice while staring at the couch. Okay, so she didn't say "fudge". I don't think she had blinked since transporting herself across the room.

Being slightly alarmed by her reaction, I unfolded myself and stood up (like a normal human being) and walked over to her. "What?" asked Izzy. Since she wasn't on the couch and the sound had been muffled, she had no clue what was going on. She was still calmly seated in her chair, looking quizzically up at the two of us.

"I'm pretty sure your phone fell out of your pocket and slid behind the cushion," I said smiling and glancing back at the couch.

"It didn't sound like a phone..." she said, trailing off and still staring at the now believed-to-be-hostile furniture. I can only imagine she thought some animal had made its way into the yurt and created a nest within the couch. As I considered this, my mind flashed to that episode of The Big Bang Theory when Penny picks up a chair from the corner garbage heap and it ends up being the home of a butt-biting rodent.

"Avery, it's your phone." I put my breakfast bowl on the table next to hers and walked over to prove my hypothesis. I bent over and lifted the first cushion - no phone. Also, no monsters.

"It's her phone, she should be the one digging through the couch looking for it," Izzy chuckled, still snuggled in her chair eating her breakfast bowl. Clearly, she was enjoying the entertainment. I glanced over my shoulder at Avery and her face said she was not yet convinced that a rabid squirrel wasn't the cause of the commotion.

I replaced the cushion and lifted the corner of the second one to find the red iPhone, half laying on the springs from the bed frame. Huh. So that would account for the broom-broom-broom sound/feeling. Like a kid at the end of a treasure hunt, I held the phone up and wiggled it. "See? Told ya." I made no attempt to hold back the smirk.

"Well, it was a weird sound," was all she could think to say. Crisis averted, we resumed our breakfast. Avery sat at the table.

Later that day, when I retold the story for the rest of our travel companions Avery laughed so hard she almost cried. If you can't laugh at yourself while on vacation and surrounded by your friends, then I suggest you extend your vacation and reacquaint yourself with the joys of life.

Here is a picture of the Bass Harbor Light Station taken that evening at sunset. There were no clouds (go figure) so the colors aren't spectacular but I made it my mission to sit on the briny, seaweed covered rocks below the house and wait for a gull to fly through my frame. Eventually it paid off but I didn't include the photo and that's a story for another time. As I was carefully ascending the rocky cliff to depart, I turned and snapped this photo.

Photo taken at Bass Harbor Light Station, Bass Harbor, ME on 7/25/17 while the photographer was feasted on by mosquitos.