We're retired,right?

7:32 am - Tuesday - September 18th - Portland, ME - 69º F (really? already?), 98% humidity (has been raining for hours.....should be at least 100%, right?), wind 8 mph out of the south by southwest (I agree with this one).  Forecast high for today is 72º F and rain until early afternoon.  We had planned to depart Portland today, but we're retired and don't have to be anywhere, plus no one likes driving a 40,000 lb. motorhome/trailer in the rain, right?  So, we think we'll continue to hang out here in the Cabela's parking lot and see what happens...........

Welcome to our neighborhood!

We arrived in Portland, ME on Saturday afternoon, and needed to stay around until Monday so we could drive over to Waterboro to get our drug testing for Amazon out of the way.  We had to have it done by 9/18/2018, and they were not open on Saturday, so Monday was our earliest option.  The small clinic opened at 9:30 am, so we left around 9:15 to make the 30 minute drive.    As is often the case in the northeastern part of out country, the roads rarely run straight for very long, so we had to change directions and roads 4, or 5 times before we had covered the 21 miles between us and Waterboro.  

As we pulled into the parking lot I noted it was around 9:50 am.  We were back in the car on our way back to Portland by 10:15 am after having donated a few ounces of human liquid effluent for drug testing.

I believe I mentioned the other day that TLE was looking for a new pair of shoes for Amazon.  There is a DSW shoe store (Designer Shoe Warehouse) in Portland near the Maine Mall.  TLE is a member of this national chain, and gets a discount when she shops there, so it was an obvious choice to try and find her new shoes there....

.....it is a ginormous store with features women's shoes, but also has a men's section.  So, here the deal......why is it that anytime you go to a shoe store, about 2/3's to 3/4's of the shoes are for women?  I've even noticed this in thrift stores.....there will be 25 racks of women's clothing, and maybe 4, or 5 for men's clothing.  It's even more dramatic for shoes in thrift stores......there may be 8 racks of shoes (double sided) and only one side of one rack has men's shoes.  So, why is that?  Do men just wear their clothes and shoes until they disintegrate into a pile of dust,  or do women change their wardrobes out way more frequently than men?  These are things I think about on a daily basis.....after all, I'm retired so what else do I have to worry about? 😋

TLE did find a very nice pair of Pumas within about 25 minutes.....that is a record!  Next we were off to the local T.J.Maxx store to look for some new sheets for our queen size bed.  Amazingly she found just what she was looking for in about 10 minutes.....that is a new world record!

Like most malls, the Maine Mall has a theater complex nearby.  We haven't been to a move for a while, so I asked TLE to look up what was playing at the Cinemagic Theaters.  This theater has large, electric, leather recliners from which to view movies.....we last went to a theater like this in Sparks, NV a few years ago.  One of the movies playing there is 'Peppermint' starring Jennifer Garner.  I remember her from the TV series entitled 'Alias' in which she played this bad ass spy.  This series ran from 2001-2006, so it was pretty successful.  Based on the trailers we have seen it appeared that in Peppermint she was playing a similar character, so we decided to check it out.  It's just 90 minutes long, so not a big investment of time for retired people, right?

Getting comfortable!

.....I won't go into the details of the movie, but the script follows the classic 'biter bit' theme, and was actually a pretty good movie for two old retired folk to while away 90 minutes.  If you like action movies where the hero wins out in the end, this is the movie for you!

Our very, very good friends, Steven and Linda ('The Chouters'....pronounced 'shooters') sent us a message a few days ago that we had to check out a local Portland eatery called 'Duckfat' located on Middle Street in old Portland.  They have never steered us wrong, so we decided about 2 pm to make the drive over and check them out for a late lunch.....

.....they specialize in Belgian Frites (fries) cooked in duck fat.  They come in two sizes....small and large....of course.  We opted to split a large order of fries, and then also ordered a Beef Brisket Panini sandwich to split betwixt the two of us.  To chase these delicacies we each ordered a pint.....for me it was Allagash White (no surprise there), and for TLE it was Founders Coffee (stout)....OMG that Founders Coffee had such a wonderful coffee aroma, and finish!  This is a very SMALL eatery....all the tables are 'community' tables, which were all full when we entered, so we opted for two side by side bar stools at the very small 6 person bar.  In all I think they can seat about 30 people at a time.....

.....so, how was everything?  Well, this place gets a rare 5 stars for me.  Yelp gives them 4 solid stars on 1,909 reviews!  1,909?  That is the most reviews I have ever seen for a restaurant.  Yelp provides over 1,000 pictures of their dishes, etc......

.....the famous Belgian Frites (fries) above with the five dipping sauces, and the description of our 'flight' of sauces....we got all 5, of course.....is below.  My favorites were the horseradish and mayo, and the garlic mayo, however, all of them were delicious....

.....we were there until almost 4 pm before we decided it was time to drive our Belgian Frite swollen bodies home.  We made one more stop at a local Goodwill to donate my old golf irons I wrote about in yesterday's post, so the circle is complete.  I have a new, to me, set of irons, and my old ones can now be owned and used by someone new.

For our evening entertainment we watched a recorded episode of 'Last Ship', and a few 'American Pickers' episodes before heading off to slumberland once again.  It is nice to remember that we are retired and are not tied to any schedule.

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