Spoiler Alert

If I send any of you some version of this for Christmas, please act surprised::



Love,
Paige

Courtesy of this guy.

Well, this is fun

This is a pretty clever idea; you can buy a bunch of art from art students: collegeartonline.com

Par exemple:





Also! I'm in Virginia! And it's lovely! I'll post pics of the house and animals soooon!

Love,
Paige

Best Advice I've Received in Awhile

This made me laugh out loud::

Bringing a full-on garden shovel to the beach
If you're heading to the sand, and at least one in your party is under 9, then you're making a sand castle. Bring a real shovel. Square-headed are best, but no matter, stop dicking around with the little plastic ones. You'd be surprised how few come prepared, and how many want to borrow yours

Courtesy of McSweeney's. More good recs here.

Had my last few days on the boat, and will post some pics soon! Getting SO excited about Virginia, and getting myself prepared to get down there.

Love to you all!
-Paige

Current Residence::

And the view from my "dog-house" on deck::





(....swoon.)

Love to you all!
-Paige

Gloucester

We've been travelling around for the past couple of weeks between Provincetown, Newburyport, and Gloucester. We're back in Provincetown, but here are a few pics from the race in Gloucester::







Love to you all!
-Paige

Sometimes I just need to hear this song

John Prine and Iris Dement: In Spite of Ourselves. The actual song starts at around 1:30 :::



Love,
Paige

fishing flick

Watched Captains Courageous the other day; it's super cute, will make you cry, and the boat is Alabama's twin. Worth watching.



Enjoy leetle feesh.

Love,
Paige

More on Newport

Pete Seeger is also going to be at Newport. Have you seen The Power of Song yet? It's amazing::



In 1969 Pete Seeger also built a Hudson River Sloop to help clean up the Hudson River, mostly just by sailing people up and down it and showing them the state it was in::



From the NYT:

"The scientists, when they heard we were building a sailboat to save the Hudson, said, 'You need a research boat,' " Mr. Seeger recalled. "And other people said, 'There's a war going on. Why are you building a boat?' All I could say was, lamely, 'It's a beautiful boat.' "

Love him.

Love,
Paige

Newport

I won't be going to the Newport Folk Festival this year -- but a ton of talented people will be, including Fleet Foxes::



And some lovelies from mvy will be covering it. luckies.

Love,
Paige

Well done, boat namer

dave. Great boat name.

Love,
Paige

Congratulations, Africa!

The lovely country of Benin on the West Coast of Africa has at least one more amazing resident as of yesterday: Miss Meredith Magin (recently of West Tisbury).

We were all pretty devastated to see her go, but I was happy to get to go to Great Rock Bight with the Peace Corps' soon-to-be most valued volunteer before she de-patriated.

Here's a frolic:



And a reminder to stay the course:



And friends:



YOU ARE MISSED!!

Love to all,
Paige

sawdust

Love,
Paige

(dreamy) work in progress

Love,
Paige

Farm Magic

North Tabor Farm is so delightful :::





Meredith M. and I paid Emily and Meredith K. a visit there yesterday:::



aaaand I think I'll have to visit again very soon.



Love,
Paige

Talking Shop

I will probably be posting a lot of photos from the company's boat shop because it's pretty amazing. Here are two::





Love,
Paige

sick.

I've been sick recently, and so instead of exercising (ok. I really wasn't exercising anyway) I'm now walking much like the geriatric I secretly am.

Walking is nice though because then you get to take pictures of cute little dinghies.



Love,
Paige

My doorway

Love,
Paige

New Digs

yeah, yeah... So a neat-nik I am not -- but here's my room for the next little bit. The ceilings slant at 45 degrees on both sides - the same way the "girls room" does in Wolfeboro - and I have ivy growing in through the windows which is pretty.



Love,
Paige

Charlie Bird

Since I have a normal work-schedule again right now I've decided that I'll post some pics about what's happening out here on Martha's Vineyard to help keep in touch.

I'm starting with one of my roommates: Charlie Bird. He's really good at saying "HELLO!" and really suspicious of women. He likes peanuts and bananas a lot. He does not like avocados because they will kill him.

Hope you're all doing well!

Love,
Paige

Fish Out of Water

Hellooo loved ones --

So I started living/ working on the Alabama this past week, and right now we're in Fairhaven, Mass waiting out the crummy weather for some sunshine to paint, etc (worth noting -- I don't actually know what the etc is).

Since my old neighborhood in Bangkok was home to Soi Cowboy (one of bkk's three red-light districts..) I found it fantastically appropriate that our neighbor here at the shipyard is also named Cowboy:::



Here's the focsle and the main saloon of the boat below that::





aaaand then here's the deck --



Love to you all!
-Paige

Oh heyyy, America

So I got into Grammie's on Saturday, and had a good few days with her, the twins, and Ollie. Got all of the pre-employment logistics out of the way (with HUGE help from Michelle who took me to get my criminal record printed out after Grammie and I had spent the better part of a morning trying to figure out how I could get to the state police's office without a $100 cab ride), and then went down to Boston to visit with some wonderful people there.

Since I was pretty warmed up from my usmile experience, we posed for pictures:::





The top photo is Ayanna,Casey, me and Holly -- and then the bottom photo is Rob, me and Rachel (Rob is from MV, and went to Emory; Rachel is my friend whose boat I lived on two summers back).

I also got to see Julia, Whitney, Zach, Tonelli, and Chloe -- and it was really great to hear about what everyone is up to.

So now I'm staying with my friend Meredith, and probably leaving on the boat Sunday or Monday. She's dog-sitting right now, and we're staying at a really great house with a very pretty field in the backyard::



some flowers to prove it's spring::



and a very endearing heart-rock collection --



I'm so happy to be back, and feel very at home even though I'm camping at other peoples places right now -- but obviously I do miss Thailand, and especially the people there mak mak.

Love to you all,
Paige

Post-Protest

So from what I hear the protestors have dispersed now here in Bangkok. It was pretty bizarre to feel safe over here in my part of town, and then see very aggressive, unpredictable images of the city live on CNN.

There were a few calm protestors two blocks away from where I live, and since it has been the Thai new year (Songkran) there has also been a 3-day countrywide waterfight going on in addition to the protests.

People everywhere have squirt guns, and buckets of water and you can't walk anywhere without ending up wet.



People also ride around in pick-up trucks and motorbikes to soak people. Rachel and I both got soaked while on motorbikes. There's very little pity.

Love to you all,
Paige

Luang Prabang

So after Pai Rachel and I took an 8 or 9pm bus to the Thai-Laos border, and crossed the river in the morning to get into Laos.

The plan was to take 2 days taking a boat up the Mekong, but once we got there and learned that there was a one day bus to Luang Prabang we opted for that since we were a little short on time.

The town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and really mellow and lovely.

Here are some street shots::





The Mekong wraps around the town, and there are restaurants and cafes that line the road looking out on the river::





I also had real, genuine strong-brewed coffee every morning that we were there, and some yummy croissants and things at breakfast::



There was a temple at the top of the hill looking out over the town::





And lots of gorgeous buildings and a few sweetsweet cars --



Loved it.

and love to you all!
-Paige