Quests

Papa Bear and Mama Bear have, over the years, undertaken a number of what we call "quests." A quest happens when there is a need for an item or service, research/a search about what the need is and how it can be met has to happen, the results of this phase have to be evaluated, a plan for fulfilling the quest must be crafted and then implemented.

Perhaps our most famous quest was Papa Bear's The Watch Quest. This particular quest is capitalized because it lasted for over twenty years - from the time we were married until we were in the midst of Baby Bear's college quest (that quest being far shorter and much less extensive and so not needing capital letters - after all, Baby Bear did not ask to visit every possible college in the United States, but selected a few and we visited those, all within one year).

During the time of The Watch Quest, passing a place that might contain The Watch for Papa Bear meant that we had to go into the establishment, look at all possibilities, perhaps have a salesperson take two or three candidates from the showcase, examine them, then usually (though not always) walk away when the possibilities were found lacking for one reason or another. By and large, Papa Bear has good aesthetic tastes and he is an engineer, and I am certain that existence of both of these conditions simultaneously contributed to the long duration of The Watch Quest.

With these characteristics influencing the decision criteria, there were requirements for both how The Watch would look as well as how it would function. Mama Bear learned patience, and to look at other items available in the same location during Papa Bear's tireless (and sometimes seemingly endless) seeking/evaluation process. During Baby Bear's visit to schools in Boston, we happened upon a now-defunct business in Cambridge Square and, since it sold watches as a part of its offerings, we had to go inside. And there it was: The Watch. Perfect to gaze upon. Perfect in function. Did we purchase it? No. It was, for us, too expensive and so, having found it, we left The Watch there.

The Watch Quest ended shortly thereafter: Mama Bear, upon our return to the House on the Creek, decided enough was enough and called the Cambridge merchant. She purchased the watch. She does not recall where she found the money nor how she managed to keep the expenditure a secret from Papa Bear, but she did, and he received The Watch as his birthday present that November. It has been wonderful to be able to walk by jewelry stores without stopping. It has been wonderful to watch Papa Bear use and appreciate The Watch. It was well worth every penny spent on The Watch to end The Watch Quest.

Other quests present themselves to us from time-to-time, as has happened here at the House on the Cove. We have the ongoing food quest, the bicycle quest in progress, the quest for furniture to complete the House on the Cove so that we can live here, (instead of visit here) as well as the quest to provide a mechanism for The Cat to have ready access to the basement (where her bathroom accommodations have been located) while providing some protection to others from randomly falling down the steps to the basement through the open door.

The good news is that we have made progress on some of these fronts.

• We are still exploring food options. We had the freshest and tastiest English muffins from Sawyer's Market in Southwest recently, which moved them onto the list of definite shopping places. This quest will likely continue for a while - how far to drive, how to get what we want/need/can afford, how often to shop - all are factors in this quest.
  
  
• We learned a lot about options for bicycles during our stop at the Southwest Cycle - gearing, suspension, types of handle bars, weights of bikes, etc. - all come into play and consideration.
  
  
• We took a day - a sunny day on Friday - to complete at least some of our furniture quest. We need more places to store clothes. Being here for the summer instead of two weeks means I have more clothes. I think Papa Bear has more clothes than he usually brought for vacation, too. We have a closet and two lingeries in which to store these clothes. We need more drawer space and so would like a dresser. To make floor space in the room to allow a dresser to fit, we would like to replace the present bedside tables with smaller, more traditional night stands. Having surveyed possibilities via the Web, and visited local furniture-selling establishments on a rainy day, and learned that we were going to have to order whatever we decided upon and that it would take eight weeks to deliver said items after they were ordered, and wanting to alleviate the non-storage situation as quickly as possible, we took the sunny day to revisit the stores, make a decision, and place an order. That part of the furniture quest is resolved, though we still need to decide if we want desks (thus far we are working off our laps or the coffee table, and it is not a problem.) If we want desks, then we have another quest to undertake.
  
  
• Papa Bear found (on the Internet) a gate that can be mounted inside the door frame 0f the doorway that leads to the basement. The gate has an opening in the bottom through with The Cat can pass unobstructed, and an actual gate that can be opened when a human wants to descend the stairs. We think it will meet our needs well. Our thanks to the Moderan Lady of Leisure who suggested this type of device might exist and to look for it.

All was not lost during the sunny Friday bedroom furniture quest completion: we still saw some beautiful scenery, as evidenced by this picture of a point on Thompson Island (the Island you cross when leaving the Mainland and heading towards Mount Desert).



Yesterday and today have been foggy, cloudy, and rainy. Perfect days for staying in, doing paperwork, reading ... Still trying to determine how to take a picture of the herring gull that seems to like to sit on the rocks that emerge at low tide. If I try to get close, it flies away; if I am not close, I cannot get the picture I want. Oh no!!! Is this another quest???