Dianne Ballon (left) and Catherine Cyr work on the “Lost and Sound” exhibition at Maine Maritime Museum. Courtesy of Maine Maritime Museum

Sound artist Dianne Ballon will be at the Maine Maritime Museum Friday in conversation with Associate Curator Catherine Cyr to discuss their work in creating “Lost and Found: Sounds of the Maine Coast by Dianne Ballon.” The July 12 talk is from noon to 1:15 p.m. and is free, but preregistration is required.

Ballon is the sound artist, educator and storyteller behind the museum’s latest exhibition, “Lost and Found.” The informal event will provide space for attendees to learn about the Mainer’s work and how she and museum staff collaborated to create the exhibition. Sarah Timm, director of education, will be on hand to moderate.

Ballon spent years as a visual artist before sound caught her ear while she was volunteering in Appalachia. She was awarded a Maine Artist Fellowship from the Maine Arts Commission. Ten of her sound works have aired on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” Currently, she teaches audio production online through Maine College of Art & Design, SALT Institute for Documentary Studies.

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On Tuesday, Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine) announced the recipients of $2.9 million in Domestic Trade Grants for Maine businesses intended to help increase their sales across the country, with grants strongly favoring companies that produce “sustainable” expensive artisan products.

[ Mills Admin Wants to Pay $485k for ‘Progressive Employment’ Program for ‘Justice involved individuals’…]

These grants include funds for a company that sells $40 6.5oz cans of eel, another that sells scallops for $60 per pound, and one company that sells nothing but pickled blueberries.

“These investments will help Maine producers of everything from soap to surfboards effectively market their products, create jobs, and strengthen the Maine economy,” said Gov. Mills.

The program, which is primarily intended to expand the customer base of local Maine businesses, also granted $100,000 in taxpayer funding to the Maine State Chamber of Commerce for a “multicultural seafood promotion” in Lowell Massachusetts.

Another $100,000 was granted to Maine and Co., a consulting firm that specializes in working with companies in the aquaculture and forestry businesses. Of note, Maine and Co has a picture of its employees posing with Mills on its homepage, however, the extent of the company’s prior relations with Mills is unclear.

Other businesses include Kennebec River Biosciences, which vaccinates fish, Grain Surfboards, which sells “sustainable” surfboards, and the Blue Ox Malthouse, which proudly promotes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs.

Not all of the businesses sell sustainable artisan products targeted at wealthy customers, or promote DEI.

A few sell products for average Mainers, including wood pellets, local farm products, and construction supplies, although these businesses largely took a back seat to businesses with products aimed at upper-class customers, or intended to promote Mills’ climate agenda.

[ Cumberland Sheriff Searching for Suspects Who Rampaged Through Solar Farm with Construction Equipment…]

One company, Maine Community Power, which is primarily dedicated to solar power, received $98,000 from the program.

Earlier this year, in February, Mills granted over $3 million to 40 businesses as part of the same program.

As if I wasn’t enough of a millennial stereotype already, I started my dog on a low dose of Prozac a few weeks ago.

My dog Janey has always been an anxious girl; even on her best days she’s on high alert in case seagulls have been military-grade drones disguised as birds this whole time (among many other concerns).

We’ve been together for five years now, and while she’s certainly made progress since I first adopted her – she hardly ever hides underneath the furniture anymore! – the aging process has thrown more curve balls at us.

She’s now eight and her senses are starting to dull a bit. Where she used to start barking as soon as a set of wheels touched the driveway, now a careful person can get all the way to the front door before she sounds the alarm. In some ways this is good (I don’t enjoy her barking; nobody does, probably not even Janey herself) but in other ways, it’s made her more easily startled. A startled dog is a fearful dog and a fearful dog can become aggressive.

So, with a bunch of changes on the horizon for my anxious girlypup – namely, my girlfriend Bo and her cat Persephone having moved into the house – I told my vet I thought it was time to seek medical assistance. Janey’s never going to be a chill, even-tempered golden retriever, but I figured it might help take the edge off a bit.

Prozac is the penicillin of psychiatric medications; it’s the OG, the original in its field; it works pretty well pretty widely; it revolutionized medicine; it’s the first line of treatment prescribed; and you can use it in pets as well as people.

When I first sought out treatment for my anxiety disorder (I’ve always said Janey and I are one soul in two bodies) I was put on Prozac. It didn’t really work for me; I’m hoping that since Janey is a smaller and less complex lifeform than a human, it will do the trick. My indefatigable veterinarian said that it takes about two months on Prozac to see the full effect in any given animal.

So far, Janey’s definitely lost her appetite a little – a side effect I remember from my stint – but since she needs to lose a few pounds anyway, it’s kind of a benefit. Now we take our medications together every morning, although mine don’t go into a bacon-flavored pill pocket. (Yet.)

While we haven’t seen the full effect, she certainly seems a lot calmer. She still barks whenever anyone enters the house but she settles down a lot quicker. My girlfriend Bo and her lovely cat Persephone moved in last week, with a few bouts of stress-related tears (mostly mine) but no major catastrophes. Janey was certainly on edge with all the moving, new sounds and smells, furniture rearrangement and spooky moving boxes everywhere (anything could be hiding in there!) but she got through it and was fairly polite towards the cat. They aren’t best friends yet. I wonder if maybe no other cat will ever come close to measuring up to the late, great Juno in Janey’s eyes.

As we were standing around the kitchen with our seltzers, celebrating a job half done – there are still boxes everywhere, and we have to engage in the ritual of discovering we own duplicate items and deciding who’s we are going to keep – we noticed something odd.

My rambunctious, barely-year-old puppy, who has a brain like a ping-pong ball, was hyper-focused. Karma never sits still unless it’s past 9:30 p.m. and she is literally in REM-stage sleep. There she was, sitting bolt upright, in a straight posture no Milk-Bone treat has ever convinced her to do. She looked like a robot dog about to shoot lasers out of her eyeballs, which were locked directly on Persephone. A six-inch blob of drool hung from her flappy jowls.

Turns out I was worrying about the wrong dog. Sweet baby Karma, who has loved every human and dog who has crossed her path or even entered her field of vision, has a prey drive.

My mom always says that couples who are getting serious about each other should take a trip together so they can see how the other reacts in a high-stress situation where everything can (and will) go wrong. That was obviously only because my mom hadn’t thought of the concept of putting three adults and four animals, one of whom clearly wants to eat the other like a little feline fajita, into one 900-square-foot house.

Fortunately, Bo and Persephone are as patient and perfect as the Maine Millennial and her contumacious canine companions are not. Persephone, a sweet orange girl, has clearly learned the legal concept of “stand your ground” – she won’t move when the dogs approach (which would absolutely trigger their instinct to chase). Whenever either dog comes within four feet of her, she bops them on the nose. The claws haven’t come out yet. I suspect when they do, that sharp lesson will manage to cut through even Karma’s thick skull.

While prey drive can’t be trained out of a dog, she can be taught that her roommates are strictly off-limits. Bo already taught her how to walk on a leash without pulling. Anything is possible.

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