So, I’m working checkout at the A&P, right? When I hear this conversation out of the corner of my ear: two women, voices lowered, talking fast in a urgent sort way. I mean, who wouldn’t listen in?

“He wakes me up every morning at 5:00.”

“Every morning?”

“Like clockwork. I don’t mind it so much on week days. I have to be up for work, anyways. But, it’s the weekends, too.”

“You think he’d let you sleep in at least one morning.”

It’s no wonder nobody in Portland ever has sex. Too much art, culture, festivals, nightlife, sporting events. Not to mention the Portland Water District’s policy of adding saltpeter to the water supply.

But there may be hope for the withered libidos of the state’s most populous city.

Saturday morning, Charlie and me went out for breakfast down to the Busy Bee. Now that Labor Day has passed, the tourists are thinning out, so us locals can actually get a seat. My sister Irene and her husband Jimbo were planning to meet us there. We arrive to find them sitting at an outdoor table, shooting the breeze with Craig Holden.

“Hey there, Craig,” I says. “How you doing?”

I’m not at all surprised this happened. I’m more surprised this sort of thing doesn’t go on all the time.

On Sept. 7, Maine State Police were summoned to the southbound lane of Interstate 295 in Brunswick after several motorists reported seeing a naked, middle-aged man walking south in the breakdown lane.

The man was said to be wearing nothing but a “bushy beard.”

Caitlin got back from her yoga retreat this week, and like the sweet niece she is, she brought me un petit cadeau. You know, a little present, to let me know she was thinking of me while she was away.

“Oh, Aunt Ida,” she says. “When I called my mom and she told me about the ordeal you had with your computer, I felt so bad. I brought you back little something special.”

I lead a sheltered life here in the hinterlands of western Maine. I don’t go clubbing on Wharf Street in Portland’s Old Port (latest advertising slogan: Now With Far Fewer Chances of Getting Arrested).

The other day, out of the blue, my email stopped working. I didn’t notice it at first. Heck, I didn’t think I was that into email, but you know what? I am. My routine is, I check my email right after breakfast, and read my daily inspirational quote from Martha Beck. She writes that column in the Oprah magazine. I like her because she’s not too woo-woo with that New Age-y stuff.

On August 11, the French Press Eatery in Westbrook held a grand reopening to celebrate its renovations, which included a bar and accommodations to serve dinner.

Three days later, the place closed.

The co-owner, James Tranchemontagne, said he didn’t have enough cash to keep the restaurant operating, thereby making himself eligible for the BP-Worst-Advance-Planning-Since-The-Gulf-Oil-Spill Award.

Well, me and the girls went to see that new movie, “Eat Pray Love” in Bangor the other day. Or “Eat Snooze Love,” as we called it. For the two of you who don’t know the plot, why don’t I completely give it away? It doesn’t matter. You’ll want to see it anyway for the hunk factor alone.

The movie is based on the real life book by this gal Elizabeth Gilbert, who gets divorced, then spends a year traveling around living in Italy, India, and Bali.

Several years ago, after a Red Sox game, a friend and I were eating prime rib at Durgin-Park in Boston, back before the place became a theme-park version of itself. Seated next to us at the long table was a tourist from Ohio, who told me he was making his first visit to New England. Naturally, he felt compelled to order the steamed lobster.

Big mistake. Here’s why: