2024 Life Logs, Day 85: Catching Up
Date: Monday, March 25, 2024
Weather: Overcast, Super Windy and Chilly; High Temp 40, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

March is doing its windy thing. We are in the midst of another gale warning through tomorrow afternoon. The temp today was 40 degrees F, which isn’t all that cold, but with the strong north wind, it was freezing outside. So, after going to physical therapy this morning, I spent most of the day inside. I caught up on communications with a few friends, did some Encore work, did some indoor gardening, and just generally enjoyed a laid-back day.

Olivia White forwarded a piece to me today that my daughter wrote on her Heather Goldstone for Select Board Facebook page on St. Patrick’s Day.
“Happy St. Patrick’s Day! May the luck o’ the Irish be with Falmouth Public Schools – Massachusetts Clippers Women’s Hockey today as they take the ice at TD Garden to bring home the state championship!
This contest caps off a week that has showcased so much hard work and accomplishment by Falmouth students — first at All Bands Night, then at yesterday’s STEAM Fair. We also saw at the Falmouth Education Foundation – Massachusetts Gala the spirit of volunteerism and philanthropy that supplements the Town’s generosity to make our schools exceptional.
Public education in Falmouth is strong, and that’s one leg of the stool upon which a thriving, diverse, and resilient community sits. The other two are a bit wobbly. From ponds to coastlines, we have work to do to protect and restore our precious environment. And we have to address our housing crisis so that it is possible to both live and work in Falmouth.

At the same time, we can’t take that strong leg for granted. Staying at the top of your game takes constant work and investment (as any athlete knows), and there is always room for growth and improvement (something our educators and school administrators embody every day). Our schools can also be a hub and engine for progress throughout our town. That’s why education will remain one of my core issues and priorities as I shift from School Committee to Select Board. Go Clippers!”

And I say, Go Heather! I knew she had a dedicated Select Board page, but I wasn’t sure how to get to it. So, wanting to know what else she has posted, I just typed in Heather Goldstone for Select Board and Facebook took me right to it and I clicked to be a follower so I will get notified if there are new posts. Then I read the top of the page where she makes this statement, “I am an independent problem-solver focused on Falmouth’s future as a thriving, driving, resilient community.” And I am an independent proud mother.

And then there is Justin and Jo. Yesterday I saw their Silvermouse summer European music tour calendar posted on Instagram and I had another very proud mother moment. From Puerto Rico to Norway, carrying all of those instruments and electronic equipment!

Get ready to embark on a mystical musical journey!
Silvermouse goes BEYOND this Summer
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We are taking our fully brainwave entrainment supported body of work on tour: our ALL LIVE psychedelic weavings of multi-instrumentals (violin, guitar, mandolin, flute, ukulele, and other, random, magical instruments); live electronic compositions; and live psychoactive beat frequencies.
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Announcing the first wave of tour dates! Where will the magic take you?
Silvermouse Summer Tour BeyondTour2024
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Confirmed Dates:
Aguada, PR – May 18
Washington, DC – May 30
London, UK – June 13
Frome, UK – June 15
Totnes, UK – June 21
Kragerø, NO – July 20
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More enchanting destinations to be revealed… Stay tuned!
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2024 Life Logs, Day 83: Ollie the Farmer
Date: Saturday, March 23, 2024
Weather: Overcast and Rainy, Gale Warning Tonight; High Temp 50, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

By the time Ollie was two, he started putting a tractor on his Christmas lists for Santa. When he was three, I was his chaperone for a trip to the Coonemessett Farm and while all the other kids were admiring the animals, Ollie would lead me over to show me the tractor of his dreams.

09 Ollie Loved the Tractor

For his 4th birthday, Ollie got his first tractor. It was a John Deere pedal tractor with a trailer. We learned over time that it was very hard to pedal. But Ollie persisted and continued to ask for a motorized tractor. Fast forward to 2022, and Ollie was sitting proudly on a kid-sized motorized tractor. Then his Christmas list changed. He decided he wanted a real tractor. Since he doesn’t live on a farm, a real tractor seemed like a bit of a stretch, so this past Christmas Santa gave him the promise of a small lawn tractor as a combined Christmas/birthday present. It arrived today and he was thrilled. He is good driver, so I guess all the practice on his little motorized tractor paid off. I watched as he backed it up, headed out of the driveway, turned it around, and then headed back down the driveway to park it. I was certainly impressed.

Sam participated in a statewide Model UN today somewhere near Boston. He had to be on the bus by 6:30 am and didn’t get home until early evening. “Model UN is a world-renowned program in which students role-play delegates representing member states of the United Nations.” The Falmouth High School group have had preparation sessions after school since the beginning of the school year. I look forward to hearing about his experience.

I spent my day walking with Shadow in between spurts of heavy rain, did the set of exercises I am to do once a day between PT sessions, made a spinach mushroom soup, set up the grow lights for the things Ollie and planted last weekend, and somehow this filled my day. It was certainly not a day for outside activities. Tonight, it is roaring out there and raining harder than it did for most of the day. The rain is supposed to end by midnight, but the strong north wind will continue into tomorrow. It looks to be a rainy week, but the forecast for next week is promising with warmer temps and sunshine. I’ll be ready.

2024 Life Logs, Day 82: Physical Therapy Evaluation … Finally
Date: Friday, March 22, 2024
Weather: Sunny and Chilly; High Temp 37, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Nine weeks after my back surgery, today I finally had my physical therapy evaluation. I had to wait three extra weeks to get the physical therapist I wanted , but I think it was worth the wait. I was very pleased with this first session. I will have two sessions a week for six weeks, have one week off, then knee surgery, and the physical therapy will start again. From now until the end of June, my goal is to focus on getting my body back into shape. It has been months since I could really walk long distances or do exercises other than stretching. I am truly looking forward to the challenge, and a challenge it will be. Actually, more like a miracle!

2024 Life Logs, Day 81: Happy 12th Birthday to Ollie
Date: Thursday, March 21, 2024
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High Temp 40, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Happy Birthday to Oliver Preston Goldstone! Ollie and Simon Ackerman were born on the same day twelve years ago in adjacent rooms at Falmouth Hospital. And now they live in the same neighborhood and can walk to school together. This morning, Simon’s mom, Kate, took a great photo of the boys carrying their saxophones to school and this evening we had a family dinner at the Goldstones to celebrate. I went over to take Simon and Ollie to soccer practice at 5 pm, but they had both decided to skip practice. So, I took Ollie to Falmouth Pet Center to talk with Doug, the owner, about adding more fish to Ollie’s aquarium. Doug is always willing to share information and answer Ollie’s many questions. At Doug’s suggestion, Ollie is going to add the new fish after he has given the aquarium a good maintenance cleaning this weekend.

The Goldstone boys always get to dictate what we have for dinner on their birthdays. Tonight, it was homemade sushi and chocolate cake. When I arrived for dinner, Heather and Jed were both busy making rolls. Very impressive! There was sushi grade tuna and salmon, calamari, scallions, avocado, and cucumber. The rolls were beautiful, delicious, and cost about half what it would have cost as take-out.

Sam had to leave by 7 pm to go to soccer practice. He got to eat, but he missed the opening of presents and cake. I gave Ollie a subscription to Mark Rober’s Crunch Labs which are build-it-yourself engineering kits you receive each month. Mark Rober was a NASA engineer who is now a YouTuber and just so much fun. He started Crunch Labs to get kids to think, play, and build like an engineer. Heather recommended this purchase and Ollie was delighted. Evidently both of Ollie’s grandmothers think alike as Grammy Marti sent him a similar kit from a different company. Jed gave Ollie a huge box of gray Legos. I asked why just gray, and Heather explained that she is forever being recruited to sort through the hundreds of Legos for gray bricks to build ships. But the biggest present of all was that a decision was finally made tonight on the lawn tractor to purchase. This is something he has wanted since he was two and it was his combined Christmas and birthday gift from Santa and mom and dad.

Lighting the birthday candles on the cake was quite the affair tonight. Ollie started lighting the candles with a grill lighter, but every time he lit a candle, Jonah would run through the dining room and blow it out. Jonah finally grabbed the lighter and hid it, so Ollie went to get a grill lighter that looked more like a mini blow torch. That did the trick and we finally got to sing Happy Birthday. And before I left, I shared the Welcome to Crunch Labs video that I received after subscribing where you learn how to make the best paper airplane ever. When I left, Ollie was adjusting the wings and the trim to make the plane do loops. He was one happy 12 year old tonight.

The rest of my day was spent in Hyannis getting an eye exam and ordering new glasses and then heading on to Costco to get a few items I needed. Tomorrow the only thing I have on my to do list is to go to my PT evaluation. Finally, I get to start PT post back surgery.

2024 Life Logs, Day 80: Happy Spring!
Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny Turning Cloudy PM; High Temp 49, Low 29 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Spring arrived last night at 11:06 pm, the earliest spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere in 128 years. It continues to be windy making it feel colder than the thermometer says, but when the sun was shining earlier in the day, at least it was a down vest, not a winter coat day. I spent this first full day of spring at morning long Encore general meeting and then spent my afternoon indoors catching up on things I had put aside to get ready for the meeting. But I did spend a big chunk of time outside enjoying the sunshine while playing ball with Shadow. I was enjoying being outside so much that I wore him out. He finally ignored the tennis ball and just plopped down on the ground. I took that as my cue to bring him back inside!

2024 Life Logs, Day 79: Tuesday Work-a-Day
Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Easterly Wind; High Temp 45, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Today was just a repeat of yesterday with the exception of taking Ollie to his saxophone lesson this afternoon. He was very sad because yesterday their male kitty, Mel, somehow got out the front door and ran away. When I talked to Ollie about his birthday coming up on Thursday, today he said all he wants is Mel to come home. They put food in the garage and left one of the doors open part way so he could come in if he wanted. And Heather and Ollie were going to put up posters around the neighborhood. When I got a text from Heather later this evening saying they found Mel in the garage under Sam’s car, I immediately broke out in tears of joy. He is very scared and smells funny, but he is all in one piece. Now Ollie can get on with the birthday planning.

2024 Life Logs, Day 78: Monday Work-a-Day
Date: Monday, March 18, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Northerly Wind; High Temp 47, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

There was sunshine today, but every time I went outside, I was freezing. The temperature wasn’t much different from yesterday, but that northerly wind makes it feel much colder. But, after all, it is not quite officially spring. Winter can have one more day, then I seriously want warmer weather! Just kidding. I know spring is a long, fickle slog, not erupting into summer until July.

I don’t have much to report today. I am in charge of the joint (Encore plus Newcomers) general meeting on Wednesday, so I spent much of my day getting the agenda finalized. This required checking in with a number of people and then putting together a PowerPoint presentation to match the agenda. I also spent some time researching what to get Ollie for his birthday. It is on Thursday, and I am behind the times this year. And I also did a little digging to see what I might be able to do to help out with Heather’s campaign for Select Board. That was it for my day.

2024 Life Logs, Day 77: Happy St. Patrick’s Day
Date: Sunday, March 17, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 52, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Ollie and I spent the entire day together just enjoying life and doing a little gardening. After a late breakfast, I went to the hardware store to buy garden soil for my new planter. On Cape Cod, St. Patrick’s Day if the traditional day to plant peas, so Ollie restrung the pea and bean tower, carried the bags of garden oil from the car to the front of the house, and then planted the seeds. We stopped for lunch, and he helped me get something done that I have been working on for two weeks. I got the growing flats ready days ago, but I had not planted the seeds. We took the flats outside where Ollie meticulously put the tiny seeds in each cell and then brought them back inside. I still need to get the grow lights up, but I have a few days as the light is not needed until the little plants emerge.

Heather left early this morning to take Sam and his friend Sebastian to a soccer game west of Boston and then she drove them into Boston to the Gardens to watch the Falmouth High School girl’s hockey team play in the State semi-finals. Jonah took the student bus from the high school to the game. They were not going to get home until after 6 pm, so Ollie spent the day with me. Jed stopped by early in the day to check-in and we decided on a plan for dinner. I picked up the meat at Wicked & Wood while I was out getting the garden soil and later in the day, he dropped off the red cabbage so that I could fix coleslaw. And we gathered at their house once everyone was home. Heather and Jed added mac and cheese for our version of a quick and easy St. Patrick’s Day dinner.

2024 Life Logs, Day 76: Science Fair, Mingle & Mix, Ollie Overnight
Date: Saturday, March 16, 2024
Weather: Mostly to Partly Cloudy; High Temp 52, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

The day began in the Falmouth High School gymnasium where I went to see the STEAM Fair entries. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. When you add the A to make it STEAM, you are adding art ranging from visual arts, language arts and physical arts to music. The annual event where students presented science experiments used to be called science fairs but have now been extended to include more. For instance, this year Sam did not enter a science experiment. Members of his physics class built marble runs and entered those as an active display.

Jonah and Ollie both did science experiments. Ollie’s was titled Food Dye Filtration. His goal was to determine which select mediums did the best job of filtering out Red 40 dye.

The title of Jonah’s experiment was Food Dye Hyperactivity in Zebrafish. He found that food dye does affect the level of activity in Zebrafish, similar to the way it produces hyperactivity in people. He won a second place in the high school division and received a $250 check. The top first place prize was a $3,000 college scholarship. When Heather and Justin were entering science fairs, there was no monetary prize. I think it is wonderful that today’s students get the incentive that hopefully encourages them to keep entering year after year.

In the early evening, I went to an Encore Mingle & Mix affair. This is a two hour get together in a host home where everyone brings an appetizer or dessert and their drink of choice. It is a great opportunity to make new friends. I left right at 7 pm so I could go pick up Ollie. Heather and Jed were at the Falmouth Education Foundation fund raiser where the high school jazz band provided the music. That meant Jonah was there as well. Sam was at an away soccer game, so Ollie had asked me if he could come over to my house for dinner and an overnight. He loves chili, so I made that ahead of time. I picked him up and we came home to eat and then watch another Star Wars movie. We have watched all of the major ones, so last night we watched Solo. It is about Hans Solo as a young man. I really enjoy learning the background history of the various Star Wars characters. And I love having the special time with one grandchild at a time.