2017 Life Logs, Day 304: Happy Halloween
Date: Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Weather: Sunny, Still Windy; High 61, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Happy Halloween! I just got home from Heather and Jed’s where, dressed as witch,
I handed out treats and kept the fog machine in the front yard going via remote control.
As soon as I heard a someone coming, I would hit the button to make fog that drifted through a strobe light. “Very cool” was the comment I heard from many trick-or-treaters. Tonight Sam dressed as his soccer hero, Messi, and Ollie and Jonah were the Kratt brothers, Chris and Martin, from their favorite nature-based television program, Wild Kratts.
It was a fun Halloween evening with the Goldstones.
I started my day with a walk to Starbucks for coffee with Jane Woodin, combining exercise with pleasure. Bruce and Jane just returned from a three-week vacation in Europe. They spent a week in London, a week in Paris, and a week on a river cruise on the Seine. They had a wonderful time and Jane summed it up by saying that it was the trip of a lifetime. She especially loved Paris—beautiful city, lovely people, wonderful food. Sounds like a great combination. When I got home, I entered a two-hour battle with Comcast, the only cable and internet provider here on the Cape. The problem was that they insisted that I no longer had an outage, when it was very obvious that I did. And not just me. I know my next door neighbor was having the same battle with them. But since their workmen reported that they had fixed things here, when in reality they had not, we now have to wait another day or two to get our connection back. I am using my phone as an internet hotspot tonight to post this log, but it sure will be nice when things are back up and running. I feel so guilty complaining when I think of what Justin and Jo are going through, but it is because of them that I want my connection back. Now that communications are a little better, I sometimes get a call from Justin. But other times, he contacts me through Skype messaging on the computer. And I need internet for that. But then other people here are still without electricity. The remnants of tropical storm Phillipe that hit us on Sunday night into Monday morning wrecked a lot of havoc in New England and many are still without power.
I got a text from my good friend Detta Porat this afternoon. Matthew, her son, lives in Greenwich Village in New York City and rides his bike to work on the bike path where another awful attack on innocent people happened this afternoon. Thankfully, Matthew was still at work. I’m reading Ken Follett’s new book, A Column of Fire, which takes place in England in 1558. Mary Tudor is the queen of England, but in last night’s reading, it became clear that she is expected to die soon. There is a fierce debate about who should succeed her, Mary Stuart or Elizabeth Tutor. Those who favor Elizabeth do so because they know she will stop the burning at the stake of Protestants for their beliefs. In 1558, many people were wondering when the slaughter of people based on their religious beliefs would end. And now, almost 460 years later, we are still asking the same question. Such a sad commentary on the progress of civilization, or rather, the lack thereof.
