2019 Life Logs, Day 363: For the Love of Mangoes
Date: Sunday, December 29, 2019
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Rain Late; High 43, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

When Heather left for Maine, she gave me two mangoes that had come with her Misfits delivery and would go bad by the time they get home. I ate the first one the next day and felt like I had been transported to the tropics. It tasted soooooooo good. Then tonight, I cut into the second one and had a repeat performance. I honestly don’t remember tasting anything this good ever. So, thank you Heather! I do love mangoes.

My day today was more of the same. Last night I started working the 1,000 piece Vintage Christmas Cards puzzle Jonah got me for Christmas and I continued that today. It is a bit challenging with a puppy. I usually work my puzzles on my coffee table. But as I discovered this morning, I can’t leave any puzzle pieces down that low without losing them to Shadow. I thought I was being smarter than him by putting most of the puzzle pieces on a card table and putting just the pieces I am immediately working with on a piece of cardboard on the coffee table so I can move it higher when not working on it. I think my mistake was a trip to the bathroom. I didn’t put the puzzle up as I was going to be right back. But right back is just the right amount of time for a puppy to steal puzzle pieces. I fought the evidence by the front door later in the morning. And then I made the mistake of leaving the book I am reading on the couch when I made a trip to the kitchen. It was a brand new, beautiful hardback book that now has the back edge chewed nicely by Shadow. These things hadn’t happened in prior days as I wasn’t reading or working puzzles. The fact that I am now doing that is proof that I feel better, but my perfect little companion was only perfect when I gave him my full attention. I’ll have to get smarter about leaving anything within Shadow’s reach that I don’t want chewed to pieces.

As I write this log, we have two days, 1 hour, 46 minutes until 2020. My hope was to be rid of this cold by New Year’s Day, but I’m not sure that is going to happen. Yesterday and today were slightly better, but I still have to sleep sitting up to keep the coughing under control. But again today, I felt good enough to spend some time working outside in the beautiful sunshine. The weather forecast for the next week is for more of the same relatively warm days with sunshine, except for tomorrow and Friday when we will have rain. Tomorrow’s rain has already begun with sprinkles, but there is a 100 per cent chance that we will get more than sprinkles by tomorrow . . . a good day for more reading and working on that puzzle.