2021 Life Logs, Day 14: Celebrations the Covid Way
Date: Thursday, January 14, 2021
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 47, Low 34 Degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
There is a lot of negative in our lives these days, but it is heartening to know that we can set that aside for short periods and enjoy celebrations in a new way, the Covid way.
Today was friend Terry White’s 80th birthday and the 1 pm celebration was organized by a member of our Dining-in Group. It was a car parade which, when it was first proposed, I thought was a rather silly idea for adults. But I have to admit that it was wonderful. Thank you, Midge, for organizing this. There were about ten cars that arrived in a gathering area, some with helium balloons that I also poo pooed and still do, others with banners, and at the appointed time, we all drove through Olivia and Terry’s u-shaped driveway. They had been alerted to come outside to the driveway and we went through, each car stopping to give birthday wishes to Terry, wearing masks of course.. It only took a few minutes, but you could feel the warmth and friendship that was exchanged. Happy 80th birthday to Terry!
I started my morning by attending a monthly Falmouth Newcomers meeting on Zoom. The speaker today was Terry and Olivia’s daughter, Sheri. She is the Lead Systems Engineer for the Ocean Observatories Initiative at WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution). This means that she goes out on the research vessel Neil Armstrong a few times each year to maintain arrays of moorings and autonomous vehicles in the North Atlantic, the North Pacific, and off the coast of New England. These moorings gather scientific data used by my many scientific institutions. It was a really interesting presentation, and the timing was perfect as Sheri was able to wish her dad a happy birthday while giving her presentation. The only other highlight of the day was taking Jonah and Ollie to the skatepark after school. When I went to pick Ollie up today, I took Shadow with me. So when I dropped Ollie off, Sam wanted to know if he could take Shadow for a run—Sam on his skateboard and Shadow pulling. Shadow has had his harness on since Monday’s run without it, so I told Sam to give it a go. All went well. And then Jonah and Ollie wanted to go to the skatepark.
I haven’t been there for a while and I enjoyed watching the boys. Even though the weather was mild, Shadow and I stayed in the car and watched from there. Some of the other parents don’t wear masks, so staying in the car is safer for me.
