2026 Life Logs, Day 132: One Thing I Am Really Good at Doing
Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 59, Low 48 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
We are all really good at something, but unfortunately, for me, the thing I am really good at is biting off more than I can chew. Right now I am doing the final planning for a field trip of 30 Newcomers/Encore members to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on Monday. Then on Wednesday, I am ‘hosting’ an Encore monthly meeting shining a spotlight on our Cape Verdean neighbors. Southeastern Massachusetts has the highest concentration of Cape Verdean Americans in the U.S., and a fair number of those live in and around Falmouth. As Programs VP for Encore this year, I really wanted to have a program focused on this culture. And, of course, I promised we would serve authentic Cape Verdean food. I am learning about malasada and gufong and other Cape Verdean specialties and before the meeting next Wednesday, I will have to learn to cook those things. On Thursday afternoon of next week, I am supposed to have a program for my public policy group. That is a work in progress. And on Thursday night of next week, I need to know all about door-door-canvassing for an Indivisible monthly meeting presentation how to get out the vote. There’s more, but you get the idea. I am very bad at saying no and very good at over committing. But I am passionate about all of these things, so I’ll get the job done somehow.
Today was a book club day, then off to take Ollie to saxophone lesson and to soccer practice, then on to a Falmouth Library Board of Trustee meeting. All I can say is that I hope keeping this busy and learning this many new things is good for my brain! I would end there, but there is one more episode from today that I just have to share with you.
On my way to my morning book club, I got a call from my sister’s physical therapist who visits her in her apartment twice a week. She sent me photos of 4 wine bottles, half empty corked bottles sitting on my almost 93-year-old sister’s kitchen countertop. What? The PT wanted to know if someone in my family threw a party for Patsy in the past couple of days because she was there on Sunday morning and there were no wine bottles. Well, no one threw a party for Patsy. And Patsy couldn’t open a wine bottle if she wanted to. I have no idea where those wine bottles came from and no at the facility where she lives has any idea. The caretaker that is with her 6 hours every day says they weren’t any wine bottles on the counter when she left at 6:00 pm last evening. This is truly one situation I did not anticipate having to deal with today or any day. Life just gets more interesting minute by minute.
