2026 Life Logs, Day 166: Pinning Down the Details and Day One in the Arctic
Date: Monday, June 15, 2026
Weather: Rain Overnight, Partly Sunny; High Temp 82, Low 59 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
What I did not do today was go on a field trip to Providence. It was a walking tour of the town and sounded like a wonderful opportunity, but I needed to spend the day trying to pin down the details of my sister’s move here. She is weathering her second bout of Covid and pneumonia okay so far, but this morning her sugar levels spiked, probably due to the meds she is on. I needed to make the final decision on when the Flying Angels would arrange the trip, and that was settled by the doctor. He can’t sign off on a flight for her until her sugar levels are in control and her lungs are completely clear. It took many calls throughout the day to finally get him to say that he thinks we can plan on June 29. But it was after 5:30 pm when I got that message, so tomorrow I will finalize with Flying Angels. Then there is the chore of choosing a doctor here, dealing with her health insurance, and many other details. That is how I spent my day and will spend my day tomorrow. Hopefully by tomorrow night most of the details will be pinned down.
I woke up to a text message from Heather announcing that she had arrived safely. Then later in the day she sent a photo of her in a tunnel dug through permafrost standing next to bison femur. Bison? I know but I didn’t know bison ever lived that far north. We can all envison polar bears (Nanuag) and grizzly bears (Aklaq), and caribou (Tuttu), moose, and wolves (Amaguq) in the Arctic, but I was surprised by bison. I had to educate myself a bit. What I learned is that prehistoric steppe bison lived in the Arctic as ‘recently’ as 30,00 to 9,000 years ago, and in Alaska and the Yukon as recently as 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. But that ‘recently’ was a long time ago. So I am going to forgive myself for not knowing.
