Life After Windbird, Day 66: Staying Busy Doing Nothing
Date: Monday, October 17, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warming; High 70, Low 58 degrees F
Location: At Home at The Studio, Falmouth, MA
It is amazing just how busy one can be doing absolutely nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, but nothing of consequence. But the weather is nice and I am enjoying these rather slow-paced days. I went to the gym this morning for my first exercise class which was called 20/20/20. I think it was 20% cardio, 20% weights, and 20% aerobic. I had to go slow on some of the exercises as my left knee is still inflamed, but for a first try, I think I did just fine. I rode a bike for 20 minutes before I left, and it was after 11 am when I got home. I did get the cranberries sorted and stored away and I got most a big batch of granola baked, but that was just about it for my day.
This evening I went over to play games with Ollie while Sam, Jonah, and Heather were at Scouts. Every other Monday Jed has a Health Board meeting, so Heather takes over as Scout leader on those nights. Ollie and I always have fun when we are together and tonight was no exception. When I first arrived, I gave Jed a t-shirt that Heather had given to her dad a few years ago. It was Mark’s favorite t-shirt of all time. Printed on the front was this little quip, “If a man is sailing at sea where no woman can hear him, is he still wrong?” Of course the answer is YES. No matter where Mark was when he wore this shirt, every woman who saw him stopped him so they could read the shirt again. It was quite a conversation piece. But when I gave the shirt to Jed tonight, Ollie stopped me saying we (he and I) needed to keep the shirt so we could touch it to let Granddad know how much we love him. I tried to convince him that when his daddy wears the shirt, we can still touch it to let Granddad know we love him, but he wasn’t buying it. He finally agreed, but I am constantly amazed at Ollie’s determination to do things to keep letting Mark know we love him. Tonight he told me that he knows that when people die they can still talk. And he still hears Granddad tell him that he loves him. Heather often calls Ollie the Ollie lama as he often has insights that are way beyond his years. Tonight he sent a couple of magnets home with me and he said that when I touch them, Granddad will know. He almost has me convinced.
We moved on to the game playing part of our evening. We tried to assemble a very difficult dinosaur 3-D anatomy puzzle. I could figure out how to make the skeletal structure fit in, but I couldn’t figure out how to include all of the various organs. Ollie kept asking me, “You know what they are don’t you?” I assured him I did, but that I just couldn’t figure out how to make them fit. We did get the dinosaur together minus brains, lungs, kidneys, intestines, etc., and then we moved on to playing Zingo, a game I can understand. It is like Bingo, and although Ollie filled his cards first each time, he assured me I didn’t lose because we just kept playing until I filled my cards. He then played on his own for a few minutes while I unloaded the dishwasher and filled it up again. But I had to stop before I was finished as we needed to head to the beach at Menauhant to try and see the launch of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket being launched from Virginia’s Eastern Shore on Wallops Island. Ollie and I arrived just before launch time, and right behind us came Heather with Sam and Jonah. Unfortunately there were clouds on the horizon and we couldn’t see the launch, but we did get to see the slightly waning full moon rise above the clouds while listening to the waves quietly washing ashore. It was definitely worth the trip even without seeing the launch. That was the perfect ending to a good day.
