2021 Life Logs, Day 236: Just a Fun Summer Day
Date: Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 84, Low Temp 69 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
As I have all summer, I let Sam, Jonah, and Ollie basically set our agenda each day for Camp Oma. I offer ideas, as do they, and then they decide what we will do on any given day. Their goal for the summer was to have mornings at home to read, relax, and play and then spend afternoons doing low-key summer activities. Their plan for today was to go to the Sandwich Glass Museum or go play mini-golf. We ended up doing neither. Sam made last minute plans with a friend to go downtown for lunch after his morning soccer practice and when I picked him up he expressed interest in going to the Glass Museum on a day when he could go. I let Jonah and Ollie make the decision and they definitely wanted to wait and go with Sam on another afternoon. Then they decided that rather than go play mini-golf, they would like to play at home, go to Trotting Park to practice soccer kicks, and I added to that the suggestion that we go to Highfield Hall to have a picnic lunch and play in the stick house built by artisans last summer. We went with this revised plan.
Our picnic lunch at Highfield was at the base of a huge old American Beech tree (Fagus grandifolia) planted by the Beebee family when they lived on the property in the late 1800’s. We then moved to the front lawn of the mansion and had dessert sitting on a stone bench in the shade with the stick house as our view. Just looking at it invites you to want to play hide and seek in its twists and turns, so we did. Since we were there, I asked the boys if they would like to go inside the mansion to see the current art exhibits focused on the sea. One is named SeaChange and is “a call to action that explores the interconnectedness of all living things: our responsibilities toward our environment, our efforts to recognize the fragility of our Earth, and the need to restore balance to preserve it.” The second exhibit was Turn the Tide which “explores the dual threats of climate change and ocean acidification.” Ollie and Jonah both seemed to enjoy the exhibit, but the thing that impressed them both the most was a visit to the men’s room at the end of our visit. They went in and came right back out with Jonah almost screaming, “Oma, you have to come in here and see this.” There was no one else in the bathroom, so I looked in. It is a jaw-dropping beautiful bathroom with tiled floors and walls that made it look like an art exhibit. Next time I am at Highfield, I will have to find the women’s room and check it out.
We went home to pick up Sam and go to the Crooked Coast store. Crooked Coast is a local music group that has a small shop that sells their paraphernalia. We have tried to catch them open all summer, but once again we were unsuccessful. So, we headed to soccer field for the boys to practice kicking goals with the new soccer balls they bought yesterday. We then had to head home for the Goldpebbles to get showered and dressed for an evening of outside fun for the families of Woodwell Climate Change Research Center on their campus. And I had to rush home to pick up Shadow and go to a 5:30 pm dog training class. It was a day filled with summer fun.
