Day 112, Year 7: Sitting in a Pot of Bubbling Water
Date: Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Weather: Windy Night, Sunny Day
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, MA
For some reason, the bubbler under the boat came on around 8 pm tonight and
it literally sounds like we are sitting in a pot of bubbling water. It is
only supposed to get down to 32 degrees F tonight, and that is not cold
enough to activate the bubblers. So we’re not sure why they came on, but
the sound might drive us crazy by morning! Glad it wasn’t a really cold
winter requiring the bubblers to be on more frequently. They keep the water
from freezing but that just hasn’t been an issue this winter. But it looks
like March is definitely going to come in like a lion with cold weather and
even snow. And since we are traveling further north for a long weekend, we
will get more snow than we would if we stayed here on the Cape. Yuck! We
are looking forward to seeing friends, but we are definitely NOT looking
forward to the wintry weather.
And while I’m on the topic of weather, I’ll take this opportunity to boast
about our daughter Heather. She has a series of programs airing on the
radio this week addressing the issue of climate change here on the Cape.
This morning she was the guest on the morning talk show. She has made it
her life’s work to try and help the general public understand the science
behind what is happening in the world around us and we couldn’t be prouder.
The message about climate change is not a positive one and it is important
that each of us understands what we are doing to contribute to global
warming. Maybe once we understand that, we can start to each do our part to
get things under control. But the first step of getting each of us to even
acknowledge that climate change is real has proven to be a huge stumbling
block. Evidently scientists have labeled this phenomenon of people ignoring
or denying what scientists know to be true on a number of issues as cultural
cognition. Here’s a quote on this issue from yesterday’s program, “The
theory is that if the implications of a scientific finding conflict with our
inner sense of what’s right and fair, we tend to dismiss it.” So go,
Heather. Do what you can to get us all to acknowledge the problem, and then
spur us on to take action to do something about it.
Mark got the first coat of paint on Heather’s beehive today and I got
curtains for Heather and Jed’s bedroom made from pieces of recelet from
Madagascar. Jonah didn’t go to school yesterday as he was recovering from a
bout with an ear infection over the weekend, but today he was back at school
and seemed to be feeling good. Mark took the car in to get the oil changed
yesterday and they discovered a back tire with a slow leak. This afternoon
he took the car to Midas to have them look at the tire. The oil change
folks had written down “right rear tire.” Well, after checking that
tire and finding nothing wrong, the folks at Midas checked the left rear
tire. That was it. It had a nail in it. So Mark is feeling great, lots of
energy, and now the car should be feeling great as it has gotten its share
of attention for a bit.
We continue to look for good sources on the best foods to eat while
undergoing chemotherapy, but the further we get into it, it becomes obvious
why there is no easy plan to follow. There are many different types of
chemo and each person reacts different, so you have to put together your
particular type of cancer, the particular chemotherapy regimen, and the
side-effects you are having. And, of course, those side effects change from
day to day. We did order a book from Amazon that arrived today and it has
some great recipes. But as someone who rated the book on Amazon pointed
out, it is not the cookbook you want is you are the one with cancer and you
are having to do your own cooking. The reviewer pointed out that if you
pick a recipe because it is good for fatigue and then it takes you a frantic
hour to prepare it, “.it kind of misses the point.” Obviously the author of
The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen understands that many of the recipes are labor
intensive. At the beginning of one recipe, Rebecca Katz states, “Pretty
much everyone has a neighbor or friend (kind of a June Cleaver type) who
loves to cook and also somehow manages to be a CEO and raise three Rhodes
scholars while spending three hours a day (minimum) in the kitchen. This is
the recipe you give that person when she says, ‘Oh, I’d so like to make
something for you.’ This (recipe) is a labor of love, and while not quite
as physically intensive as, say coal mining, it takes a bit of effort.” I
like the humor and the recipes look great. Now I just need to find the time
to do the cooking.
