2024 Life Logs, Day 78: Monday Work-a-Day

2024 Life Logs, Day 78: Monday Work-a-Day
Date: Monday, March 18, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Northerly Wind; High Temp 47, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

There was sunshine today, but every time I went outside, I was freezing. The temperature wasn’t much different from yesterday, but that northerly wind makes it feel much colder. But, after all, it is not quite officially spring. Winter can have one more day, then I seriously want warmer weather! Just kidding. I know spring is a long, fickle slog, not erupting into summer until July.

I don’t have much to report today. I am in charge of the joint (Encore plus Newcomers) general meeting on Wednesday, so I spent much of my day getting the agenda finalized. This required checking in with a number of people and then putting together a PowerPoint presentation to match the agenda. I also spent some time researching what to get Ollie for his birthday. It is on Thursday, and I am behind the times this year. And I also did a little digging to see what I might be able to do to help out with Heather’s campaign for Select Board. That was it for my day.

2024 Life Logs, Day 77: Happy St. Patrick’s Day

2024 Life Logs, Day 77: Happy St. Patrick’s Day
Date: Sunday, March 17, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 52, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Ollie and I spent the entire day together just enjoying life and doing a little gardening. After a late breakfast, I went to the hardware store to buy garden soil for my new planter. On Cape Cod, St. Patrick’s Day if the traditional day to plant peas, so Ollie restrung the pea and bean tower, carried the bags of garden oil from the car to the front of the house, and then planted the seeds. We stopped for lunch, and he helped me get something done that I have been working on for two weeks. I got the growing flats ready days ago, but I had not planted the seeds. We took the flats outside where Ollie meticulously put the tiny seeds in each cell and then brought them back inside. I still need to get the grow lights up, but I have a few days as the light is not needed until the little plants emerge.

Heather left early this morning to take Sam and his friend Sebastian to a soccer game west of Boston and then she drove them into Boston to the Gardens to watch the Falmouth High School girl’s hockey team play in the State semi-finals. Jonah took the student bus from the high school to the game. They were not going to get home until after 6 pm, so Ollie spent the day with me. Jed stopped by early in the day to check-in and we decided on a plan for dinner. I picked up the meat at Wicked & Wood while I was out getting the garden soil and later in the day, he dropped off the red cabbage so that I could fix coleslaw. And we gathered at their house once everyone was home. Heather and Jed added mac and cheese for our version of a quick and easy St. Patrick’s Day dinner.

2024 Life Logs, Day 76: Science Fair, Mingle & Mix, Ollie Overnight

2024 Life Logs, Day 76: Science Fair, Mingle & Mix, Ollie Overnight
Date: Saturday, March 16, 2024
Weather: Mostly to Partly Cloudy; High Temp 52, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

The day began in the Falmouth High School gymnasium where I went to see the STEAM Fair entries. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. When you add the A to make it STEAM, you are adding art ranging from visual arts, language arts and physical arts to music. The annual event where students presented science experiments used to be called science fairs but have now been extended to include more. For instance, this year Sam did not enter a science experiment. Members of his physics class built marble runs and entered those as an active display.

Jonah and Ollie both did science experiments. Ollie’s was titled Food Dye Filtration. His goal was to determine which select mediums did the best job of filtering out Red 40 dye.

The title of Jonah’s experiment was Food Dye Hyperactivity in Zebrafish. He found that food dye does affect the level of activity in Zebrafish, similar to the way it produces hyperactivity in people. He won a second place in the high school division and received a $250 check. The top first place prize was a $3,000 college scholarship. When Heather and Justin were entering science fairs, there was no monetary prize. I think it is wonderful that today’s students get the incentive that hopefully encourages them to keep entering year after year.

In the early evening, I went to an Encore Mingle & Mix affair. This is a two hour get together in a host home where everyone brings an appetizer or dessert and their drink of choice. It is a great opportunity to make new friends. I left right at 7 pm so I could go pick up Ollie. Heather and Jed were at the Falmouth Education Foundation fund raiser where the high school jazz band provided the music. That meant Jonah was there as well. Sam was at an away soccer game, so Ollie had asked me if he could come over to my house for dinner and an overnight. He loves chili, so I made that ahead of time. I picked him up and we came home to eat and then watch another Star Wars movie. We have watched all of the major ones, so last night we watched Solo. It is about Hans Solo as a young man. I really enjoy learning the background history of the various Star Wars characters. And I love having the special time with one grandchild at a time.

2024 Life Logs, Day 75: At the Computer All Day

2024 Life Logs, Day 75: At the Computer All Day
Date: Friday, March 15, 2024
Weather: Mostly Cloudy with a Little Rain; High Temp 54, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

I was on my computer all day and on the phone most of the evening. The phone call was with my friend Lynne in New Zealand. It has been a month since we last talked, so we had to catch up on what is happening in our worlds. After the phone call, Lynne sent me a whole list of books that I might want to read. I always love getting Lynne’s reading suggestions. She will be flying home to the US for the summer, landing in California and traveling on the west coast for almost a month to visit with friends. Then she will fly home to Michigan. Hopefully by the time she comes here to visit, I will be finished with my knee replacement physical therapy so we can walk while she is here.

The computer work today was mostly writing the presidents’ letter for the Encore newsletter. That is always due on the 15th of the month, and I usually start early. Unfortunately, I put this one off until the last minute. It required getting information from other people, so there was a lot of emailing back and forth. I interspersed trips to the grocery store and spending time in the kitchen making chili and desserts for a Mingle & Mix I am attending tomorrow night. Then, of course, I spent time outside with Shadow. So not the entire day was spent sitting at the computer.

Since I was on the computer all day, checking email often, I saw aa notice from Instagram that Justin had made a posting. It has been so long since I signed into Instagram that I couldn’t remember my password. So, I checked Facebook and saw that Justin was in Austin, Texas at the South By Southwest Conference. I knew he was going but forgot that it was this week. SXSW brings speakers together to talk about the convergence of tech, film, music, education, and culture. Yesterday Justin gave a talk about Silvermouse (Justin and Jo’s music brand), the Monroe Institute (Justin’s employer), and the use of brainwave entrainment in live music.

Justin is the musician and Jo is the beatmaker for Silvermouse. I read a posting on Facebook that Jo had written saying, “There isn’t an established genre descriptor for what we do. #Livetronica and #Jamtronica are as close as it gets … Psychoactive Livetronica is what we call our sound.” Justin started playing violin at age 3, went on to the guitar, the mandolin, the ukulele, and even adds flute and recorder. But his first love, the violin, remains favorite. Taking again from Jo’s post, “The rich textures and melodic structures that his live instrumentation brings are magic. The combination of live electronics, live multi instrumentals, and live brainwave entrainment frequencies is a sacred trinity of sorts. We are devotees, at least!” I am just so proud that Justin has pursued his passion for music throughout the years and that now he and Jo can play together.

2024 Life Logs, Day 74: Coonemessett Greenway Heritage Trail

2024 Life Logs, Day 74: Coonemessett Greenway Heritage Trail
Date: Thursday, March 14, 2024
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 48, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Falmouth has some wonderful walking trails. Today, my friend Olga Mitchell and I decided to walk the almost 1-mile loop of the Coonemessett Greenway Heritage Trail. It is a 3-mile trail but has several shorter loops. That part of the trail is easy walking as it is actually wheel-chair accessible. It is flat and wide with no obstacles. We had planned to walk further, but since both of us have not been walking much recently, we just enjoyed the shorter loop today with plans to walk further next week. It was a gorgeous day and warm enough that just a light jacket was needed. Shadow really enjoyed the walk and wearing the brace on my right knee allowed me to walk without pain. It was great.