by Judy Handley | Jan 16, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 16: A Little Field Trip to Boston
Date: Thursday, January 16, 2025
Weather: Sunny AM, Partly Sunny to Cloudy PM; Temp 31, Low 23 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
My search for a vintage watch for Coco continues. A woman in my book group that lives in Cambridge half time, suggested that I go to the Swiss Watchmaker on Church Street in Harvard Square. So, I took off this morning to do that, and to do a little reconnaissance in Chestnut Hill for a Newcomers/Encore upcoming field trip to a Mary Baker Eddy house there in late February. I took two watches that Heather gave me for Coco and two that Jane Woodin donated to be assessed to see if adding a battery would get them running again. I scored two out of four, but I had only one battery changed today. It costs $25 to have a battery replaced and $25 for some sort of high-tech cleaning. The watchmaker told me one of the watches from Heather and one from Jane are not battery watches. They are wind up types and the initial cost just to look at them is $50, so I skipped those even though one of them is perfect for Coco. The young woman at the desk at the watchmaker shop admired it and said it was ‘very’ vintage. She told me lots of girls wear vintage watches even if they don’t run. I think that is the watch I wore when I started teaching in 1969. If that is correct, it certainly is vintage! But it looks brand new and will make a nice bracelet. I should have had the band shortened on the one that got the new batter today, but at the time I was not sure just how much to have it shortened. Plus, shortening the band was going to take all afternoon. I will check to see if a jeweler here can shorten the band. If not, I will return when I can spend all day.
While I was waiting for the watch battery to be changed, I drove about 20 minutes from Harvard Square to Chestnut Hill to check out the location of a Mary Baker Eddy home and museum, and to see if there was free parking available near the restaurant that was recommended for lunch on the day of our field trip. There was easy and free parking at all three locations. I knew this from calling, but since I was in the area, I wanted to check it out in person before recommending the trip. The house is in one location and the museum is about a mile from the house. Then the restaurant is a mile from the museum. It is easy to get from one place to the other and will make a great little mid-winter adventure. Now I just have to learn something about Mary Baker Eddy. All I know is that she founded the Mother Church of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston.
by Judy Handley | Jan 15, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 15: Democracy
Date: Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Weather: Sunny, Windy, Cold; Temp 31, Low 19 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Tonight, my head is exploding with thoughts of democracy. I spent my day preparing for and then leading my Exploring Public Policy group. The focus was to help us better understand how representative democracy works in our local government. And then tonight, I listened to President Biden’s farewell address where he gave us a stark warning that our democracy is changing before our eyes into an oligarchy. Heavy stuff to absorb.
You could hear the frustration in the voices of the members of the Exploring Public Policy group this afternoon as they expressed a feeling of being overwhelmed with the complexity of the job of running town government. When they saw the huge number of committees filled with people who are elected, appointed, or who volunteer to serve, that advise and regulate and vote on everything that happens in Falmouth, they wondered how people do this in their ‘spare’ time. The committees and boards are filled with people holding down full time jobs, raising families, and just trying to survive. The group had one question. “How do you add the responsibility of making all of the decisions for your entire town to people who lead full lives and serve local government in their ‘spare’ time?” We do have a Town Manager, but all of the decisions are ultimately made by the people. Representative/participatory democracy is hard. But the alternative?
Then tonight listening to President’s Biden’s farewell speech with his stark warning that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America” sent chills running down my spine. He said it will be up to the people to keep democracy alive. The next four years are going to be very require vigilance and hard work to make sure democracy survives. I’m rolling up my sleeves to get ready to do whatever is necessary.
by Judy Handley | Jan 14, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 14: Book Club and Prep for Public Policy Group
Date: Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Weather: Sunny, Windy; Temp 34, Low 23 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
After a nice, long walk with Shadow, I headed to Dena Brodie’s for our monthly book club meeting. Dena lives part-time in Cambridge and part-time here and she invited me to come an hour early to catch up. Our book this month was The God of the Woods. None of us were sure we would recommend it to others. Then at some point we started talking about the fires in Los Angeles. One member of the group has a son who lives in Pasadena. He and his family evacuated but are now back at home. The four children all attend a private school called Polytechnic. Their school is fine, but many others have been burned to the ground. So, Polytechnic has a group working on helping find homes for the students that have lost their school. I found out from Kevin Russell later today that his nephew goes to Polytechnic. I mentioned in an earlier log that the school where Kevin’s sister works in Pasadena burned down. I’m wondering if the Connolly family might cross paths with Kevin’s sister’s family. It is such a small world.
By the time I got home and had lunch, it was time to go pick up Ollie. But then I found out that he was home sick today with a cough and is feeling awful. Sure hope he is feeling better soon. I spent the remainder of my day preparing for tomorrow’s Exploring Public Policy meeting. I am learning more about local government structure in Falmouth than I ever wanted to know!
by Judy Handley | Jan 13, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 13: A Little Success
Date: Monday, January 13, 2025
Weather: Sunny AM, Then Cloudy, Windy; Temp 40, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Today was dedicated to working on a presentation about our local government structure for my Exploring Public Policy group. I tried in vain to get someone from town government to speak with us this Wednesday, but I had no luck. Everyone I talked to about this suggested that State Representative David Viera was the person I needed to contact, but I hesitated because I know he is so busy. But he has been the Falmouth Town Moderator since 1998 and is a Falmouth native, so I sent the email to him late last week. Today was my lucky day because he responded to my email and said he would be glad to come speak with us. That will happen at our February meeting, so today I learned as much as I could from the Falmouth Town website and the meeting this week will focus on getting acquainted with the local government structure through the website. That will not tell the whole story, so in February, David Viera will talk to us further about structure and how people can get involved. One little success. The other little success tonight was that the clouds cleared and the beautiful full moon shone brightly in night sky.
by Judy Handley | Jan 12, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 12: Iron Chef Ollie
Date: Sunday, January 12, 2025
Weather: Sunny, but Cold Enough to Preserve Some Snow; Temp 34, Low 24 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
The Goldpebbles have grown up watching Iron Chef on television. If you are not familiar, this is a show where guest chefs compete against a resident “Iron Chef” in a timed cooking battle given a set of ingredients that must be used. The boys have learned a lot about cooking while watching this show and watching their parents cook meals from scratch every single day. Last Sunday when they were here for dinner, Ollie suggested that he should fix dinner this Sunday. He said he wanted to include salmon and steak and make a ‘fancy’ dinner. I didn’t hear any more about this until almost 5 pm this evening when I got a text from Ollie saying dinner would be served at 5:45. In his text, Ollie said, “It’s the fancy(ish) dinner.” So, I dressed up just a bit and headed over. Using Heather and Jed as his sous-chefs, he created a steak and salmon nigiri platter and a cucumber, avocado, and scallion salad with rice on the side and a sashimi platter of steak, salmon, and cucumber.
He had edamame as an appetizer and freshly sliced pineapple, kiwi, and grapefruit with a Meyers lemon juice and honey dressing. The presentation was beautiful and it all tasted as good as it looked.
Sam and Jonah were not home for dinner. Falmouth High School had a ski trip to Waterville Valley in New Hampshire today and they didn’t get home until I was leaving. They said they had a great day on the slopes. Jonah had a sleepover last night with four friends who were going on the trip today. I think Heather said she had been up since 4:30 am getting breakfast for all the boys before they headed to the high school to catch the 6 am bus. Then she and Jed went out with the Falmouth Band Parents to collect Christmas trees to be ‘recycled’ and then Heather went ice skating with Ollie this afternoon. I didn’t realize the local ponds are frozen enough for ice skating, but they are and Ollie said the skating was great. He is hoping to get in more pond skating after school this week. The snow we got last night is still with us. It was above freezing today, but cold enough that most of the snow was preserved. Tomorrow will be a bit warmer, but then the rest of the week will be at or below freezing. So, I think those ponds will stay frozen.
