by Judy Handley | Jul 29, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 210: From Falmouth to Boothbay, Maine
Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Weather: Rain; High Temp 70, Low 62 degrees F (Boothbay)
Location: At Home with the Goldstones in Boothbay, ME
After dealing with yet another issue with my sister this morning, I drove from Falmouth to Boothbay, Maine this afternoon. This morning’s issue was the Dexcom sensor that she wears. I receive her blood sugar numbers on my phone, sent via Bluetooth from a phone that is always with her. When the system works, it is wonderful. But making sure staff at Bridges charge it every night and get it back in the pocket of her wheelchair every morning is challenging. The diabetic nurse had to replace the sensor this morning (has to happen every 15 days), and she had a difficult time getting that done. But by 10:30 am, I was once again receiving the information. The results from my sister’s first 24 hours on Jardiance were good, so I was then able to decide for sure that I could leave for two days to go to Maine. I stopped by Bridges to see Patsy and got on the road at 1:45 pm. I rolled in here around 7 pm. I had pouring rain on Route 24 just before Boston and again as I neared Portsmouth, NH. That lasted until I got well across the border into Maine and then it was just fog. I made good time, however, despite the ugly weather.
Heather and family left about 3 hours before I did and didn’t have the pouring rain. But when they got here, they went for a walk and all of them got soaked in a late afternoon downpour! We are here for the funeral tomorrow of Jed’s Aunt Becky, the wife of Marti’s brother, John Welch. And after the funeral, everyone will come back to the farm to visit. Tonight Marti fixed a delicious stir fry for us. And she served the same blueberry squares with lemon sauce that she made for the 120 some people who came to Heather and Jed’s rehearsal dinner that was held here at the farm 23 years ago. Delicious food and warm memories.
by Judy Handley | Jul 28, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 209: Never-Ending Story
Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2026
Weather: Partly Sunny, Humid; High Temp 80, Low 66 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Today’s issue was transitioning my sister from insulin injections to a pill, Jardiance. I spent all day yesterday making sure this was going to happen on Friday, but despite all my efforts, there was a glitch in the communications, and it started today. She got both the insulin injection plus the replacement med this morning and that was not supposed to happen. So far, so good, but it was a truly nerve-wracking day for me.
I am planning to drive to Boothbay, Maine, tomorrow afternoon to be there on Thursday for Jed’s Aunt Becky’s funeral. If Patsy makes it through the night okay, I am going ahead. But if there are more complications, I might have to abort my plans. I just won’t know until tomorrow. But if I am going, I have some new sister issues that arose today that I will have to deal with in the morning before I leave. This is the never-ending story, and I am literally exhausted dealing with so many problems over the past four months with her.. But the show must go on, so I have to rally. Maybe a quick trip to Maine will give me the break I need.
I did take time this afternoon to take Ollie and his friend Seton to the beach. I got to sit on the beach for an hour and read. That was a wonderful break, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it as I still had to be my phone texting Bridges, the insulin nurse, and my sister’s primary care. It just never stops.
by Judy Handley | Jul 27, 2026 | Cape Cod, USA |
2026 Life Logs, Day 208: More Dealing with Sister Issues
Date: Monday, July 27, 2026
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 79, Low 66 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I met with the Executive Director at Bridges today and I think we made some progress in coming up with solutions to some of the issues I am dealing with for my sister Patsy. Right now, it is a wait and see game. And then I had a nice, long visit with Patsy. These two things took my entire afternoon. I got a little reprieve this evening when I took Ollie to his golf lesson. While he was in the lesson, I ran a few errands nearby. That was about it for my day. Unfortunately, nothing new and exciting to report.
by Judy Handley | Jul 26, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 207: Protest Update, Reconnecting, Dinner with Family
Date: Sunday, July 26, 2026
Weather: Some Sun, Some Clouds; High Temp 72, Low 61 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
This morning I got a text from my friend Jane Woodin giving me a link to a social media piece about yesterday’s protest in Plymouth that I described at our dinner last night. The Falmouth social media influencer who was at the protest posted video evidence of the ugliness, giving her narration of what happened. The interesting piece to me is that she gave the name of the young man who was the leader of the extreme right-wing group who tried to disrupt the peaceful protest. He was Jake Lang, who spent four years in prison for assaulting police officers during the January 6 assault on our nation’s capital. And then he was pardoned by Trump, just so he can travel around the country and cause trouble. Some accounts say he was also arrested in Texas more recently and is walking around with an ankle bracelet on. I don’t know if that is true, but I was able to verify the part about being imprisoned and getting a pardon from Trump. I also saw a social media article, probably written by the Falmouth social media influencer, stating that Jake Lang and his group were run out of the protest by the few women who were yelling nasty things at him. That may or may not be true. But either way, I don’t approve of the behavior on either side. Yelling and screaming expletives is not the way to solve any problem.
I heard back from Bruce Tedder, my sailing friend from South Africa, today. I found an old cell phone number and put it in WhatsApp and there he was. He and Nadine are in Greece aboard their Italian fishing boat, spending the summer in the Mediterranean getting the boat to Italy to put it on the market. They are really sailors, not motor boat people, but they have enjoyed three summers in the Med living aboard this boat. Their daughter Tristen has finished graduate school in finance and decided that she is not quite ready for the corporate world. She is working aboard a big boat as social director and deck hand. The amazing thing was the photos they sent. Bruce is a tall man, but Tristen is taller! That was a shock to me. But it feels so good to be in touch with them again. My friend Midge, who was the impetus for reaching out, will not get to see them in Cape Town, but I have reclaimed a special friendship. But what a difference 10 years makes!
I got a late afternoon call from Justin. He reported that they had a wonderful time while in England. They enjoyed being with family and really enjoyed their few days touring in Liverpool. All is well at Finca Maravilla, and they are gearing up for Coco’s 14th birthday on Thursday.
Tonight I invited Heather and family over for dinner. I used my new grill for the first time making Oma’s marinated chicken, steak, and veggies. All three boys were here, and it was a fun evening together.
by Judy Handley | Jul 25, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 206: Day of Protests, Then Dinner with Friends
Date: Saturday, July 25, 2026
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 73, Low 59 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I attended the Saturday rally on the Green and then headed to Plymouth for an ICE Out of Plymouth protest near the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. The facility in Plymouth is THE ONLY facility in Massachusetts with an IGSA (Intergovernmental Service Agreement) to rent out 526 beds for immigration detention. ICE pays the Sheriff’s Department $215 per detainee per day (at full capacity for a year that totals more than $40M). According to Amnesty International, immigration detention in the U.S. is unnecessary, rife with systemic abuses, arbitrary, and unlawful under international human rights law. The ongoing protests in Plymouth are to let the Sheriff’s Department know loud and clear that we believe this needs to stop.
So, I arrived at the protest site expecting it to be something like our weekly standouts for democracy on the Falmouth Village Green. But it was immediately obvious that this one was different. There were 6-8 policemen patrolling the edges, and there was a small group of very loud protesters flying flags, waving signs, and who had a leader with a microphone. In the beginning, I observed the young man trying to push the limits by moving his group from standing on the grassy area to pushing toward a policeman standing in front of him on the edge of the very busy highway. The policeman was obviously telling him he had to stay on the grass and I heard him respond that it was his right to be in the street and to be heard. Then I started reading the signs and flags flown by this group and saw that they were flying a huge Mega Maga flag and holding signs that had derogatory statements about immigrants and other minority groups, specifically Muslims. This group obviously had not been invited by the United for Plymouth group. Of course, this group had every right to be there, but the way they were doing it was rude and obnoxious. The leader with the microphone also had a bullhorn with a police siren that screamed over and over. And the whole group was shouting nasty remarks. I thought it best to just ignore them, and I went to the hear Senator Ed Markey give the opening speech. The angry mob of anti-protesters also decided to give up their prime real estate on the street corner and move closer to the speakers. And at least while Markey spoke, they turned off the siren. After Senator Markey spoke, some of the organizers of rally were going around asking people who were willing to move to the street corner to reclaim that position. I decided to do that, as I was not about to let them take back the street corner prime position if it could be peacefully done. Standing quietly can do no harm, so I placed myself right up front. The megaphone siren was still going as the speeches continued, but from where I was standing, things seemed to be settling down. Then, when the speeches had ended, at about 3:15, the young man with the microphone and screaming siren bullhorn started heading back to the street corner. So, I dug in for whatever might come. They were walking right towards me as I was in the entrance to the street crosswalk. When they got to where I was standing the policeman nearby motioned for me to step aside so the anti-protesters could walk though. Good, I thought, they are leaving. As they walked past me, I saw a young woman from Falmouth who is a social media influencer and was one of the speakers at the event, marching right behind them yelling and screaming into her bullhorn things like, “Get the f#%* out of Massachusetts.” And “You are nothing but a piece of sh*#.” And worse. There were also at least two other young women I didn’t recognize who were also following them and yelling. They all crossed the highway and kept walking down a side street. A few minutes later, I left using the same path as the anti-protesters, as my car was parked down the same side street. It was then I noticed that a police car had blocked that street and were talking with the entire group. I left not knowing what was happening, figuring I would find out in online news tomorrow. But the whole event was unsettling as it made me wonder if this is what we are going to up against at future rallies even here on Cape Cod. So far, we have been lucky, but we have to organize and be ready should it happen. And I strongly believe “being ready” is not screaming ugly things at people through a megaphone. We have to be smarter than that no matter how ugly or violent the opposition might get. We do have to be strong, but we do not have to act like them.
There was a lot of traffic getting back across the bridge to the Cape, so when I got home I only had time to change, grab my food contribution, and get to dinner with my dining-in group. We have been gathering once a month for nine years now, and as always, we had a lovely evening together. And the food was fantastic. We had shrimp cocktail for an appetizer, swordfish kebabs and corn salad for the main dish, and I brought tropical fruit salad with sorbetto for dessert. It was a perfect summer dinner. One member, Midge, is headed to Cape Town, South Africa on Monday. She will tour in and around Cape Town and then go on safari. All but one couple has been to Cape Town and on a safari in South Africa, so we added our suggestions to Midge’s itinerary. When she said she was staying at the Victoria & Albert Hotel in the V & A Marina area, I also added that I have a good friend, Bruce Tedder, whom I met in Madagascar and who has an office a few steps away from the hotel. I suggested she look him up as he runs, or at least he did 15 years ago, the big touring catamaran in the harbor.
When I got home, I realized that it has been 10 years, an entire decade, since I last talked to Bruce and his wife Nadine. I first met their 7 year-old daughter, Tristen, when I was snorkeling near Windbird in the anchorage off Nosy Sakatia in Madagascar. I then met her parents and we became instant friends. When Mark died in 2016, however, I simply stopped communicating with them and all of the wonderful friends we made while sailing around the world. I think it was just too painful for me. But tonight, I am going to try and reconnect with them. And over the coming weeks, I am going to reach out to other sailing friends, and re-establish communication.
Here’s a log entry from the afternoon in Madagascar when Bruce and his daughter Tristen visited Windbird. It sums up why I loved Madagascar so very much.
Day 325, Year 5: Why I Have Loved Madagascar
Date: Thursday, September 16, 2010
Weather: Lots of Wind from Every Direction
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Why I Have Loved Madagascar by Tristen Tedder, Age 7
Beautiful scenery, fantastic warm water and weather, turquoise water, white sandy beaches, fabulous snorkeling, shell collector’s dream, amazing wildlife and plants, friendly people, great seafood, tasty tropical fruits and vegetables, stunning sunsets, amazing star gazing.
Yes. I think Tristen has summed up the Madagascar experience beautifully so I asked her permission to include her summary in this log. Tristen and her dad Bruce came over this morning to give us a South African briefing. Nadine stayed behind on Pioneer to do more of the packing. They left South Africa in May on the catamaran Pioneer which they were slowly delivering to here. On Saturday morning at the crack of dawn, Bruce, Nadine, and Tristen will fly back to Cape Town after almost four amazing months of travel. This morning Tristen presented her school project to us. She will present this to her second grade classmates back in Cape Town as a summary of her four months of travel. The report was beautifully done and expressed her love for what she has seen in this amazing country. After the little presentation, Tristen and I took my South Africa Lonely Planet and went up to the cockpit while Mark and Bruce sat at the table with the Richards Bay to Cape Town chart. Bruce shared what he knows about the various harbors with Mark and Tristen shared with me the highlights of what we must see near Cape Town. I was absolutely amazed to see her use the Lonely Planet just as I do. When she was looking for the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, she simply flipped to the index in the back and found it in alphabetical order. This is a second grader who uses the Lonely Planet as well as any adult. I was simply amazed and felt a great deal of pride for a little girl that has become a special friend. I think we have just adopted Tristen as a granddaughter to complement our three beautiful grandsons. And I can’t wait to see all the sights she told me about near Cape Town.
Sept 16, 2010–Tristen Presents Her Madagascar School Project
