by Judy Handley | May 20, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 140: Laughing is Good for Your Soul
Date: Friday, May 20, 2022
Weather: Overcast Moving to Sunny; High 65, Low 55 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Every weeknight, I record the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and then watch his monologue and follow-up segment the next day when I sit down to eat lunch. I do it because Colbert’s humor often makes me laugh and laughing is good for your soul. But today, when I watched last night’s feature segment following the monologue, I was almost rolling in the floor with laughter. It started as a commentary on the new ‘comfortable’ look in office fashion, post Covid. It then turned into a spoof on Untuckit.com, the company that produces shirts that are “designed to be worn untucked so they fall at the perfect length.” But in the Colbert spoof, there was a guy who just couldn’t believe how hard it was to tuck in Untucket shirt so he could more easily retrieve his cell phone from his back pocket. The untucked shirt kept getting in his way. So, he designed a ‘new’ kind of shirt that was long enough to tuck in. The funny part was that the bottom of the front of the shirt was attached to the bottom of the back of the shirt with clips on an elastic band so the shirt cannot easily come untucked produced by ‘Go Tuck Yourself’. It might not sound funny but watching three very differently shaped men walk about with these shirts on, sans pants, was hilarious. At least, I thought so. And that reminded me of how different people see the same thing, and that reminded me of the book I finished reading last night, Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine written by Gail Honeyman.
For good reasons, which I will not mention in case you want to read the book, Eleanor finds herself to be a thirty-year-old woman who has not had life experiences that allow her to see the world as others. She is college educated, but because she has no normal life experiences, she takes everything literally. She gets to know the IT person who works in her office and he asks her if she is seeing anyone at the moment. “Yes,” she said, completely seriously. “I’m seeing you right now, Raymond. You’re sitting right in front of me.” She had no idea that ‘seeing anyone’ could be referring to dating someone. Another of my favorites was Eleanor’s description of dancing, or even seeing other people dance, for the first time in her life. “I joined in with what seemed to be jigging on the spot. Some people moved their arms as though they were jogging, some people were pointing at nothing; it appeared that you were supposed to move your body around in any way you saw fit, as long as it was in time with the music, which was a steady eight beats, helpfully marked out by a drum. Then the beat changed abruptly, and everyone started doing the same thing, making strange shapes with their arms above their head. It took me a moment or two to learn the shapes, and then I was able to copy them. Free-form jigging, communal shapes in the air; free-form jigging, communal shapes in the air. Dancing was easy.” What she was describing was dancing to YMCA! YMCA! Then she wondered why the band was singing about the Young Men’s Christian Association. The author’s description of this made me laugh out loud and wonder, like Eleanor, why people do such things and why I had never even thought of what YMCA stood for. Then there was Eleanor’s reaction when Raymond (the office IT guy) gave her a helium balloon to cheer her up. She looked at it and asked, “What’s it supposed to be? Is it . . . is it cheese?” Raymond replied, “It’s SpongeBob, Eleanor. SpongeBob SquarePants.” Something we would all recognize, despite its silliness, but not Eleanor. The point is that all of these descriptions in the book made me smile, while some had me rolling with laughter, but at th.e end of the book, I found that I am looking at the world a little differently, trying to understand how others can see the world so differently from myself.
Jed left on Wednesday for London to collaborate with colleagues and tomorrow he will fly from London to Sweden to a scientific conference, returning late next Thursday night. Tomorrow Heather is driving to Maine to look at a sailboat or two. She will return tomorrow night or Sunday morning, depending on whether she gets to see the second boat. It is the one that they made a bid on, sight unseen. There have been all sorts of issues preventing her from seeing that boat, so hopefully tomorrow will be the day. It is a full seven hours’ drive from here, so she is going to be doing a lot of driving. In the meantime, I, along with friends, will cart the boys to rowing practice and soccer games. If Heather does not return until Sunday, the boys will spend tomorrow night with me. Then on Tuesday, Heather flies to San Diego for one day and then on to Telluride in Colorado, returning Sunday just before Memorial Day. So, I am on Goldpebble duty for the next week. Hopefully I will have time to post my nightly logs, but if not, just know that I am having fun with my grandsons and will report on it when I have time.
by Judy Handley | May 19, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 139: Dibble-dop, Dibble-dop, All Day Long
Date: Thursday, May 19, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 56, Low 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a rainy Thursday and if there was a break in dibble-dops of rain, I missed it. Shadow and I were soaked after our walk, but at least it wasn’t too cold. In the late afternoon, I drove Sam to Hyannis where he rowed in the rain.
As he said, once you are totally wet, the rain really doesn’t bother you. Regardless, I am hoping for sunshine tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | May 18, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 138: House Cleaning to Concert
Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 70, Low 52 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was spent moving as much as possible out of the living room, dining area, and kitchen so that I could mop and wax. This was an all day job that I am glad to be able to check off on my TO DO list. Then this evening, I went to Ollie’s fourth grade concert. In June, there will be a band and chorus concert, but not all students participate in that. Tonight’s concert was called a Farewell Music Concert and it included all fourth graders.
Fourth graders in Falmouth leave their elementary schools at the end of this year and move on to Morse Pond School where they spend their fifth and sixth grade years.
For tonight’s concert, each fourth grade class did a presentation in between pieces done by all students together. The students sang, played recorders,
and played percussion instruments including a gong played by Ollie.
The concert ended with everyone singing the Mullen Hall school song, Sweet Mullin Hall, adapted from Sweet Caroline.
Afterwards, we went to pick up Jonah from soccer practice and then celebrated with a DQ.
by Judy Handley | May 17, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 137: MelMel, Please Come Home
Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High 66, Low 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
MelMel is the nickname for Melbourne, the Goldstone’s male kitten. Well, I guess he is not really still a kitten. He and his sister, Leo, arrived at 43 Grasmere on May 14 last year when they were eight weeks old. Now, this afternoon, one year and three days later, Mel went missing. Mel and Leo are house cats, and I don’t think either one has ever been outside. But tonight, after an exhaustive search, Mel is nowhere to be found. Hopefully he will show up tomorrow. MelMel, please, please come home!
This morning Shadow and I went for a walk with friend, Olga Mitchell. We had hoped to walk through Spohr Gardens with Shadow, but when we got there, we discovered no dogs are allowed. We did a short walk with Shadow and then left him in the car while we walked through the gardens.
Then we drove to nearby Quissett Harbor and walked with Shadow out to the Knob.
It is one of the most beautiful places in Falmouth, so we soaked in the sunshine and the beauty.
I came home and got another raised bed ready for planting. Now I have only one more to go. Then later in the afternoon, I drove Sam to rowing in Hyannis. Just after we arrived, it started pouring rain, so going out in the boats was delayed. But the rain stopped, the sunshine returned, and they went out.
I was supposed to take Sam to Scouts when we returned to Falmouth, but he was soaking wet and decided to go home and skip Scouts for tonight. When we got home, Ollie decided to take Shadow for a walk using a new leash I had bought for him. When I left home to go get Sam, I put Shadow in the car but not his leash. I stopped at Job Lot to buy a leash, but all they had were those retractable leashes. I figured that would do for one evening, so I bought it. But unfortunately, when Ollie took off with Shadow, Shadow took off and Ollie ended up falling and skidding on the pavement on his knee. Ouch. Ollie was a little shaken and when he went inside for a little R&R on the sofa, Shadow insisted on lying down right beside him.
It was like he knew he had caused Ollie to be sad and he wanted to make up for it.
Just got a text from Heather. MelMel is back. All is well.
by Judy Handley | May 16, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 136: Monday, Monday
Date: Monday, May 16, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 70, Low 55 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Due to my lingering lack of motivation, my Monday was not a particularly productive day. I did go play Mah Jongg this morning at Claudia Needham’s home and afterwards I asked if I could go out back and see the raised bed gardens. Last week after play Mah Jongg, Claudia’s husband, Peter, gave those of us interested huge heads of red lettuce from the garden and I wanted to see the source. Their backyard has full sun all day, so Peter gives credit to the full sunshine and the fact that they make their own blend of organic garden soil for producing such robust veggies. This should have motivated me to come home and work in my gardens, but that didn’t happen. I think I am still recuperating from (wo)manhandling the 58-pound bags of raised bed garden soil yesterday. There was a time in my life when lifting a 50-pound bag was no problem, but those days are long gone. Maybe I’ll recuperate enough by tomorrow to do more (wo)man-handling and gardening.
In the afternoon, Peter Baranowski came over to try and put my wooden garden bench back together. A few weeks ago, while he and Karen were over playing with Shadow, they sat on the bench and the next thing they knew, they were on their backs on the ground looking up at the sky. The bench totally collapsed. Thankfully they were not hurt. I have been unsure of what I should do about the bench, but Peter insisted that he put it back together. He worked all afternoon and I worked much of that time with him. We did get it back together, but I am not convinced that I want anyone sitting on it again until I have found a way to reinforce it. Time ran out today as I had to stop to go take Jonah to his weekly music lesson and Peter had to go home to have dinner. I’ll check it out tomorrow and decide what to do about it.
When I went to pick up Jonah, I heard the exciting news that Heather and Jed might be the new owners of a Cape Dory 36 sailboat named Eider. They have made an offer and are waiting for either a counter-offer or an acceptance. The boat is seven hours away in Brooklin, Maine, but if the offer is accepted, Heather is thinking of flying up on Saturday morning to see it, returning home Saturday afternoon. Jed leaves for England on Wednesday and flies on to Sweden on Saturday. Jed returns next Thursday, but Heather leaves for the West Coast on Tuesday. I will be a one busy Oma for the next week and a half!
