by Judy Handley | May 16, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 136: From Community Watch Training to Dining-In with Friends
Date: Saturday, May 16, 2026
Weather: Sunny, Windy; High Temp 65, Low 53 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
If it is Saturday, then I am on the Green at 12 noon for Indivisible Falmouth’s weekly standout. We are there, rain, shine, or snow, and I invariably meet some new to me, very interesting person. Today it was a woman from Newtonville up near Boston who was here for the weekend and decided to join us.
After the standout, I headed home to make applesauce for tonight gathering of my Dining-In group. And then I headed to a Falmouth Immigrant Rights Coalition Community Watch workshop. The purpose of these workshops is to train the average citizen how to be on the alert for ICE and what to do about it. It was a good workshop with great attendance. But I had to leave about 20 minutes early to get to the Dining-In gathering at Karen and Peter Baranowski’s. The food tonight was outstanding. Karen made Polish stuffed cabbage rolls called Golumpki. The rest of us added a Ukrainian borscht that was delicious, homemade applesauce, and a strawberry cake that was beautiful and delicious. We have been meeting regularly since 2017 and the camaraderie and the food just gets better with time.
by Judy Handley | May 15, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 135: Nothing of Consequence
Date: Friday, May 15, 2026
Weather: Cloudy; High Temp 60, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Nothing of consequence happened today—just meetings, class, and shopping prep work for upcoming events. So, I am giving myself permission to take the night off. I’ll be back tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | May 14, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 134: Sam is Home 🙂 🙂 🙂
Date: Thursday, May 14, 2026
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High Temp 57, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I was up at 4:15 am this morning and on the road before 5 am, but still Sam’s flight landed 10-15 minutes before I got to the airport. He was waiting for me in the pick up area when I got there and we were back home by 8:30 am. It was a good trip. And all the way home I got hear about his two weeks out west road tripping with his friend Ethan and Ethan’s 5-month-old Australian Sheperd, Cosmo. Unfortunately, Sam had stomach flu with a fever this past weekend and into this week which slowed them down a bit, but Sam still had a positive experience. I think he was more excited about seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time than any other one thing. Other highlights were parts of the Olympic Peninsula reminded him of Maine, the beauty of northern Idaho, and Montana’s big, beautiful, blue sky. On the scary side, they had a bear come close to their campsite one night, but they got in the car and the bear crashed into the woods taking a couple of small trees with him. I think maybe the bear was more afraid of them than they were of him. Sam is now looking forward to sleeping in a bed once again (versus on the ground camping) and resting up a bit before going to work for the summer. He is missing the new friends he made while in the Netherlands, but they do keep in close contact via text. He is not completely sure what his plans are beyond the summer, but for now we’ll just enjoy having him back on home territory for a while.
I spent some time reading for tomorrow’s class today, attending an Indivisible Zoom meeting, and tonight I went to another Meet Your Local Candidates night, this one sponsored by the Falmouth Dems. These were all candidates running in the town election and none of these positions are party-affiliated. I saw them all answer questions at the League of Women Voters candidates’ night but hearing them a second time was very helpful. The current long-time Town Clerk, who is retiring, opened the evening with a rousing call to action. He said that living in these times, no one can let themselves sit at home and not become involved. He challenged us to reach out to every person of voting age in Falmouth, convincing them of the importance of casting their votes. And then making sure they get to the polls.
by Judy Handley | May 13, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 133: Encore All Morning, Swing Left Afternoon
Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High Temp 62, Low 52 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Tomorrow morning at 4:30 am, I get up and off to Boston Logan to pick up my grandson Sam who is returning from a trip out west to do a road trip from Seattle to Bozeman, Montana. We only got to see him briefly two weeks ago when he returned from the Netherlands, but now I think he will be home for the summer. I think he will probably sleep all the way home from the airport, so conversations might have to wait. I am just so excited to have him home for a bit and to catch up on his experiences of the past year.
But tonight, I had better get myself to bed. And because of that, this will be another very short log. I spent the entire morning in an Encore Board meeting. Only one more of those in June. In the afternoon I attended a webinar to learn about Ground Truth. It is a form of door-to-door canvassing based on deeply listening to voters to develop trust and the hope in the long-term is to find a way to repair the Democratic brand. I am not so much interested in that as I am in their infrastructure for listening. I didn’t learn as much as I had hoped on the webinar, so I will have to do a bit of research. For now, however, I am signing off and going to bed. More tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | May 12, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 132: One Thing I Am Really Good at Doing
Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 59, Low 48 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
We are all really good at something, but unfortunately, for me, the thing I am really good at is biting off more than I can chew. Right now I am doing the final planning for a field trip of 30 Newcomers/Encore members to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on Monday. Then on Wednesday, I am ‘hosting’ an Encore monthly meeting shining a spotlight on our Cape Verdean neighbors. Southeastern Massachusetts has the highest concentration of Cape Verdean Americans in the U.S., and a fair number of those live in and around Falmouth. As Programs VP for Encore this year, I really wanted to have a program focused on this culture. And, of course, I promised we would serve authentic Cape Verdean food. I am learning about malasada and gufong and other Cape Verdean specialties and before the meeting next Wednesday, I will have to learn to cook those things. On Thursday afternoon of next week, I am supposed to have a program for my public policy group. That is a work in progress. And on Thursday night of next week, I need to know all about door-door-canvassing for an Indivisible monthly meeting presentation how to get out the vote. There’s more, but you get the idea. I am very bad at saying no and very good at over committing. But I am passionate about all of these things, so I’ll get the job done somehow.
Today was a book club day, then off to take Ollie to saxophone lesson and to soccer practice, then on to a Falmouth Library Board of Trustee meeting. All I can say is that I hope keeping this busy and learning this many new things is good for my brain! I would end there, but there is one more episode from today that I just have to share with you.
On my way to my morning book club, I got a call from my sister’s physical therapist who visits her in her apartment twice a week. She sent me photos of 4 wine bottles, half empty corked bottles sitting on my almost 93-year-old sister’s kitchen countertop. What? The PT wanted to know if someone in my family threw a party for Patsy in the past couple of days because she was there on Sunday morning and there were no wine bottles. Well, no one threw a party for Patsy. And Patsy couldn’t open a wine bottle if she wanted to. I have no idea where those wine bottles came from and no at the facility where she lives has any idea. The caretaker that is with her 6 hours every day says they weren’t any wine bottles on the counter when she left at 6:00 pm last evening. This is truly one situation I did not anticipate having to deal with today or any day. Life just gets more interesting minute by minute.
