by Judy Handley | Nov 6, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 310: And the Count Goes On
Date: Friday, November 6, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 64, Low 54 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
All day long I kept hearing Sonny & Cher singing, “The beat goes on, the beat goes on. Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain . . . La de da de de, la de da de da.” The beat is the constant news pounding into my brain with updates about this election. And the “La de da de de” is what I sing loudly anytime I see a replay of Donald Trump’s tragic press conference last night when he just spewed out lie after lie undercutting our democracy. This is the fourth day of watching the news, including Election Day itself, and it is just unsure how long it is going to be before we get any sort of final determination on who is going to be our next President. I am so thankful for MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki’s constant analysis of the numbers. It seems he has been on the air continuously since Tuesday. Maybe they let him sleep in the middle of the night. But I see him in the morning, in the middle of the day, and each evening, always in his white oxford cloth shirt with his sleeves rolled up, his khaki pants and Converse sneakers. He promises it is not the same pair of pants, just pants that look the same! But whether or not he has worn the same clothes all week, his steady and careful analysis of the numbers is much appreciated by many, including me.
Shadow was neutered yesterday and I was instructed to keep the plastic Elizabethan cone on him to keep him from licking the stitches. Evidently that can lead to infection. When I put the collar on him last evening, it was obvious that he hated it. He didn’t protest, but he lost all of his spunk. He is not supposed to jump or run for at least 10 days. He sleeps on my bed at night, but my bed is quite high. So, I decided to sleep on the sofa in the living room and hoped he would sleep on his doggie bed or on top of my feet on the sofa. When it was time to turn in for the night, I could not get him to settle in. He just stood in the middle of the floor wearing that cone. I was confident that he would find a place to settle in once I turned the lights out. I went to sleep, but I woke up at 2:30 to find him still standing in the same place. I tried to encourage him to lie down with no luck, but I was determined to not give in. At 4:30 I woke up again and guess who was still standing in the middle of the living room floor–the one, the only, very stubborn Shadow. I gave in and took the cone off and he immediate went to sleep on his doggie bed. By morning, he was on the sofa on top of my feet, sleeping like a baby. I checked the stitches and it was obvious that he had been licking them, so I put the cone back on and dedicated my day to finding an inflatable collar that might me more comfortable. None of the Petco stores between and Boston had any in stock. But they suggested I try PetSmart. I had to drive to Hyannis, but I did find one. Unfortunately, it was extremely expensive. He doesn’t love it, but the bigger problem is that he has found a way to continue the licking. Ugh.
by Judy Handley | Nov 5, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 309: Keeping Busy
Date: Thursday, November 5, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warmer; High 65, Low 56 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
My lifelong solution to stressful situations has always been to keep busy. So, that’s what I did today. Watching this election play out is enough to make anyone half crazy, but I avoided thinking about it today. First, I had to get up and get Shadow ready to go to the Vet to be neutered. When Mark and I were doing self-sufficient farming, I always hated it when baby lambs were born and a few weeks later we were supposed to lop off their little tails. Couldn’t do it. So, our lambs always had long tails. I have put off getting Shadow neutered for six months for the same reason. I just can’t stand the thought of putting him through this sort of thing. But finally I decided to proceed with Shadow. More on that coming up.
This is how my day proceeded. I dropped Shadow off at the Vet’s office and went to Heather and Jed’s to pick up my leaf blower. I returned home and worked off my nervous election and puppy surgery energy by mowing and bagging leaves and then using the leaf blower to clean up the area. I think I could have continued to clean up every leaf in the wooded area around my house, but it was time to go pick up Ollie after school and then pick up Shadow. Ollie and I went to Petco to try and buy a special inflatable collar for Shadow to keep him from licking his incision, but they had none. I should have thought of this sooner, but I had been told that Shadow would come home with a cone to take care of this. Then this afternoon, someone from the Vet’s office called to ask if I had a collar. I told her I thought they were providing this, but she then told me that here are other types of inflatable collars that some dogs prefer. I had no idea.
As we found out at Petco, evidently these collars are hard to find these days. But Ollie and I were able to buy a new toy for Shadow, a Yedi. I dropped Ollie off, picked up Shadow, and I have spent the evening holding Shadow without the cone on to keep him from licking the incision. When I couldn’t do this, I put on the cone. He really HATES it. He seems disoriented as he can’t see and just stands in the middle of the floor. We’ll figure this out or I will figure out how to make a more comfortable collar for him. The good news is that he is eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom normally. Hopefully he will heal quickly and we get back to normal. In the meantime, I am really going to miss my walking partner.
I’ll spend tomorrow either sitting and holding Shadow or putting that cone on him and going out to do more yard work. I really do have to keep myself busy so I don’t obsess over this election. I watched Trump’s press conference on Fox News tonight and it put me over the edge. I just cannot believe he is willing to trash our democracy through his outright lies about the election process in this country. What a devastating situation for this country and our precious democracy. No matter who wins this election, we have a hard road forward.
by Judy Handley | Nov 4, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 308: Walking, Walking, Eating, Walking
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Still Windy; High 55, Low 53 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Yes, waiting for the results of this election is driving me to walk, walk, eat, then walk again. Unlike many others, I actually went to bed at midnight last night. I had eaten all the chocolate and popcorn that I could tolerate. I am not normally a binge eater, but obviously the apprehension of waiting for the results of this election is driving me in that direction. In the name of health, today I directed my nervous energy to walking. I got up and checked my phone to see what had happened with the election. I learned that I had missed Biden’s update last night and Trump’s 2:30 am rant. Otherwise, things were pretty much where they were when I went to bed. I decided to leave it at that and not check back in until evening. I went for a walk with Shadow, came back and had my morning smoothie, and then went for a much longer walk with the Shad. By this time, it had warmed up a bit and the sun was shining, so when we got home I did a second coat of stain and sealant on the sandbox and outdoor redwood table. It has to be above 35 degrees for 24 hours after applying a coat and today was the first day since last week with a projected overnight temp out of the 30’s. I had a 2 pm ‘date’ with Jane Woodin to go for a walk along the water at Falmouth Heights Beach, so after lunch I headed into town. I stopped by Heather and Jed’s to put a load of laundry in and then headed to the beach to walk with Jane. We actually ended up heading inland to walk as it was quite windy along the water. But we still had a wonderful hour of conversation while walking together. I picked up Ollie after school and we picked up Jonah and went to the Skateboard Park.
By the time I got home, it was dark, but I took Shadow for another walk. We walked on the path through the woods behind the cottage and then headed out on the road. The fourth house up the street from my house has been empty since I moved here two years ago. Tonight as we passed that house I heard a man calling to me from across the street asking if I had heard about the big coyote. No. What big coyote? He explained that last night he had seen a very big coyote walking down the street and he suspects that it is living under the abandoned house. Great. That is Shadow’s favorite place to relieve himself. I thanked the man and as I walked away, he called after me telling me to be careful. I acknowledged and walked on and he called out again telling me that I really need to be careful. I am thankful that a neighbor that I have never met before would take the time to make sure I am aware of such things. About two months ago Shadow started barking during the evening for no apparent reason. Then I noticed the scat of some large animal in the woods behind my house, right next to my back steps, and in Shirley’s yard down by the water. I have a feeling that large animal is the big coyote. Every night before bedtime, I take Shadow out for a walk on the path in the woods beside the cottage, around the house, and sometimes down to the water by Shirley’s. I need to do that right now, but I think I’ll skip the walk on the path in the woods. If I come face to face with the big coyote, I would rather be in an open area where Shadow and I might be able to make a slow and careful retreat without tripping on one of the vines in the woods. Just writing about this is making me a little nervous. Maybe I need some popcorn before heading outside!
by Judy Handley | Nov 3, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 307: Election 2020
Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Windy; High 47, Low 36 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
I don’t know about you, but I agree with the Democratic slogan indicating that this election is represents a battle for winning back the soul of our nation. Whoever thought that on Election Day in the United States of America, fences would have to be put up around the White House and stores would have to be boarded up in some of our cities for fear of violence? Certainly not me. We are in a nation in deep need of a leader that can begin to bring us together. We are a nation in need of a great deal of reflection on some of our current election practices and a nation deeply in need of healing from racial strife and the coronavirus. I don’t see any of these things happening easily or quickly, no matter the results of this election. But if the status quo maintains, I don’t see any of it happening for a very long time, if at all. We have allowed ourselves to become divided. “United we stand” has lost its way.
We are probably not going to know the final results of this election tonight. Depending on how things go, it could take days or weeks to know the final outcome. In the meantime, there is a lot of apprehension. I wish I was one of those who can just ignore all of this until the final results are in. But I cannot. So. I will sit and watch, eat chocolate, and hope for the best. I did cave tonight and cooked a comfort food favorite of mine for dinner. I don’t eat wheat and limit carbs like pasta to a minimum, but I made chicken tetrazzini tonight. I haven’t made it for years, but making it and eating it tonight made me feel better.
My father was born on this day in 1903. Hayes Winfred Martin would be 117 years old today if he were still living. He died in 1973 when he was only 70 years old. But after all these years, I still always think of him on his birth date. His father was a big time Republican, but during the Great Depression, when my father was trying to provide for his young family, he became a die-hard Democrat. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was held in reverence. I came along much later than all of my other brothers and sisters. But even when I was very little, long after FDR was gone, listening to my father made me think FDR was some kind of god! It took me many years to figure out what those initials even stood for. If my dad were still alive, I know he would be hoping for a Biden-Harris victory tonight. In this we would stand united
by Judy Handley | Nov 2, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 306: Exhaustion
Date: Monday, November 2, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Windy; High 47, Low 36 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Many Americans are exhausted watching these pre-election days play out. I am one of those Americans. But I find that I simply cannot tear myself away. I just have to know what is happening, play by play. But today I got an unexpected break from that with an issue that needed immediate attention and was even more exhausting. I got up, did a few chores around the house, and prepared to take a shower. So far, so good. But before hopping into the shower, I went ‘potty’, flushed, and then heard an unwelcome gurgle. Uh-oh. The water was filling the toilet and not going down. I watched for a few seconds and then the water went down. Okay, I flushed again to make sure everything was working right, but the same thing happened. I thought if I kept flushing, maybe I could clear whatever was causing the problem. That was the wrong thing to do. On about the fifth flush, I heard some strange water noises, so I went down to the basement to check things out. There was water everywhere. Not a ton, but obviously every time I had flushed, all of that water was just going into the basement. But how? And why? And who should I call? Where exactly is my septic tank? That last question led me to Peter Baranowski. He and Karen lived in this cottage for a year and Peter has been doing basic maintenance for Karen’s Aunt Shirley next door since her husband died. Peter would know what I should do, so I called. Peter came right over and we started calling plumbers and septic tank maintenance businesses in the area. The first plumber didn’t answer, so I left a message. The septic business that deals with Shirley’s septic tank next door couldn’t come for a few days. They put us on the waiting list. Another place apologized and put us on their waiting list. More calls. On the seventh or eighth call, I got an answering machine message giving me the name and cell phone number of someone. I called the cell phone number and left a message. While Peter and I were waiting to hopefully hear back from someone, we decided to do our own investigation. I went to the basement while Peter flushed the toilet, and we found the water was coming out of the overflow pipe. Duh! We used a snake. Nothing. We then decided to try and solve the issue ourselves. Peter asked me if I had followed his advice when I moved in here and left the concrete block that he had placed over the spot where the septic tank is located. Indeed, I had. It is in the wooded area behind my house. While Peter went home to get some tools, I got a call back from one of the messages I had left and a man named Shawn said he could come to pump out the septic tank today. Hurray. I knew that wasn’t going to solve our problem, but it was moving in the right direction. He said he could be here in a couple of hours. In the meantime, Peter returned and raked the leaves away from the area surrounding that concrete block. Then we got our shovels and started digging. About a foot down we hit paydirt. It took awhile to dig all around the septic tank lid and get all of the dirt off the top. Once we swept the top off, Peter used a shovel to try to lift the solid concrete lid, almost three feet in diameter and two to three inches thick. Heavy. But he did it and we discovered that the tank was full, but not above the drain pipe coming in or the drain going out to the drain field. Hmmm. Obviously there was a blockage between the house and the septic tank. But that’s all we could do without a powerful snake to go into the drain pipe. Peter went home and I made more phone calls. The story goes on and on, but the bottom line is that Shawn from Falmouth Cesspool arrived, used the huge suction hose to try and clear the drain pipe from the house, and then emptied the septic tank. After he thought he had cleared the drain pipe, he had me go in the house and flush the toilet. It worked. We had no idea what was blocking the drain pipe, but whatever it was had been sucked into the tank of his pump out truck. If the blockage happens again, I’ll have to call in the ‘big guns’ with the electric snakes with cameras they use for diagnostic purposes. But for now ,things are working. Shawn has to return in two weeks to install a new lid that will make pump out easier in the future. And I still have not cleaned up all the water on the basement floor. I not only have to get rid of the water, but I have to disinfect everything. I was just too exhausted, probably more mentally than physically, to deal with that issue anymore today. I am just so thankful that I didn’t have to live for two or three days without running water in the cottage. Clean up can happen tomorrow. It was 4:30 pm before I had time to take Shadow for a walk and then get to today’s planned job—canning chicken mineral broth. I made the broth yesterday and left it in a huge pot on the back porch overnight as the temp was going to be in the 30’s. For once, I am glad the temp today stayed in the low 40’s so that the broth was fine while I dealt with the septic issue. Tonight I have been busy canning. Starting basement reorganization was also on my list for today. Now that will happen tomorrow by necessity.
Tonight, when it was time to write today’s thankful note on my thankful pumpkin, I had to decide between so many things. I am thankful that I have friends who are willing to drop whatever they are doing to come help me out. I am thankful for the people that answer the phones at some businesses who, when they cannot help you, are willing to spend extra time giving you names and numbers of others who might have the time to help. I am thankful that when a very busy Heather and Jed heard about my ‘issue’, they were willing to drop everything and come to my rescue. Not needed today, but so thoughtful.
I am thankful for a daughter-in-law who took the time to send more photos of their new puppy today. In a picture of Ziggy holding Lenny, Ziggy looked happier than I have ever seen him in a photo. He hates having his picture taken, but it didn’t look like he minded today. And in another photo, it is obvious that Coco will take good care of Lenny. I am thankful that they seem to have found the perfect way to fill the hole in their hearts left by the loss of Alfie. There was so much to be thankful for today, but in the end, what I wrote on my pumpkin was, “I am thankful for friends who I know have got my back.” Maybe it should have been that I am thankful for having so many things to be thankful about.
Now I am going to sit in front of the TV and catch up on the political news of the day while canning the last load of chicken broth. Exhaustion is going to be replaced by anxiety tomorrow as we await the first results from this very consequential election.
