2020 Life Logs, Day 156: Lack of Ambition
2020 Life Logs, Day 156: Lack of Ambition
Date: Friday, June 5, 2020
Weather: Rain Early, Overcast; High 71, Low 63 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I’ll blame it on the dreary day, but for whatever reason, I had a total lack of ambition today. In other words, I was useless. I did have a list of emails I needed to write, so even though I wanted to do nothing, I sat at my computer and checked things off my list. As I was doing this, a bird made the rounds of the cottage rain gutters which desperately need to be cleaned out. But this one bird did part of the job for me. As I sat at my computer, I kept hearing a tapping noise. When I looked out the front door, I saw that the stoop and stairs were covered with dried leaves. Then I looked up and saw only the tail of the bird that was obviously finding food among the dried leaves in the gutter. I just let her continue and swept things up once she was finished. She did this on the front and the back of the house. Watching her work so hard finally got me moving. I needed to plant tomato plants in the area where Jed cleared out the small trees last week. The problem is raking the leaves away and digging the holes. The ground in that area is a web of various kinds of roots, so the digging requires some strength and then pulling on the roots to get them out. Not a great activity for my back. I worked slowly and got only 3 tomato plants in the ground. I also planted some sunflower seedlings that I started indoors. So not a lot done this afternoon, but I think things will go more quickly tomorrow now that I have a process.
When I came inside, I needed to just sit for a bit, so I downloaded a book from Kindle on Mark’s old tablet. I am still reading the Harry Potter series, but Heather mentioned a book by Ta-Nehisi Coates yesterday that she thinks should to be required reading for all Americans, especially right now. The title is Between the World and Me. If you are not familiar with the book, it is written as a letter from the author to his 15-year-old son about the realities of being Black in the United States of America. It is my very first attempt to read a book on a tablet. I’d prefer a hard copy, but so far, I find reading this book on the tablet is working for me. I’m only a few pages in, but I agree with Heather that this should be required reading.
I want to thank my friend Bruce Woodin who sent an email pointing out that I had wrongly identified the crabs that Jonah was finding yesterday. I called them ghost crabs, but ghost crabs are mostly found in tropical and subtropical parts of the world. I took many photos of them as we sailed around the world.
01 Crabby Pirate Greeting on Ile du Coin
My name for them was pirate crabs because they often had one eye closed making them look like they had on a pirate patch. I’m including a photo that I took of a ‘pirate’ crab in Chagos to get Bruce’s confirmation. The crabs I have been calling ghost crabs here on the Cape are from the genus Emerita and are commonly called sand crabs, mole crabs, or sand fleas. Bruce knows my passion for correctly identifying flora and fauna, so I really appreciate his correction.
Sam was as shocked as I was that it fit him and it made him a very happy kiddo.
When we arrived at the beach, we saw the parking lot was pretty full. At first Jonah said there was no way he was going on a beach with that many people. But Sam convinced him that we should park and take a look before making a decision to leave. The beach parking lots have been reduced in half by concrete barriers and I agreed with Sam that it was worth taking a look. Late yesterday when we went to the beach, there were only a few cars and the beach looked basically empty. With a full parking lot today, the beach was manageable. There were small groups of people spaced appropriately, but no one was sitting down close to the water. That is where we always set up ‘camp’. All three boys felt comfortable with that location, so the fun began. All three grabbed their googles and dove in. The water is still chilly, but Sam was warm in his wet suit. Ollie was okay with his swim shirt on, but Jonah, who is always cold anyway, needed his swim shirt that I had put in the wrong bag and left behind. But he was a trooper and spent some time in the water, but more time at the water’s edge digging to the middle of the earth and finding lots of ghost crabs. Sam stayed in the water for quite a long time, but then came ashore to help with the digging. Since he was old enough to hold a shovel, Sam has been a digger. He is bigger now, but he can still dig deep holes in the sand faster than anyone I have ever seen. We were at the beach for two and a half hours and time really flew by. I just sat in the sun, read my book, helped Jonah and Ollie order wet suits on Amazon, and thoroughly enjoyed watching the Goldpebbles play with abandon in the sand and water. Summer has begun.
Ollie headed back to the dock in time to get ready for his violin lesson and I went back to the house with him in case he needed my help. He didn’t, but it gave me a chance to do a little prep for dinner as I had invited the whole gang over. Since I always sit down on the dock when the boys are out in the kayaks, it can make getting dinner ready a little tricky. So the violin lesson gave me a chance to ready things. After the violin lesson, we headed back down to the dock and the boys spent another hour kayaking out to a shallow area where they were able to get into the water. The clouds had cleared and it was suddenly very sunny and warm. I had to wear a jacket prior to the violin lesson but certainly didn’t need one later. Sometime around 6 pm, the Goldpebbles returned to the dock and were ready to call it a day.
That is, until we got back to the cottage and Sam suddenly decided that we should head to the beach. Even Jonah, who is usually freezing, was anxious to make a first trip to the beach. I called Heather and Jed and asked them to meet us at the beach and we were off. The boys wanted their snorkel gear but I told them momma had already thought of that and was bringing it. Actually, what Heather had said to me on the phone was that she and Jed would meet us at the beach and they would bring masks. I assumed that meant snorkel masks. But what she meant was face masks! But that didn’t stop the boys from diving into the water. It was windy and felt cold at the beach, which is only 2 miles from the cottage, but they were absolutely ready for their first beach adventure of the season. I headed home to get dinner ready. We did have a late dinner, but it was worth it as we had three very happy boys. 
