by Judy Handley | Feb 5, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 36: Catch-up Morning, Mah Jongg Evening
Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Weather: Overcast; High 41 degrees, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
All that beautiful, sunny, warmer than it should be for this time of year weather has left us for a bit. Yesterday and today were overcast and a bit windy making the high temperature in the low forties feel colder than that. The forecast for tomorrow is rain, rain, and more rain, so I doubt we’ll see the sun, but it will warm up a bit before temps dip over the weekend. Saturday and Sunday will feel more like winter, then it warms up again. We are still waiting for winter, fearing that when it does come it will hit hard.
I spent my morning catching up paperwork. Mid-afternoon I stopped to take Ollie to his weekly violin lesson. And then tonight my Mah Jongg group came here to play. I won two games tonight, but I still feel like I really don’t know what I am doing half the time. Part of being a good Mah Jongg player has to do with understanding the intricacies of the game, but it seems to me that winning has a lot to do with luck.
by Judy Handley | Feb 4, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 35: Afternoon with the Goldpebbles
Date: Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Weather: Overcast; High 46 degrees, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
This morning I finished one book and started reading another. Many of the thoughts from the book I finished, The Overstory, will stay with me for the rest of my life. It changed the way I look at many things, especially trees. “A tree is a passage between earth and sky.” Stop and think about that. And then think about how important it is that we protect trees from mass destruction in the name of progress.
After reading my morning away, I got ready to head to Heather and Jed’s. Today was an Early Release Day for all three boys, so Shadow and I went over for the afternoon. We baked chocolate chip cookies and the boys and Shadow played outside. Then we headed downtown to the public library. Jed drove into town from Woods Hole to pick Sam up and take him to drum lessons. Ollie and Jonah and I stayed at the library and when Jed returned, I took Ollie to tennis lessons.
Then Heather met me there. It takes a village. But meeting up with Heather gave me an opportunity to ask her how things are going with her new job. All she could say was busy, busy, busy trying to learn the ins and out of Woods Hole Research Center while it is in the process of redefining the public’s perception of the work they do. And as Chief Communications Officer, it is her job to help spearhead that effort. And while settling into the new job, she and Jed are in the process of buying a new home. They made an offer which was accepted and have made it through the first hurdle, the home inspection. Any of you who have bought a home know there are all kinds of things that could go wrong, but so far, so good. If things work out, they will be closing the end March and moving in immediately following. It is really a busy time in the Goldstone household and will only get busier as they get closer to moving time. But they will be moving into a lovely home in a great neighborhood, so in the end, all of the trouble should be worth it. I’m so glad I decided to postpone my knee surgery until the fall, as now I will be able to help with the move. When I made that decision, I had no idea that Heather and Jed would be moving, and neither did they. They weren’t even looking for a house. Interesting how things happen. And speaking of interesting, it is time for me to take Shadow for his evening walk and settle in to watch The State of the Union address. That should definitely be interesting.
by Judy Handley | Feb 3, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 34: Walking, Reading, Visiting
Date: Monday, February 3, 2020
Weather: Some Sunny Periods Mixed with Cloud; High 45 degrees, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Not a lot to report today. I spent time outside walking and playing with Shadow, but spent most of the day reading. I was desperately trying to finish the book I have been reading, The Overstory by Richard Powers, as I need to read a book by next Tuesday for my book club that I have yet to start. And I also need to read the rest of the book I started on People Training for Good Dogs. I didn’t finish The Overstory, but hopefully will finish it tomorrow. It is just not a book that you can flip through quickly. Each page, each word, causes you to stop and reflect, so it is a slow read. Karen Baranowski came by for tea late morning and we talked our way into the afternoon. She and Peter leave on Thursday for a month-long cruise and are looking forward to being warmer for a month. Tomorrow is an Early Release Day, so I will spend the afternoon with the Goldpebbles. Now I’m going to turn on the TV and see what is happening in the Iowa Caucasus before heading to bed.
by Judy Handley | Feb 2, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 33: Somebody Ought To . . .
Date: Sunday, February 2, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 42 degrees, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Nobody that knows me would ever call me a prude. But tonight when I watched the Superbowl half-time show, I sure felt like a prude. As I watched, all I could hear in my head were the words of my grandmother saying, “Somebody ought to spat her as . . .” The year I was born, 1947, a movie came out starring the Brazilian bombshell, Carmen Miranda. Copacabana was a musical comedy and in it, Miranda, performed one of her ‘high energy’ dances. My grandmother, a country woman, was visiting sometime during the next year when Copacabana was playing at the local theater, so my sister Patsy who was 14 or 15 at the time, took my grandmother to see the movie. When Carmen Miranda came on the screen with her signature bowl of fruit on her head and started dancing with that ‘high energy’, my grandmother stood up and announced loudly that “Somebody ought to spat her as . . .” My sister was so embarrassed that she grabbed my grandmother and left the theater. Of course, I don’t really remember any of this, but I have heard the story many times over the years. And tonight, as I watched Shakira and Jennifer Lopez perform, I knew how my grandmother must have felt. Dancing is one thing, but in tonight’s performances, the ‘dancing’ went too far. And the costumes were just plain offensive. I had been at Heather and Jed’s for the beginning of the game, but I decided to come home to be with Shadow. Hopefully they put the boys to bed before half-time. I read that Shakira and Lopez had promised to deliver an empowering performance for women. That is not what I saw. They are definitely talented and if someone wants to pay to go see them perform in a concert that is one thing. But to have that coming into your home during the half-time of a football game is another thing. It convinced me that our society has gone totally off the rails. Lots of things make me feel that way these days, but this sealed the deal. I immediately changed the channel to public television and watched Sunday night Masterpiece Theatre. Quite a contrast!
Shadow and I spent time with Ollie mid-day. We took a walk to the bogs with Joey, the little boy that lives next door. Then I took Ollie to play with a friend. Later in the afternoon, I went to a meet and greet session with a woman who is running for the State Senate seat from this district. I have never gotten involved in local politics, but I am convinced that now is the time that all of us need to be involved in politics at all levels. If we have met the people that are representing us, hopefully it will have a more dramatic effect when we call them not doing their jobs. This was a small group setting in someone’s home. I knew a couple of the people attending, but not most. I was very impressed with the level of questioning. Health care, education, the opioid crisis, climate change issues, and immigration were the topics brought forth by those of us attending. I listened carefully to this candidate’s responses. Now I need to find a way to meet some of the other candidates running for this State Senate position and hear what they have to say.
Other than being Superbowl Sunday, today was special in two other ways. Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this morning, indicating that we should have an early spring. Since we have not really had winter yet, that is good news, but we could have a nasty February and still have an early spring. The other thing was today’s date of 02/02/2020. This was palindrome day when the date reads the same way forwards and backwards. And this one was very special world-wide. “Unlike the date in 2002, this one reads the same in the US, where dates are written as month-day-year instead of day-month-year as in much of the rest of the world.” And it also worked for China and a few other countries that put the year first. The last time this happened was 11 November 1111.
by Judy Handley | Feb 1, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 32: Quick Trip Off-Cape
Date: Saturday, February 1, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 40 degrees, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The morning was spent reading more of the dog handling book, People Training for Good Dogs, by Melissa Berryman. In the afternoon, I made an unplanned trip to Newton, near Boston, to take the half-size violin Heather and Justin used when they were in elementary school to a violin repair shop. Ollie is ready to move up to a half-size from his current quarter-size, but the half-size needs some repairs. I have had taking the violin in for repairs on my ‘to do’ list since the first of the year, but just haven’t had the opportunity to get away. Late morning, I went over to Heather’s to take some packing boxes she needed and found that she also needed more plastic storage bins that I get at Costco. Since Costco is not far from the violin repair shop in Newton, I had just the incentive needed to take off to do these two things. I took Shadow with me and we enjoyed our travel time together. I stopped at Costco to get the storage bins first, took Shadow for a walk, and then traveled on to Newton. All I knew was the name of the place, so I put it Google Maps and arrived at Carriage House Violins. What I found out when I got inside is that the Carriage House is the instrument sales division of Johnson String Instrument, the largest stringed instrument dealer in New England. You can buy a 300 year-old violin for thousands of dollars, get an expensive violin restored, or simply get a student-grade violin repaired. It looks a little like a warehouse from the outside, but once inside you are transported into another world. 
The dark wood interior, the sound of classical violin music coming from various rooms, the overwhelming number of violins, violas, and cellos, even the way the staff dresses and move about a little more slowly than the rest of us, gives the whole place an old world feel. I thought I could just drop off the violin, but it wasn’t that easy. I was escorted to a waiting area and then met with a young man that took the violin to evaluate any repairs it might need. When he returned, he went over in detail the things that need to be done, explained why, and listed the cost of each repair for me. I could have decided to rent a new violin for a year for the same price as the repairs, but I decided to upgrade the old one. It is just a student-grade violin, but it has a history and I decided it should be given a ‘new’ life. The violin will be ready in a week and a half and I’ll return to pick it up. It was almost 5 pm by the time I got back to the car. Shadow was patiently waiting for me. I took him for another walk and then we headed back to the Cape. I love that Shadow is a good traveler and I hope he prefers traveling with me rather than spending the time in his crate at home.
