by Judy Handley | Jan 11, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 11: Overwhelming
Date: Saturday, January 11, 2020
Weather: Warm and Windy; High 60, Low 55 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The numbers are overwhelming . . . 1.5 million acres of Australia is engulfed by wild fires affecting half a billion animals and I don’t know how many people . . . severe weather including tornadoes in the southern US killed 11 people today . . . over 1,000 earth quakes in Puerto Rico since December 31. The numbers are not only overwhelming, they are almost unbelievable. A thousand earthquakes in less than two weeks in one area? I’ve never heard of anything like this before. An “earthquake swarm” is a term that showed up in my reading today. It refers to a sequence of earthquakes in the same area in a short period of time without an outstanding shock. I don’t feel that really describes what is happening in Puerto Rico because in between the lesser quakes, they keep having major ones. A 5.9 magnitude hit this morning that does not seem insignificant. The stronger quakes can be felt where Justin and Jo live, but they are not in danger. Still the continued tremors are starting to fray nerves. And it was 60 degrees here today. Really? In January? I’m not complaining, but this is supposed to be our coldest month with an average high temperature in the 30’s. It is supposed to get cooler later in the week, but I had to put my heavy coat away and get out my lighter weight fall jacket. Weird weather events.
Shadow and I spent our morning at Heather and Jed’s. They had an appointment to look at a house but thought it was too preliminary to take the boys, thus the need for Oma to hold down the fort while they were gone. Heather and Jed stopped house hunting months ago and are making plans to renovate their current home, but this one caught Heather’s attention and she wanted to take a look. They came home very excited. They both really liked the house and love the neighborhood and we might all go back to take look tomorrow. I came home and put on chicken mineral broth to burble, played outside with Shadow, and then took a nap. I still have congestion and don’t have my normal energy level back yet, so resting is a good thing. After the nap, Shadow and I went for a long walk and then I left for a couple of hours to go to a nursing home to give my Voyage of Windbird presentation to a good friend. After my presentation at the Newcomers meeting on Thursday, Midge Frieswyk asked me if I would be willing to give the presentation to her husband Bill. He had a fall a couple of months ago and has been in a nursing home for rehabilitation since. I was delighted that Midge thought he would like to see the presentation and I was anxious to do something special for Bill. But when I arrived this evening, he was not able to come down for the presentation. Midge’s sister who lives up near Boston and her daughter and two grandsons were there to see the presentation, so we went ahead without Bill. When he is feeling better, I will certainly return and give him a private showing.
by Judy Handley | Jan 10, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 10: Slow Day
Date: Friday, January 10, 2020
Weather: Overcast; High 50, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Yesterday was so busy that I decided to take today off. Shadow and I went to bed late last night and he didn’t get up until 7:30 this morning. I took him out, fed him, and we went back to bed and slept until 9:30! I finished the Vintage Christmas Card puzzle, but I have two empty spaces and two pieces that simply do not fit. And I know Shadow ate at least two pieces. So tomorrow, I’ll take a closer to look to make sure that I don’t have pieces in the wrong places, but even if I do, why don’t I have more empty spaces for those pieces Shadow ate? Weird. I ran a few errands, played outside with Shadow, removed more briars from the woods next to the cottage, took a long walk with Shadow in the neighborhood and a shorter one on Menauhant Beach, roasted a chicken, and visited briefly with the Shirley and Doris next door. They returned yesterday after a three month stay at Doris’ home close to Boston. They have home helpers who come in every morning and evening, and Shadow is very confused by the cars in the driveway next door. I’ll take him over to visit tomorrow or Sunday and maybe that will help him understand that we are now sharing out little corner of the world with other humans. I was really looking forward to the full Wolf Moon tonight, but the sky is not clear like it was last night and the moon doesn’t look nearly as dramatic. I am just thankful that I was out and about last night and got to see it in all of its glory.
by Judy Handley | Jan 10, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 9: Newcomers . . . Morning, Afternoon, Evening
Date: Thursday, January 09, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 32, Low 20 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was centered on Newcomers activities . . . morning, afternoon, and evening. This morning I made my Voyage of Windbird presentation to a full house at the January general meeting. Three years ago in January, before I was a member of Newcomers, I presented my top 10 favorite places at the January Newcomers meeting. Today I presented the Voyage of Windbird from start to finish. It was basically the same presentation I made at Newbridge on the Charles in October and it was really well received. I love giving this presentation because I get to relive the trip of a lifetime every time I do. Afterwards, I came home to play outside with Shadow, feed him lunch as well as myself, make a kale salad to take with me to a dinner tonight, take Shadow for his daily walk, and then head downtown to the library for a new class being offered by Newcomers. The class is Memoir Writing and the first class was very interesting and challenging. There are about 15 Newcomers in the class, all with fascinating backgrounds. 
I had to leave early, but it was clear to me that this class is going to well worth the time, I left early to get home to take Shadow outside to play and give him dinner before I headed to Midge Frieswyk’s home for our Newcomers Dining-in January dinner. We started our evening with a toast to the New Year. Midge even brought out the noise makers. Then she staged a phenomenal mid-winter clam bake done on the stove top. We ate lobster, clams, mussels, shrimp, scallops, corn, and potatoes. Kielbasa and white wine were used to flavor the yummy seafood. We celebrated Terry White’s birthday which is coming up next week and Karen Baranowski’s which is the following week. Wonderful food, very special friends, and so much fun.
by Judy Handley | Jan 8, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 8: Lunch with Heather, Mah Jongg Tonight
Date: Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Weather: Snow Overnight, Mostly Sunny Day; High 32, Low 20 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Shadow and I were a little surprised when we stepped outside early this morning and found that it had snowed overnight. Everything was covered with a thin blanket of snow and it was beautiful. But since it was still dark, we came back in quickly and went back to bed for another hour before going out to play in the snow. Shadow loves cold weather and really loves snow. He is true New Englander and I am learning from him to find more enjoyment in being out in the cold. A little later in the morning, Heather picked me up and we went shopping in Mashpee Commons and then had a lovely lunch at a French restaurant in the Commons called Bleu. How delightful it was to spend time with Heather without her attentions needed by three little boys! It is rare that she has time to do this, but since the new job doesn’t start until next week, she is taking some time for herself. When she brought me home, I invited her to come in and help me with one section of the puzzle that I just haven’t been able to conquer. She finished that off quickly and after she left, I spent another hour on the puzzle and have just about finished it. Shadow and I then took a nice long walk before I launched into my final preparations for tomorrow’s presentation on the Voyage of Windbird. And before I knew it, it was 6:30 pm and my Mah Jongg buddies arrived for a night of game playing. It was a day filled with fun.
by Judy Handley | Jan 7, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 7: Slowly Back to Normal
Date: Tuesday, January 7, 2020
Weather: Cloudy; High 42, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Last night I wrote that I am finally diving into 2020 after three weeks of battling a cold or the flu or whatever. But it is a slow dive. Very slowly I am trying to get back to a normal schedule. I still have congestion and can’t say I feel great, but I’m going to ignore that for now. My morning began, again, with news from Puerto Rico that another earthquake had hit. This time Justin and Jo could feel the tremors where they live and they were without power. The power outage was a result of an emergency shut off system to keep the grid from being damaged. Today’s quake was stronger than yesterday’s and seems to have done much more damage to homes and other buildings on the south shore of Puerto Rico. I have heard nothing further from Justin and Jo, so I am hoping no news is good news. They are far enough away from the epicenter that they should be fine. I then continued by my morning playing outside with Shadow, finishing the book I was reading, starting a new book, and working on my puzzle. I’m trying to train Shadow to be outside without being on the leash, so today I worked on the ‘come’ command. With enough treats as rewards, he does great. Without the treats, he still doesn’t come, but hopefully we’ll get there. While he ran around the yard, I continued my quest to dig up the briars in the woods around the cottage. We also played a little soccer and then came inside. Last night I finished the book I have been reading and started a new one this morning. The book I finished was ‘Clara and Mr. Tiffany’. It is my book club’s choice for January and I really enjoyed it. Mr. Tiffany is Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, who founded the company. His son Louis diverged from silver and jewelry and focused on the decorative arts, especially stained-glass windows and lamps. Clara Driscoll worked for him and is most likely the person who conceived of the idea of stained-glass lamps. So, the two main characters are real, but the book is a fictional account of how things happened. The author, Susan Vreeland, does a masterful job of writing in detail about the design and detail of making the stained-glass lamps and about life in New York City at the end of the 19th century going into the 20th century. I was right there as each little piece of glass was placed just so. My new book was a Christmas present from Heather, ‘The Overstory’ by Richard Powers. I’m well into the second chapter and am finding this book fascinating. It is described as an eco-novel about trees, but what it really does is to get you to think about the world we live in from a totally different perspective. I finished the morning by working on the Vintage Christmas Card puzzle. I’m getting close to finishing, but it is getting harder, not easier.
I took a break to eat lunch and got a text from Heather saying a large package had arrived for me from Amazon. It was a wooden folding table. I went right over to pick it up and when I got home I took Shadow for his daily walk through the neighborhood. Then it was time for me work on the Voyage of Windbird presentation for the Newcomers General Meeting on Thursday. In between cooking and a trip to the grocery store, I think I have put the polishing touches on the PowerPoint presentation. I will go through it again the morning to make sure I am there. And then I’m going clothes shopping and out to lunch with Heather. She has this week off before starting her new job and needs some new clothes. So that should be a fun outing. Then tomorrow night I host my Mah Jongg group, thus the need for the new folding table. Onward, slowly.
