by Judy Handley | Nov 4, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 308: A Hopeful Night for Democracy
Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2025
Weather: W-i-n-d-y; High Temp 55, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Democrats won the big races on the East Coast tonight—Governor of Virginia, Governor of New Jersey, and Mayor of New York City. Two young women, the first ever female governors in their states, and a young man born in Uganda, with a father from Uganda, and a mother born in India. Spanberger, are the face of the America I know and love, and obviously a lot of other people love that same ‘face’. Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill, Zohran Mamdani are that face. They are all champions of the working American and are not afraid to stand strong against authoritarianism and fascism. They are all Democrats, but that is not what they are ‘for’. And I think that is the very important thing about them. They are for something and not against an opponent of the opposite party. They are all against No Kings! in America ever—regardless of who that person might be. New York City had a huge turnout of young voters. And on the West Coast, it appears the same day voter turnout is way bigger than expected and at this time, it looks like Prop 50 will pass. I’ll be in bed before that is decided. And it goes on. All of the down ballot races seem to be going to the Democrats as well. Of course there is fear of the backlash from the current administration, but people do not seem to be letting that fear scare them away. What the voters did tonight is a breath of fresh air. The voters today are showing that Americans know that democracy is not a spectator fight. Democracy demands our participation and today, Americans participated big time.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that I just got a call telling me my sister, who lives in an assisted living facility in North Carolina, is being taken to the hospital as I write this. When the aides came to get her ready for bed tonight, she could not stand up. Her blood sugar was sky high, as was her blood pressure. So, they had to send her to the emergency room. I called my nephew that lives near my sister, and luckily, he was home and another nephew from West Virginia is there visiting. So, the two of them are headed to the hospital to be there when she arrives.
The other news today is that Ardenna is still in the water. She was supposed to be taken out of the water this morning and hauled to her winter home here in Falmouth. But when Heather and Jed got to Mattapoisett this morning, there were white caps in the mooring field and water was spraying over the top of the boat. The hauling company wanted to go ahead, but Heather and Jed called it off. They might have been able to get the boat out of the water, but they were worried about lifting the mast in the wind. They were having gusts to 40. I think they made the right call. They will try again next Wednesday when it will not be quite so windy.
by Judy Handley | Nov 4, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 307: Soccer Sadness
Date: Monday, November 3, 2025
Weather: Overcast, Windy, and Rain; High Temp 54, Low 44 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
After a Monday morning walk with Shadow, Archie, and Archie’s mother, my friend Joanie Thompson, I returned home and tuned in a little late for a Falmouth Immigrant Rights Coalition meeting on Zoom. Then I switched gears. I stepped away from work for a couple of hours to dig up plants outside to bring them inside for the winter. It had already started raining by the time I got outside, but it was a gentle rain, so I didn’t mind. I got the parsley, the sage, and the rosemary potted and brought inside, as well as a poinsettia plant. I also potted a Dumb cane (Dieffenbachia sequine) house plant and delivered it to a neighbor. This is a plant I have had since the early 1970’s. It just grows and grows, and I cut off pieces and root them and give them away. By the time I got that done, it was time to have a late lunch and go pick Ollie up after school to take him to his horseback riding lesson. Unfortunately, there was another mix up and the lesson didn’t happen. Due to the rain, I texted the instructor to make sure there was going to be a lesson. She got back to me apologizing that for the second week in a row, she was going to be a no-show due to a change in her work schedule. I can understand that, but it would have nice if she had let us know. So, I just took Ollie home after school and I went home to prep for a taco dinner with Ollie and Jonah after Jonah’s soccer game.
Tonight’s soccer game was a quarter finals game for the state championship and Falmouth lost 0-1. I rained off and on during the entire game. Falmouth played hard, did a great job on defense, but just couldn’t get the ball in the net. They were visibly shaken by the loss, but I know Jonah and his good friends Kaiden and Jean Luc will soon be looking forward to giving it another go next year.
by Judy Handley | Nov 2, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 306: Dark So Early
Date: Sunday, November 2, 2025
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 54, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Today was ‘fall back’ day—back to Eastern Standard Time. Farewell to Daylight Savings Time. So, when I was outside working on potting some of my herbs to bring inside for the winter on this first day of EST, I was a bit surprised when the sun went down at 4:35 pm! I’ll adapt, but I really don’t like the afternoon sunsets of November, December, and into January. By mid-January sundown is back to around 5 pm, so from there forward I’m okay. I just have to make it for the next two and a half months. That’s a long time.
I spent my morning continuing my work on the film series. Then at 2 pm, I headed to Mattapoisett to pick up Heather and Jed. They motor sailed Ardenna from her summer home in Woods Hole to Mattapoisett where she will be taken out of the water on Tuesday morning. Once out of the water, she will be moved to her winter home on land here in Falmouth.
When I got home, I spent the rest of the lovely fall afternoon outside gathering containers to pot parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme–just like the song—to bring inside for the winter. Since the sun set so early, I will continue that process in the morning. But I did manage to find the pots needed. My neighbor, Andy, has a huge supply. He had offered to give me a few, so this afternoon I headed across the street with an empty wheelbarrow and returned with the pots needed. Thanks to Andy my living room is going to be transitioned to a greenhouse.
by Judy Handley | Nov 1, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 305: It’s November
Date: Saturday, November 1, 2025
Weather: Partly Sunny, Still Windy; High Temp 57, Low 50 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
On this first day of November, I attended the weekly rally on the Falmouth Green and then rushed home to meet a possible new neighbor. The house I live in has a studio apartment attached at the back. Since I moved here, no one has lived in the studio apartment as it is used as an office. But, really, it is empty most of the time. Lynda, the owner, found out from a friend that a young man just out of college just got a job at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole and he needs a place to live. His name is Billy, and he came to take a look this afternoon. Lynda wanted me to meet him to make sure I thought he would be a good neighbor. I truly enjoyed meeting him and think he would be a great neighbor, but it is not a done deal. He is looking at other places, and his choice will probably depend on the most affordable. He and Shadow got along famously, so we will both be very happy if he moves in.
I spent the remainder of the day and evening working on the format for the next film screening this Wednesday and also working on developing a resource handout. We will be introducing Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, so I decided I needed to know more about Gene Sharp. The documentary about him is titled, “How to Start a Revolution.” All I really knew about him is that he was considered the world’s foremost living expert on nonviolent revolution until he died in 2018 at age 90. The more I read about him, the more fascinated with his ideas I become. But when the I started watching the film, what I saw was a very genteel old man, not a raving revolutionary who some have called one of the world’s most dangerous men. Those ‘some’ are the world’s brutal dictators for whom Gene Sharp’s ideas have been lethal. It was his ideas, implemented by lovers of freedom and democracy around the world, that have brought down many dictators. And as long as I was at it, I decided to watch another documentary, “Bringing Down a Dictator.” This is about the student-led Otpor!Movement that led to the ouster of dictator Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in 2000. This is another really good documentary you can watch for free on the International Centre for Nonviolent Conflict website (https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/icncfilms/).
by Judy Handley | Oct 31, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 305: Happy Halloween
Date: Friday, October 31, 2025
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Warmer, Strong W to SW Winds; High Temp 60, Low 45 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Here in Falmouth, we had a windy Halloween day and evening, and the winds are getting stronger as we go into the overnight period. Things settle down in the early hours of Sunday morning but tomorrow promises to be another windy one. I had lawn chairs blowing around today, lots of small branches falling, the cables for my internet and cable tv blew down from their attachment point at the peak of the roof. They are still attached down lower on the house but hanging precariously low from that point out to the street. For now, I still have access, but if the weight of the sagging lines should pull the lines loose from the pole on the street, I am not sure what will happen. Comcast says they will be here tomorrow afternoon to remedy that situation. Fingers crossed.
I had my “We the People” class this morning and a meeting with the film series committee this afternoon. I got home around 5:30 pm and realized I needed to go buy candy. I stopped by Heather’s and got an invitation to come over there for dinner. So, I rushed to the store to buy the candy and drove home to put it in a bowl on my front stoop with a sign saying, “Take 3.” I then went to Heather and Jed’s for the evening. I came home to a full bowl of candy that I will need to share with Ollie and Jonah. Otherwise, I will gain 10 pounds! Ollie and two friends went out trick or treating tonight and before I left Heather and Jed’s to come home, Ollie gave me his only Almond Joy from his bag of candy. He knows how much I love Almond Joy candy bars. It is an emotional love as when I was in early grade school, my dad would bring home an Almond Joy candy bar in his lunch pail for me to have every day after school. My dad was not one to show emotion of any kind ever, but we had that daily ‘Almond Joy’ bonding!
