by Judy Handley | Apr 26, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 187, Year 11: Thanks and Praises for Friends
Date: Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Weather: Rain and Sleet, High in the 40’s F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
When our son was in college he wrote a song called, “Thanks and Praises for The Most High.” That was twenty years ago, but I still sing that refrain when I am particularly grateful for something. This afternoon when we received the photos posted in this log from Lynda Kaufman, that song popped into my mind once again, this time changing ‘The Most High’ to the Kaufman’s. They did an absolutely incredible job of getting things off Windbird and cleaning her up. They even brought in nautical items of their own to decorate. As Mark and I looked at the photos, we fell in love with Windbird all over again. She is a beautiful boat that has given us so much. I sure hope Lynda and Lee’s hard work helps to find a wonderful new owner for Windbird. She still has a lot to give.
We also have thanks and praises for our friends Rich and Leslie Kole. We drove to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, midday to have lunch with them. Rich made a wonderful olive oil and rosemary no-knead bread and a Tuscan stew. Both were delicious. This is the first time we have ventured out to visit with friends since Mark started the trial treatment and it felt good to be out and about. It was cold and rainy (even had some sleet) but the warmth of friendship kept us cozy. Thanks, Rich and Leslie.
Tomorrow is an early day. We have to be at Mass General at 8:45 am, so our drive will be at the height of rush hour. But we are grateful to the research team for changing Mark’s treatment day to Wednesday. Driving to Boston on a Friday during the summer months would be insanity, so they went ahead and switched us now.
Enjoy the photos of Windbird posted here. Just click on the photo you see and you will be taken to the entire album.
by Judy Handley | Apr 25, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 186, Year 11: A Day in the Life
Date: Monday, April 25, 2016
Weather: Overcast, High in the 60’s F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
Not much to report today. Somehow the day just slipped away. Mark is still feeling good. He had one incident today when he felt a little nauseous. He just closed his eyes and told himself to reject that feeling and I turned on the diffuser with the peppermint oil. One or both worked and the nausea passed.
Tomorrow we are going to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to have lunch with good friends Leslie and Rich Kole. It will be our first social outing since Mark started on this drug trial. I think it will be good for both of us to get out and visit.
by Judy Handley | Apr 24, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 185, Year 11: Another Good Day for Mark
Date: Sunday, April 24, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Windy, High 60 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
Mark had another good day without taking anti-nausea meds. He had a little nausea after eating a big dinner, but it was very temporary. He ate a huge salad for the first time in weeks and that might have triggered the nausea. He has just not been able to tolerate anything green and he might have overdone it with that salad. We’ll take this one day at a time, but for right now, we are just so very happy with how things are going without the nausea medications. It is like Mark has emerged from a dense fog.
We got our second update from Lee and Lynda this afternoon. They returned to Windbird today and took off another huge load of ‘stuff’. And along with our friend and agent, John Schwab, and his wife Beth, they got the dinghy off the front deck and raised on the davits. They have done an amazing job and we are so grateful. Now we just have to figure out how to get our clothes, our dishes, our pots and pans, our spices, and on and on, from there to here. We don’t have a plan yet, but we are working on it. Sure wish Star Trek transporting was a reality.
by Judy Handley | Apr 23, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 184, Year 11: A Wonderful Day
Date: Saturday, April 23, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Cooler, High in the 60’s F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
It was a wonderful day. The most wonderful thing that happened today is that Mark is back. For some reason he decided to skip taking the anti-nausea meds yesterday and discovered last night that he was not nauseous. He did, however, have severe stomach pains that he hasn’t had for about a month, but he took extra pain meds for that. Today he took no anti-nausea meds and he had a great day—no nausea, no drowsiness. He was really back to being himself and could eat whatever he wanted. We can’t figure out why this has happened, but we won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. We are just grateful and hope it continues.
The second wonderful thing was our big outing north to Goffstown, New Hampshire, to the Benedikt Dairy Farm to buy 100% grass-fed, organic beef liver and fresh eggs. Mark’s blood tests yesterday showed a borderline low HCT (hematocrit) count meaning that he has too few red blood cells. And this puts him in the borderline anemic category. What we have done in the past to combat this is to have him eat organic beef liver and beets. We already had the beets but needed the organic beef liver. The farm in Goffstown was the closest source I could find, so off we went. The farm is in a beautiful location on the top of a hill. You go into the farm stand store which is in a barn right on the road. I had called ahead for the beef liver and it was in the cooler in a bag marked with my name. I took that and got into the adjacent cooler for eggs and then entered what I had taken and the price of each in a book. You then put the amount owed in a box. It felt really good to buy food in this manner—so much nicer than the supermarket.
And the third wonderful thing that happened today is that we received an email from Lynda Kaufman reporting that she and Lee had taken five carts of stuff off Windbird today and will return tomorrow for more. They are taking only those things off the boat that are out in plain sight and they are not completely done with that. How many carts will it take once we delve into all the storage cabinets? I don’t even want to make a guess. But we are so incredibly thankful to Lee and Lynda for getting this process started. Thank you, thank you.
We heard from both of our children today. Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco were still in Culebra this morning when Justin called. They have had an incredibly good time camping at Flamenco Beach. They are staying in the Soul Pad, the tent they lived in for a few months in what became known as the Pirate Camp. Ziggy asked yesterday why people try to pretend they are not animals by living in houses. But they are returning to mainland Puerto Rico tomorrow to live once more in house. Flamenco Beach is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, so I understand why Ziggy would just like to stay there. We heard from Heather this evening that she and her brood are back on Cape Cod after having a great time in DC. We are so glad that both families had so much fun on their spring vacations.
by Judy Handley | Apr 22, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 183, Year 11: Summer Sneak Preview for Earth Day
Date: Friday, April 22, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm, High in the 80’s F
Location: Back at Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
Happy Earth Day! The weather today was a sneak preview of summer. It was a balmy 82 degrees with bright sunshine. Since we were at Mass General most of the day, we didn’t really get to do anything to celebrate Earth Day, but when I was at the supermarket in the late afternoon I saw a Discovery video about the use of geo-engineering to solve some of our problems caused by climate change. I bought the DVD and tonight we watched the first segment tonight. It was about launching a space sunshield using special lenses that would diffuse the sunlight. Sunglasses for Planet Earth! An interesting idea if all else fails. But first let’s try to change the way we live to be more earth friendly. That’s my Earth Day message, and I’m stickin’ by it.
Mark had an interesting day. He has been fighting nausea for three weeks by using the prescribed anti-nausea meds and then by adding the diffuser with peppermint oil. Today he took no anti-nausea meds and used no diffuser and he had no bouts of nausea. He’ll continue his self-imposed ban on anti-nausea meds through the night and into tomorrow to see what happens. Could the anti-nausea meds be the cause of his nausea? Hmmmm.
Yesterday I got a very special email from Lynda Kaufman. Lynda and Lee are our friends in Little River that we cruised with last winter. We have known them for about 35 years, but had not lived near them since 1984 until we started spending time on Windbird in Little River, South Carolina. But the point here is that they have made a most generous offer to help us by getting things moved off Windbird to make her more presentable for showings. We left the boat ready to sail it north, not ready for sale. Lynda is going to pack up some of the more egregious offenders and take them to her garage. Our sales agent, John, has been most understanding of the mess we left behind when we arrived in Little River and quickly headed north. But I know he will be as grateful as we are that Lynda and Lee have made the offer to clean things up a bit. They also had some great suggestions for how we might get all of the stuff moved off Windbird without actually having to put Mark through the agony of the long road trip to get there and back. The ‘having’ of good friends is a wonderful thing. Thank you, Lynda and Lee. And a very happy birthday to you, Lee.
by Judy Handley | Apr 21, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 182, Year 11: Purple Rain, Daffodils, and Adirondack Chairs
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Cool, High on the Cape 55 degrees F
Location: Staying at Heather and Jed’s, East Falmouth, MA
Adirondack chairs were really the focus today, but before getting into that story I’ll mention our connection to Purple Rain. With Prince’s passing today, we were all reminded of his song, album, and rock musical drama, all with the name–Purple Rain. It was a huge hit in 1984, the year we moved from our farm in southern West Virginia to Salisbury, Maryland. The home we bought there was on the corner of a street and all along the side-street part of the property were these beautiful, big, old Crepe Myrtle trees. We didn’t move into the house until late summer 1984, so we didn’t get to see these magnificent trees in bloom that year. But the next summer when we did see them in bloom, we were all awe-struck with their beauty. In 1985, all of the trees were heavy with those tiny little purple blossoms. And when the blossoms fell onto the street, it literally looked like purple rain. Thus, our first connection to Prince.
Now to what was happening in our world today. This morning I waited for the Adirondack chairs to dry since I had washed them with the special prep cleaner last evening. Before noon I deemed them thoroughly dry and I started the water sealing process. Heather and Jed bought the sealer and when I opened the can and gave it a stir, I was surprised to see that it was chalky gray in color and the consistency of watered-down Elmer’s Glue. As I quickly found out, Adirondack chairs are incredibly difficult to coat as the sealer dripped through all of the cracks. I was using a brush but I could not possibly brush out this thick liquid so I grabbed a rag and brushed and rubbed, constantly turning the chair over to do the same on the underside as that is where the drips went. Something I estimated would take an hour was taking much longer. I got two chairs done before it was time to leave to go sign the rental agreement on the apartment. I was exhausted from constantly turning the chairs and my back was killing me from bending over. But more than anything, I was totally frustrated with the incredibly bad job I was doing. Thank goodness these are lawn chairs are not fine furniture! Long story short, I finished two chairs before we had to leave and then coated the third chair when we returned from our afternoon outing. Then I called it a day. I had thought that I could get the two required coats on each of the three chairs this afternoon, but that just didn’t happen. These chairs were bought at The Christmas Tree Shop for about $50 each. Last fall when they were purchased, Heather and Jed had already bought two beautiful wooden Adirondacks from L. L. Bean (with a life-time guarantee on the painted finish), but the cost for each of those was six times as much as the unfinished wooden chairs at The Christmas Tree Shop. For Heather’s birthday the end of September she wanted three more chairs so the kids would each have one. I thought it was ridiculous to pay $300 for a lawn chair and encouraged the purchase of the cheaper ones. But I stand corrected. Now I know first-hand why an Adirondack chair with a life-time guaranteed finish costs $300. You get what you pay for.
Our afternoon outing took us to The Studio where we signed the rental agreement for the apartment. We were not able to get in to see the apartment again, but Ed, the resident maintenance man, had drawn a diagram of the place with measurements. He wants to fancy it up a bit and then Amanda, the owner’s daughter we have been working with, will send it to us. That will help with our planning of what might actually fit into the apartment. After that appointment, we drove to the other side of the harbor to West Marine. Mark wanted to visit with the gang there and we were quite surprised to see that the entire store has been re-arranged. The new set-up makes the store seem so much larger. Mark probably won’t be able to work there this summer, but I know he will be walking around the harbor to visit quite often. We then drove to Spohr Gardens to see the daffodils. I have mentioned that I would have liked to return here this weekend for Daffodil Days at the Gardens, but then I realized that we could just go there and take a walk on our own. It is just a short walk around the Gardens, but Mark had never been there and he really enjoyed the views across the pond. He also loved the collection of huge anchors on display. Some of the daffodils were a little past their peak, but most were still lovely. When we left the Gardens and headed back to Surf Drive we saw our first osprey of the season. It is always an exciting time of year when you see your old friends return home.
Tomorrow we leave here at 6:30 am in order to get to Mass General by 9 am. And tomorrow night we will be back in the condo in Lowell. Heather, Jed, and boys will return here from their school vacation week in Washington, DC, visiting with Grammy Goldstone. And sometime this weekend Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco will return home from a school vacation camping trip on the island of Culebra. We’ll be so anxious to hear about all of their adventures.
