by Judy Handley | May 6, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 126: Busy Monday
Date: Monday, May 6, 2019
Weather: Sunny; High 57, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
From a laid back, rainy Sunday to a busy, sunny Monday . . . making a huge batch of my magic chicken mineral broth, going to the gym to ride the stationary bike, walking the mile-long loop in my neighborhood, and working on organizing my photos. That job should have been done this winter, but somehow I made very little progress. I was super charged today and made an amazing amount of progress. Two more days like today, and I’ll be able to mark that job off my To Do list. Hurray! I begin tomorrow with a trip to the chiropractor for a back tune-up—nothing wrong, just routine. Then I head to West Falmouth to walk with friend Jane Wooden. I pick Jonah and Ollie up from school tomorrow and then have all three boys until bedtime. So I won’t have time to continue my photo project. Any time I do have will be spent packing for my trip to Tennessee to visit with my sister. I head to the bus station early Thursday morning for the trip to Boston and then fly out of Logan at 10 am. The weather there looks significantly warmer than here, but the forecast for my first few days there are for rain. I guess you just can’t escape the rain this spring.
by Judy Handley | May 5, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 125: Sunday Dinner at Oma’s
Date: Sunday, May 5, 2019
Weather: Rain All Day; High 50, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a dreary, rainy Cinco de Mayo here on Cape Cod. It feels like it has been dreary and rainy forever, but it does look like we might get a little sunshine in the next couple of days. That will be most welcomed. I invited Heather and gang over for dinner, so that was the highlight of my day. I also talked to Justin, Coco, and Ziggy via Skype. Justin and Jo found a Cinco de Mayo air flight sale on Virgin Airlines that will make their trip to England affordable, so Justin called to check out dates that work best for them to make a stop here before heading on to England. If things worked out with booking the flights, they will be here the middle week of July. Hurray! Since I didn’t get to go visit this winter due to the knee surgery, I’m very anxious to see them.
by Judy Handley | May 4, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 124: It Takes a Village
Date: Saturday, May 4, 2019
Weather: Rain Overnight, Overcast Day with Some Rain; High 56, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
One day this week when I was talking to Jed about weekend plans, it became apparent to me that he and Heather could use some help today. Today he had to go with Sam to Martha’s Vineyard for a soccer game. That meant they had to leave home by 8:30 am and wouldn’t get home until 3:30 pm. Heather has worked for two years to get a courtyard for outdoor learning up and running at the elementary school and this morning was a major worktime for the ‘village’ landscaper and parent volunteers, so she needed to be there. And then she had to be in Boston by 2:30 pm to be the emcee for the awards ceremony for the State Science Fair. So, I suggested to Jed, and then yesterday to Heather, that I come over at 8:30 this morning and take care of Jonah and Ollie for the day. 
It takes a village . . . to develop a wonderful outdoor learning space at a school and to take care of grandkids while parents are off doing wonderful things like encouraging young people to become scientists by enthusiastically emceeing the State Science Fair awards ceremony.
Jonah, Ollie, neighbor Joey (whose grandmother was also kidsitting today), and I watched a soccer game this morning and then I took them to the elementary school to play football and to get a glimpse of the work Heather and her ‘village’ were doing on the courtyard. The boys found a great patch of grass for throwing the football back and forth and a sandy patch for drawing out their plans.
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And Heather was overseeing the landscaping in the courtyard around the pergola they installed a year or so ago. There were parents, kids, and AmeriCorps volunteers at work.
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We all came home for lunch. Heather did a quick change and headed to Boston and then the mother of one of Ollie’s friends, another member of the ‘village’, picked him up to take him to a birthday party. Jonah and I stayed home and folded laundry and played Clue. Before we knew it, Jed was home with Sam. Then it was time for Jonah to go to a soccer scrimmage. Jed had a grant due yesterday and was up until almost 5 am on Friday morning. By the time he got home this afternoon from a ferry trip to Martha’s Vineyard for Sam’s soccer game, he looked absolutely wiped out. So, I volunteered to take Jonah to his scrimmage and stay to bring him home. Hopefully Jed made it until Heather returned from Boston tonight. It has been an unbelievably busy week for both of them. I don’t see anything on the calendar until 3 pm tomorrow, so hopefully they can have a slow Sunday morning to regroup energy. I plan to also have a slow Sunday morning—not because I need it, but because I like it. I honestly feel energized just by being part of the village that makes all this crazy activity possible.
by Judy Handley | May 3, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 123: Connections
Date: Friday, May 3, 2019
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 53, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
According to Wikipedia, “Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six, or fewer, social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of ‘a friend of a friend’ statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.” I wasn’t thinking about this last night as I watched The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC when she was interviewing yet another democrat declaring his run for President, Senator Michael Bennet from Colorado. I had seen him before in a bit of a rant on the Senate floor, but had paid no attention to who he was. As Rachel was interviewing him, he mentioned that his parents had taught him the importance of public service. Rachel then started reading his father’s resume of public service jobs, and I exclaimed (to myself) that this guy’s dad was Doug Bennet. I knew Doug Bennet, and his second wife, Midge Ramsey, when they both worked at National Public Radio (NPR) in the 1980’s. Doug was the president of NPR when Mark was being sought after to become the next manager of the only public radio station in New Hampshire at that time, WEVO. He had been contacted by a head hunter in July of 1989 and I suggested Mark ignore this as I was not moving to New Hampshire. We had a great life on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and I had no intention of moving to the cold north country. But the head hunter persisted and Mark was very interested in the challenge of the job as the hope was to expand WEVO into a statewide public radio network. January came and the pressure increased, but I still said no. In February, I went with Mark to the 20th anniversary celebration of NPR at Union Station in Washington, DC. It was Doug and his wife Mitzi that cornered me at that celebration and made a very convincing case for why I should support Mark in his desire to take this job. Doug’s pitch was that it was what was right for public radio, as well as what was right for Mark. Mark thought of Doug as a good friend, and on that evening in Union Station, I realized that it was not just Mark that wanted that job in New Hampshire. He was being encouraged by the powers that be. A month later, I caved, and finally gave into the move to New Hampshire. It was not nearly as painful as I had envisioned and we happily spent the next fifteen years there. But it was a bit of shock last night to realize that the son of a friend is running for President. Made me feel a tad old. Doug and Mark are no longer with us, but I still feel their connection and now the connection of Doug’s son. And I realize that the idea of six degrees of separation is real.
Realizing the connection last night, led me to reflect on my connection to so many other wonderful friends. My good friends Linda and Mike Stuart who are biking around the world are currently in Australia. They are now in Queensland and when I read their blog last night, I realized they are approaching the towns that Mark and I have visited, first when Heather was in college there, and later when we sailed up the coast of Australia. I am now particularly interested in reading their nightly blog to compare our impressions of that part of the world. And then this morning, Jane Woodin and I went for a walk, and we talked about her upcoming trip to Alaska. She and Bruce are going on a cruise, not driving there as Mark and I did, but they will be visiting many of the same places. I am so anxious to hear their report of that trip and to compare notes when they return. Connections, connections.
by Judy Handley | May 2, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 122: Hard Decisions
Date: Thursday, May 2, 2019
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 57, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Every spring since I lost Mark, I have struggled with the hard decision of where I am going to live. I enjoyed renting the apartment on the harbor, but it was more expensive than I could really afford. Plus, I love to garden and I couldn’t do that there. In the spring of 2017, I looked for homes to buy and other places to rent. I came up with nothing of interest. The same thing happened last spring, and then the possibility of renting this cottage came up as a result of a conversation with friends. I love it here and this spring I approached the owner to see if she would be willing to sell it to me. She will, but there is still the question of whether I can I really afford it? As most of you know, owning a home comes with lots of expenses. At the same time, Heather and Jed have been on the lookout for a home with enough bedrooms for all of them and a small in-law apartment for me. Last week we looked at one that was very promising. The price is right, the location is right, the house is big enough, but the yard is small and the orientation to the sun is not perfect for gardening. So, we decided to hire an architect to come look at their current home to see if it can be renovated at a reasonable cost to accommodate all of us. We met with the architect this afternoon, and yes, it can be renovated, but the cost is more than we had hoped. We are all still wrestling with this. Thankfully, there is no real emergency as we will all survive just fine for another year as is. Hard decisions like this take time, and time is something Heather and Jed have very little of right now. We’ll continue the conversation this weekend and see where we land.
by Judy Handley | May 1, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 121: April Showers Do Bring May Flowers
Date: Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Weather: Overcast; High 56, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was another dreary day, but when I went over to Heather and Jed’s, I was greeted by a ray of sunshine. The ‘sunny’ tulips in their front yard are proof that April showers DO bring May flowers. The shades of red, orange, and yellow in the variegated tulips are just beautiful. I went there to put a laundry load I did for myself yesterday in the dryer. Then I traveled on into town for a one-on-one computer tutoring session. I went to the gym for the first time since my surgery and rode the stationary bike, went to the grocery store, and then returned home to listen to a couple of episodes from the Food Revolution Summit. What we eat is so very important to our health, but so is exercise. So, after listening the two interviews, I took walk through the neighborhood. The temperature was in the low 50’s, but with the wind and no sun, it felt downright cold. I wore my winter coat and before the end of the walk I put on my winter mittens. And this was the first day of May. This evening I volunteered to go pick Jonah up from his soccer practice which didn’t end until 7:30 pm. He was in shorts and wasn’t at all cold. When he saw me in my winter coat he said, “Oma, you are weird.” Maybe so, but I was warm!
