by Judy Handley | Sep 18, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 261–Puerto Rico, Soccer, NYC, Forge in the Driveway
Date: Sunday, September 18, 2022
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day; High 76, Low 62 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA
I spent my entire morning nailing down flights to Puerto Rico and home in November. The flight to Puerto Rico I wanted was no longer available and all the flight costs have increased since I started looking into this earlier in the week. I basically had to start from scratch and be creative. I booked two one-way flights to get as close to what I wanted as possible. Just as I sent the email to Justin and Jo, the phone rang. It was Justin, but it was not about the email I had just sent. It was his attempt to convince me that I didn’t need to worry about them as Hurricane Fiona was descending upon the island. They lost electricity momentarily while we were talking, and our call abruptly ended. Justin did call back. He wanted me know that they might not be able to contact me for a few days, but that he will call as soon as he can. After we hung up, I found out Fiona had strengthened to a Category 2 hurricane, but it is the rain, not the wind, that looks like it will be the biggest problem. Hope with me that all will be okay. I know Justin said not to worry, but that is just not possible.
After getting off the phone with Justin, it was time to take Shadow out for a little exercise before leaving for the afternoon. We played ball in the driveway, then I drove into town to pick up the Goldpebbles. When I arrived, they had their new forge up and running in the driveway.
It is run on propane and works quite well. But it was time for us to head to drive the hour to the Monomoy High soccer fields for Jonah’s game. Jed promised they could continue when we got home, so off we went. We dropped off Jonah for pregame warm up and Sam, Ollie, and I walked across the street to the Harwich Harvest Festival. Right inside the gate, supporters of the Long Pond Rowing Club were selling shirts and had an erg on display. Sam couldn’t keep himself from getting on the erg and doing a bit of a workout. We walked around to see the arts and crafts on display and all three of us enjoyed the woodworking items the most. Then, it was off the to game which Jonah’s team won 3-1.
We stopped in Hyannis to get hamburgers at Five Guys for dinner and then headed back to 43 Grasmere where the forging continued.
And when I drove into my driveway, I got a text from Heather saying she was at Wicked on Broadway. Lucky one! The Climate Week activities start tomorrow, so she was enjoying a bit of New York City tonight. Thankfully she is still testing negative for Covid.
by Judy Handley | Sep 17, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 260: Newport Boat Show
Date: Saturday, September 17, 2022
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day; High 68, Low 61 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA
It was a beautiful day for the Newport Boat Show. Heather and family, plus myself, tested for Covid this morning. Thankfully we are all still negative. Jed is feeling so much better, but he is still testing positive. He went to the boat show, but he drove separately and stayed masked the whole time. We all had a good time. Heather and Jed were disappointed that that there were not as many vendors there with things they were interested in, but they learned about a number of new products that can help them with some of their boat issues. The boys enjoyed visiting the various booths and touring some of the many boats on display.
We also really enjoyed our ride into Newport and took the scenic route through Newport on the way home.
The coast is just beautiful. The boys have been to Newport to boat shows in the past, but they were so young that they really didn’t remember much about the town. They enjoyed driving past the beautiful mansions on Ocean Drive. We all decided we would return when we can spend a whole day just exploring Newport.
Heather leaves for New York City tomorrow for Climate Week. She will return on Friday. In the meantime, I will be doing what I can to help Jed keep the Goldpebbles on the move. And I am thinking of Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco as Tropical Storm Fiona nears Puerto Rico. Here’s hoping she stays a tropical storm and not a hurricane.
by Judy Handley | Sep 16, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 259: Busy Day
Date: Friday, September 16, 2022
Weather: Sunny; High 71, Low 49 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA
This was a busy, and at times, a very frustrating day. My first stop today was at the UPS Store to send a FAX to my sister’s new physician. They tried and tried to send it, but the line was constantly busy. I called for the second time to make sure I had the right number. I did, but receptionist said it is always busy. Great. The young man helping me said he would keep trying and I could check back at the end of the day. (I did and it did finally send.) So, on we (me and my Shadow) went. I have needed to go to Costco for weeks, so I decided to do that today. I stopped in Buzzards Bay at a laundromat that I knew was on the way, filled two washers, and asked the woman that works there if she could put my laundry in the dryer for me while I ran errands. Sure, for a price. So, I paid and said I would pick up the laundry on my way home. Then on to Costco, back to the laundromat to fold clothes, and then back home. I had invited Karen Baranowski over for happy hour at 4:30, or so I thought. When I got home at 4:10, she was waiting in the driveway. Oops! I checked my text and saw I had invited her over at 4 pm. Despite my tardiness, we had a wonderful two hours sitting down by the dock eating shrimp cocktail, drinking wine, playing ball with Shadow, all while savoring one of the last beautiful days of summer 2022. Then tonight I have spent the entire evening struggling to make flight reservations to visit Justin and family for Thanksgiving. I won’t go into the gory details, but I still am not sure I have a confirmed flight. If not, I’ll have to continue that battle tomorrow night as tomorrow is the Newport Boat Show. Onward!
by Judy Handley | Sep 15, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 258: Lunch with Friends, Rowing, and Flosses
Date: Thursday, September 15, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Cooler; High 71, Low 49 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA
The women in my dining-in group try to meet for lunch to celebrate birthdays. Olivia had her 85th birthday in late July and each attempt to meet for her birthday lunch was cancelled due to changes in plans and illness. Jane’s 75+ birthday (she stopped counting at 75) birthday is in early October, but she will be gone on a cruise and Midge (a member of the group but not with a current birthday) leaves next week for a month in Paris. So, in desperation, we set today as a celebration for Olivia and Jane.
It was now or never, and we had a lovely lunch at the Chart Room in their outside tented area. It was a bit on the cool side today, but the sun was shining brightly, and we thoroughly enjoyed lunch and conversation. A great birthday celebration for Olivia and Jane.
I came home to do a couple of things and then it was time to take Shadow with me to pick up Sam and drive him to Harwich for rowing. While Sam was rowing, Shadow and I walked and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Sam rowed 5K on the erg on land and then went out with his foursome and rowed from one end of the lake to the other. When he got in the car to drive home, he actually looked a little pale. He was totally exhausted, so instead of doing his math homework on his computer, I told him to rest. He rowed 2K on the erg yesterday and that was tiring, but today was over the top. He’ll be fine, but we’ll do homework on the way to rowing in the future.
When we got back to Heather and Jed’s, Heather came outside to greet us with some good news. Jed no longer has a fever and is feeling much better. All of us are still testing negative, so we are hopeful no one else gets Covid this round. If Jed continues to improve, he can go to the boat show with us on Saturday. He will be masked, of course, but since it is mostly outside, it should be fine. And Heather sent me home with enough Tuscan Stew for my dinner and lunch tomorrow. That was much appreciated as I have had no time to cook this week. I have had beet, feta, and arugula salads for the past two nights, so the Tuscan Stew was a welcome change. Thank you, Heather.
Then later in the evening I got a message from Heather that was the highlight of my day. To appreciate this, you need some background information. When Heather was little, she called all flowers ‘flosses’. The whole family loved the word, so all of us started calling flowers ‘flosses’ and have continued that to this day. I can remember this year in June when the purple Irises in my gardens were in full bloom saying to Ollie and Jonah that the purple ‘flosses’ were so beautiful. So, tonight Heather was working the NYT mini-crossword with Jonah and Ollie. The crossword clue was “a flamboyant purple flower” to which Jonah tried to use the word ‘flos’. Heather had to correct Jonah and told him the word was Iris. Then Heather wrote to me, “Apparently, Jonah and Oliver both thought flosses were a real type of flower. I just disillusioned them. They’ve taken it fairly well, but there were some truly appalled looks!” I literally choked on my beer when I read that and replied, “Oh, but I am sure flosses are a real classification of flower, Flosses americanus. I have some in my gardens!” And then I had to break it to Heather that pumkmans (Justin’s name for pumpkins) are real, too.
by Judy Handley | Sep 14, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 257: Happy 45th Birthday to Justin
Date: Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 79, Low 63 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Happy birthday to Justin!
Today was his 45th birthday. Because he was my baby boy, it is almost impossible for me to think of him as middled aged. Besides, I think the terms middle aged and old aged should be banned. I’d rather just say that both of my children are in their fourth decade. Ziggy made Justin an amazing chocolate birthday cake
and tonight they went out for a sushi dinner.
And this morning, I made the decision to visit Justin and family in Puerto Rico the week leading up to Thanksgiving. In order to get the best price for my flights, I will fly home on Thanksgiving Day. But that is okay as the point of the visit is not to celebrate Thanksgiving. It is to just spend special time with Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco which I haven’t done in Puerto Rico since 2018. This April we had a whole family week in Puerto Rico, and it was wonderful to have the whole family together. But it is way past time for Oma to have special time with just Ziggy and Coco at Finca Maravilla.
In the early afternoon, I attended a Newcomers Field Trip Group organizational meeting. Christina Brodie leads that group and has asked me to assist her. She is amazingly organized, so she made planning field trips for the next year seem easy. As soon as that meeting was over, I rushed home to pick up Shadow and then drove back into town to pick up Sam and take him to rowing. Today it was Jed’s turn to do that, but this morning he tested positive for Covid. He has had symptoms since Monday morning, but we all thought it was just a reaction to the booster shot he got on Sunday evening. Now he is living in the bonus room above the garage, Heather is working at home so as not to expose her colleagues, and the boys are attending school wearing a mask. Hopefully none of the rest of us get it and Jed bounces back quickly. I was in the same room with Jed last night for a few minutes, so I was exposed. But for now, I am continuing normal activities wearing a KN95 mask and testing every morning.
I also want to wish Kevin and Mark’s brother Steve a happy birthday as they share this special day with Justin. And I can’t forget Mark’s sister Jeanie. Her birthday is tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Sep 13, 2022 | 2022 Life Logs |
2022 Life Logs, Day 256: Book Club, Rowing, and Life Stuff
Date: Monday, September 13, 2022
Weather: Another Rainy Day; High 74, Low 63 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA
My 11 am book club meeting lasted much longer than usual as we were choosing books for the next four months. We have some great books on the agenda for the next year, but we decided to alternate shorter versus longer books for the next four months. One member suggested a book named ‘My Sister the Serial Killer’—certainly, if the title is any indication of the substance of the book, not a book we would normally choose. But it is short and we were intrigued by the title. So that is October’s book. A book that I have already read, ‘A Long of the Sea’, a wonderful book by Isabel Allende won the honors for November. Then another shorter book, ‘Love and Saffron’ made the list for December. In January our book will be ‘Lessons in Chemistry’. It was the number one suggestion made by three of the seven of us in attendance today. I read it recently and highly recommend it. My reading agenda is set for the next few months.
By the time I got home, had lunch, and did a little ‘life stuff’, it was time to head to Heather and Jed’s to pick up Sam and take him to Harwich to row. The pouring rain and thunderstorms had ended, so rowing was on for this evening. I take Shadow with me, and we spend part of the two hours that Sam is rowing, walking, and playing ball. I got home after 8 pm and picked up where I left off doing a little ‘life stuff’. In this case, ‘life stuff’ references dealing with my sister’s affairs. Right now, I am spending an hour or two every day dealing with various issues. Tonight, it was talking to William, the owner of Home Helpers in Mooresville, North Carolina, to discuss how things went for my sister during her first week of having a companion four hours every day. It was a week in review via phone. We had a few hiccups during the first week, but overall, things are going along just fine. Hopefully, if we do things right, at some point in the near future, I will not have to spend so much time each day dealing with this.
Tomorrow looks like more of the same. I have to deal with my sister’s physicians tomorrow, help lead a Newcomers Field Trip Group annual planning meeting, and possibly be on duty to take Sam to Harwich for rowing again. Tomorrow night should be Jed’s night, but he is out of commission right now. He had some sniffles on Sunday but went ahead and had his Covid booster on Sunday evening. He woke up on Monday with a fever and severe body aches and pains that have continued. He tests negative for Covid, so it is either a respiratory infection or a strong response to the booster. Everyone else in the family had the booster on Sunday evening and thankfully they are all fine. Hopefully he will be better tomorrow.
It is run on propane and works quite well. But it was time for us to head to drive the hour to the Monomoy High soccer fields for Jonah’s game. Jed promised they could continue when we got home, so off we went. We dropped off Jonah for pregame warm up and Sam, Ollie, and I walked across the street to the Harwich Harvest Festival. Right inside the gate, supporters of the Long Pond Rowing Club were selling shirts and had an erg on display. Sam couldn’t keep himself from getting on the erg and doing a bit of a workout. We walked around to see the arts and crafts on display and all three of us enjoyed the woodworking items the most. Then, it was off the to game which Jonah’s team won 3-1.
And when I drove into my driveway, I got a text from Heather saying she was at Wicked on Broadway. Lucky one! The Climate Week activities start tomorrow, so she was enjoying a bit of New York City tonight. Thankfully she is still testing negative for Covid. 
