by Judy Handley | Nov 25, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 329: Getting Ready for Winter
Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Weather: Overcast with Increasing Wind in the PM; High Temp 51, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
It was warm enough today to do a job that I should have done weeks ago. I have lots of outside hoses that needed to be coiled up and stored for the winter, so that was done today. It is going to be even a little warmer tomorrow, but it is supposed to rain all day. Then the temperature drops to the 30’s and 40’s. Hoses don’t coil very easily or at all when it is that cold, so I am happy I got that done today. My outside picnic table sits on an outdoor rug. Last year the Woodin’s gave me a second rug that has seen better days, so I put it out in the winter and store the good one in the basement. So, I did that today as well. I did not get to do garden clean up, but if there are breaks in the rain tomorrow, I can work on that.
Heather called just before noon asking if I would like to go to the holiday Farmer’s Market. I was head out the door to deliver checks to the library when she called, so I said I’d pick her up after my side trip to the library. This last outdoor market of the season was a little sparse, but I came home with Brussels sprouts, turnips with beautiful greens, and some kale. Heather was searching for locally grown cranberries, but no one had those. I will continue that search tomorrow as we need them for our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday when the Goldstones return from Vermont.
Later in the afternoon I was headed out to pick Ollie up after school and take him to a saxophone lesson at the high school when my neighbor Andy, hailed me down. Andy and I are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but we ignore that. He wanted to know if I had plans for Thanksgiving dinner. I replied that I did not since I am having Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday when Heather and family get home from skiing/snowboarding in Vermont. He is cooking dinner his family and I said I would be delighted to join them. I was looking forward to a quiet day at home and almost said no. Then I thought, what a Grinch I am, saying no to a neighborly invitation. So that’s what I am doing for Thanksgiving.
I also worked on developing a spreadsheet of all of the ideas and people who volunteered to help or have an interest in various areas of Indivisible Falmouth. We collected the information last night and I volunteered to put it into a spreadsheet. It will be a good rainy day activity tomorrow. Lots of interest, lots of people willing to help, and wonderful ideas! I am so grateful to live in a town with so many involved people.
by Judy Handley | Nov 24, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 328: Indivisible Falmouth General Meeting
Date: Monday, November 24, 2025
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 50, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Today the only thing on my calendar was an Indivisible Falmouth General Meeting at 6:30 this evening. I spent part of my day getting ready for that and tried to tackle the mounting piles of papers on and around my desk. To be continued on that job.
The Indivisible meeting tonight was a working meeting. We had a ‘meet and share’ activity to get people talking to one another and to become familiar with 8 categories or methods of nonviolent action. People were a little confused by the directions, but once they started talking to one another, I think they could have spent the entire meeting just doing that. But we had another activity planned to share with people the many things that Indivisible Falmouth could be doing if we had more people willing to do the work. So we spent the rest of the evening outlining the 8 major areas and encouraging people to let us know if they are interested or if they are willing to help. We collected that data and it will help guide our future actions.
by Judy Handley | Nov 23, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 327: Second Viewing of the Katharine Lee Bates Film and Wine Group
Date: Sunday, November 23, 2025
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 44, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I explained in an earlier log that I volunteered to be the tech support for a viewing of the Katharine Lee Bates film at the Congregational Church this morning. It took longer than I anticipated, basically from 9:30 am to 1 pm, but I truly enjoyed watching it a second time. Katharine Lee Bates was a precocious child growing up in Falmouth in the mid-1800’s and she spent her life always on the cutting edge and dedicated to doing good in the world. When her poem, America the Beautiful, became so popular and many people wanted to buy the rights, she simply gave it away. It was her gift to her country, and it has endured. And the cake they served at the reception afterwards was beautiful … from Sea to Shining Sea
Then at 5 pm, I headed to a Wine Group gathering. The wine bottle I was taking was supposed to be decorated for the holidays, so I chose to take a turkey. The project looked easy, but was much more time consuming that I anticipated. I was using super glue, but if I had thought of using a glue gun, it would have been so much faster. Live and learn.
by Judy Handley | Nov 22, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 326: New Neighbor
Date: Saturday, November 22, 2025
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High Temp 47, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Today was the Rally on the Green for Democracy, as are all Saturdays. The problem with Saturday was the rain. The 30 hearty souls who came brought umbrellas and we protested as usual. The Freedom Singers, who come every week and sing patriotic songs for about 30 minutes each week, came and someone held an umbrella over the guitarist, keeping his guitar dry.
When I got home, my new neighbor had moved into the studio apartment attached to the back of the house I rent. The studio apartment has always been there, but it has not been rented because it was being used as an office by the Lynda, who owns this property. The new neighbor is a 22 year-old young man named Billy who has a new job at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole. His specialty is salamanders, specifically the axolotl, which are used to study regeneration. They are one of those animals that are so ugly that they are cute. I look forward to learning more about them.
by Judy Handley | Nov 22, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 325: Whiplash
Date: Friday, November 21, 2025
Weather: Overcast; High Temp 49, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
The chaos of the Trump regime is enough to make a sane person crazy, but what happened today was enough to cause a whiplash. Marjorie Taylor Green, MAGA firebrand, is resigning her position in the House as of the first of January. To do what? We don’t know. But the fact that she has totally ended her support of Trump is enough to cause whiplash. Then there was the meeting of Zohran Mamdani and Trump today when Trump appeared to totally embrace him and his ideas. When just a few days ago Trump was vilifying him. Those two things happened in one day. And then there is the fact that this week the Republicans in the House and the Senate voted virtually unanimously to release the Epstein files after spending months doing everything possible to block that release. Again, whiplash. But it’s all good. Each whiplash gives us a little crack, a little possibility of stopping the absolute madness we have been experiencing. It is really hard to turn a ship around that has been going at top speed in one direction for a period of time, but between the election (Was that just last week?) and this week’s whiplash experiences, at least the ship has been slowed down a bit.
I made some progress today in getting caught up on so many things. I am not there yet, but things did get done. I will continue on tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Nov 21, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 324: Another Meeting, Meeting, Meeting Day
Date: Thursday, November 20, 2025
Weather: Partly Sunny; High Temp 47, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
This morning it was a special meeting of the Board of Library Trustees. This afternoon it was the Exploring Public Policy group. And tonight it was the Falmouth Democratic Committee and the weekly Indivisible What’s the Plan? zoom meeting. Since I had to miss that this afternoon, I just finished watching the recording. So meetings over at 9:54 pm. I had a little time in between meetings during the day, but not enough time to really get anything done. But there really is nothing on my calendar for tomorrow, so hopefully it will finally be the day that I get caught up on things. But don’t hold your breath!
The Exploring Public Policy meeting today was very interesting. About five months ago, Falmouth hired their first ever Coastal Resilience Specialist, Josh Wrigley. He came to today’s meeting today to give us a quick course on Coastal Resilience. Only three other Cape and Islands municipalities have such a specialist—Provincetown, Chatham, and the island of Nantucket. What do we do, or not do, to fight the battle of the beaches, the homes along the shore, and the roads that are already regularly covered in sea water? Very interesting discussion.
