by Judy Handley | Feb 3, 2021 | 2021 Life Logs |
2021 Life Logs, Day 34: Battle of Life Mantras
Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Weather: Overcast; High 34, Low 28 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I love my dear friend Lynn Kirwin who is currently living in New Zealand. I love her for many reasons, but one of them is her life mantra, “You make plans, then life happens.” When we were sailing with Ed and Lynn in the Indian Ocean, she often reminded me that all of my planning might not work out. I knew that, but the mantra that guides my life comes from educator Harry Wong. “If you don’t have a plan, you’re planning to fail.” What I have learned is that these two mantras are not in opposition. It is fine to plan. In fact, if you don’t, you have nothing to guide you. But you do have to realize that things might not always go as planned and you need to be flexible about that. You also need to make plans that are within the realm of possibility. Unfortunately, hard as I try, I tend to be over zealous and make plans that are just not realistic. That brings me to today. I had planned to write ALL day, but that didn’t happen. First, I overslept. Shadow is on a new schedule where he gets up at 5:30 am. We go out in the dark for that first morning potty break and by the time I get back in bed, it takes a while to get back to sleep. And then I ignore the alarm. By the time I got up this morning, did my exercises, took a shower, got dressed, and took Shadow for his Morning Mile walk, it was almost noon with no writing done. So much for ALL day. In the afternoon I had to do some research on how to get help my 87 year-old sister gain some weight. She weighs only 75 pounds now. I actually found some snacks that are allowed in her current diet to combat IBS that are available on Amazon. So, I was able to order those for her. Then I got part of Chapter Four of The Voyage of Windbird written, but probably have two more days of work to complete that chapter. We’ll see if that is a ‘doable’ plan. And I didn’t get to try out the dictation mode in Word. Much of Chapter Four comes directly from the daily logs I wrote at the time. Therefore, much of the writing is really editing out the parts of the logs that are not needed to tell the story. I will continue on tomorrow and at some point I’ll get to check out the dictation mode.
This evening I joined a call about the coronavirus vaccine roll-out on Cape Cod. It was organized by local politicians and 13,000 joined the call. So far, sign up for getting a vaccine here has to be online, but so many older people don’t have computer access or can’t figure out the sign up procedures even if they do. I loved the technology that allowed anyone on the phone conversation tonight to just press 1 on their phone and their number was entered into a data base of those who have no online access. About 600 people on the call tonight were identified. Another 100 were identified that will need transportation to a vaccination site. I found that impressive. Personally, I found Sean O’Brien, our Barnstable County Department of Health and the Environment Director, the most helpful. He very succinctly outlined how the roll-out has gone so far and how he perceives it will go forward from this point. If I understood him correctly, anyone can log onto the county Department of Health website and sign-up to get a notification when it is time for your designated age group to make an appointment. I’ll try that tomorrow. But even if everything goes perfectly, those of us on the Cape that are in the 65 to 74 year-old age group won’t be able to start making appointments until sometime in March. My sister that ives in Tennessee is in the 85 and over age group. She got her first vaccine today and has a follow-up appointment on March 3rd for the second vaccine. She had to go to a location about 30 minutes from where she lives and wait in a car line for two hours. She was surprised at just how many cars went through during those two hours. She said the people giving the vaccines were actually running most of the time to keep things moving along. People are working hard on this roll out, and slowly, but surely, everyone who wants a vaccine will get one. Let’s just hope that is at least 80 percent of the population.
by Judy Handley | Feb 2, 2021 | 2021 Life Logs |
2021 Life Logs, Day 33: Ant-Man and Arctic Meltdown
Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2021
Weather: Overcast and Misty; High 35, Low 27 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The day started with Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow. So . . . six more weeks of winter are predicted. I think we would have at least six more weeks of winter anyway. But hats off to the ground hog for letting us know.
Now to Ant-Man and the Arctic Meltdown. These two things are, of course, not related. One is a video involving quantum space and the other is the title of a New Bedford Whaling Museum Zoom presentation I attended tonight. I’ll begin with Ant-Man. I picked Ollie and Jonah up just after noon due to a school Early Release Day. I invited them here for a video afternoon and we watched Ant-Man and the Wasp, a superhero film based on the Marvel Comics characters. I enjoyed it more than I anticipated and actually want to go back and watch the original Ant-Man. Jonah and Ollie promised they would return to watch it with me. By the time I took them home, made a second trip to take Ollie his Chromebook that he forgot, and returned home to take Shadow for a twilight walk, it was time to eat dinner and get ready for the 7 pm Zoom presentation. Susie Klein, a good sailing friend, emailed me this morning inviting me to join her and her husband Jim tonight for a New Bedford Science Café Zoom presentation on arctic meltdown. The New Bedford Science Café series is sponsored by the New Bedford Whaling Museum and tonight’s presentation was made by Jennifer Francis, a Senior Scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center where Heather works. And Jennifer Francis is a friend of Susie and her husband Jim. So, I accepted the invitation and very much enjoyed it. Jennifer Francis was on her sailboat in the Virgin Islands which made me very jealous, but it also caused a few technical problems. Thankfully, those got worked out quickly and the show went on. Her presentation brought together global warming, sea-level rise, tropical storm, and extreme weather events and how they are all connected to the rapidly warming (and melting) Arctic. I loved the way Jennifer Francis used real life examples showing the impact each of us makes on this global crisis. My favorite example was one that claims that just one person flying from the East Coast to Europe is responsible for the melting of a piece of Arctic ice the size of a dining room table. That doesn’t seem like much until you add up the number of people traveling around the world. Our choices make a huge difference.
I made no progress on my writing project today, but I got a call from friend Alan Kanegsberg tonight with a tip that might speed up the project significantly. He suggested that I might make use of the dictation part of Word. I tried it and it works beautifully. I just press a button, speak, and my words appear in the document. I will try this tomorrow morning as I launch into the writing of Chapter 4 of The Voyage of Windbird and report tomorrow night on how it works for me.
by Judy Handley | Feb 1, 2021 | 2021 Life Logs |
2021 Life Logs, Day 32: Writing Through the Stormy Weather
Date: Monday, February 1, 2021
Weather: Rain, Snow, and Winds NE 25-30; High 35, Low 32 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It is dark outside and I have never heard so many bangs and clangs as the wind is blowing whatever around the cottage. We got more snow this morning than I expected, but then it started raining and snowing at the same time, so the ground is just covered in slush. The wind tonight is wicked and I am not looking forward to my next trip outside with Shadow. It will be a quick one! We did walk about a half mile this morning, maybe a little more, but then I headed back home because we were getting so wet. I picked Ollie up at noon due to an early release due to the weather, and once I took him home, I spent the rest of the afternoon writing. I got Chapter Three of the Voyage of Windbird written and will start the editing process tomorrow morning. There is another school early release tomorrow, this a planned one, so I will hope to edit in the morning, and start Chapter 4 in the afternoon. Either that, or I will ‘steal’ Jonah and Ollie and we will come here and have a movie afternoon while the wind continues to blow and the rain or snow continues to fall.
I spent an hour and half this morning attending a Lifetime Learning class on Zoom offered by the Friends of Snow Library in Orleans. Orleans is located in the ‘elbow’ of Cape Cod on the Outer Cape. Today was their first class of the winter season and the topic was “The Supreme Court in the Era of Its Conservative Majority.” I signed up for the class just to see how things were structured. I am presenting a ‘class’ for them on the Voyage of Windbird in late March. I enjoyed the lecture this morning and found that the structure is no different from other presentations I have made. So, I can now relax and wait for March 26 to roll around.
by Judy Handley | Jan 31, 2021 | 2021 Life Logs |
2021 Life Logs, Day 31: Sam’s Birthday Party
Date: Sunday, January 31, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Warming Up a Bit; High 27, Low 23 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
One of the positive things that has come out of the coronavirus pandemic is that we have all gotten more creative about how to get together with friends outside . . . even in frigid weather. Sam’s birthday was on the 21st and we had a family gathering, but the party with friends was today. Jed got permission to use the Trotting Park soccer field as the location for a rocket shoot. Sam loves shooting off model rockets and three of his best friends joined him today. We were all dressed for the weather and all masked. Because of the danger, Jed has to be the one setting the rockets on the launch pads, but the boys got to push the launch button. The first rocket was launched and retrieved and then the second rocket that was rated to go much higher was launched. We heard it blast off but almost immediately all of us lost sight of it. We searched the sky and searched the ground, but it was just GONE. Jed had planned on using that rocket for multiple launches, so a third rocket had to be built on the spot. Eventually we lost that rocket as well and everyone was getting cold, so the boys headed off to walk home along the powerline trail. Heather and Jed drove home to start a fire in the fire pit in the back yard and I headed off to check on Shadow and then pick up pizzas for the boys. I dropped the pizzas off at 5 pm and they had been outside since 2:00. Even with the fire, they were getting cold, but the plan was for parents to pick them up at 6 pm. I headed home with a smile on my face. If you had told me a year ago we would be having a four hour long birthday party outside with temps in the 20’s, I would have thought you were crazy. It is amazing what we can do when we imagine differently.
I hear there is snow storm barreling up the Eastern Seaboard but we are mostly going to have rain. The deep freeze we have been in for the past few days is thawing and we are going to get rain for the next two days. There might be some snow flurries overnight tonight, but by noon tomorrow it looks like it is just going to be wet. Sounds like perfect weather to stay inside and write. At least that’s my plan.
by Judy Handley | Jan 30, 2021 | 2021 Life Logs |
2021 Life Logs, Day 30: Keeping Busy on a Cold Winter Day
Date: Saturday, January 30, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Still Very Cold; High 21, Low 8 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
By noon today it was 18 degrees F outside, but it felt like 6 degrees F with the wind chill. The good news is it was bright and sunny and there was only half the wind we had yesterday. So that is an improvement. I put Shadow’s sweater on him and we did our normal morning walk. The only problem was that my eyes kept watering, causing my cheeks to feel like they were freezing. Still, it was great to be outside in the sunshine. And I loved walking down by the dock and seeing the beauty of the ice.
I spent the rest of the day alternating working on my new puzzle with editing and writing. My writing project is going slowly, but I am so excited to be back at it again. My puzzle working is also going slowly, and today I got sidetracked. I described the puzzle in a previous log–food and flowers arranged beautifully around my favorite food, artichokes. Today I was working on the apricots. As I was working I thought, are they apricots or peaches? The puzzle box has no information on it other than a sticker noting that it is a Galison 500 Piece Puzzle named Artichoke Floral. I Googled that and found out the puzzle is from a photo by foody photographer Sarah Phillips. I Googled her name and found out that she is on a mission to save ugly food. About that time, my weekly Misfits delivery of ‘ugly’ fruits and vegetables arrived. I should have taken a picture of the contents of the box before storing the items away because the food looked beautiful when I opening the box. I didn’t think of that until just now as I am writing this log, so maybe next week I will remember and share the photo with you. Like Sarah Phillips, Misfits is on a mission to save imperfect organic produce by buying it and selling it at a reduced price rather than letting it end up as food waste. I am so happy to be the recipient of all that ‘ugly’ produce while working a puzzle by a woman dedicating her life to saving ‘ugly’ food.
by Judy Handley | Jan 29, 2021 | 2021 Life Logs |
2021 Life Logs, Day 29: COLD
Date: Friday, January 29, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Windy, and COLD; High 20, Low 11 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The high temperature for today was at midnight and it got progressively colder from there. It did get up to 16 degrees during the afternoon, but with the 18-20 mile per hour winds, it felt much colder. The high for tomorrow is forecast to be 21 degrees, and at least that will be in the afternoon. But the bottom line is that today was simply COLD. When Shadow and I walked this morning at 10 am, the temperature was 11 but with the wind chill it was -7. So we didn’t walk as far as usual. By Sunday, this cold snap should move on. But here is what I don’t get. I keep my thermostat set at 68 during the day and right now the thermostat registers that. But it definitely feels colder than usual. In fact, my nose and my hands are cold to the touch. Why is that? If anyone can explain that to me, please let me know.
I did spend my late morning and early afternoon working on my Voyage of Windbird writing project. When it was time to go get Ollie, I changed gears. I took Ollie home and put a laundry load in. I then came home and took Shadow for a second walk and then headed back to put my clothes in the dryer. I went to the grocery store while the clothes were drying and then went back to get my clothes and head home for dinner. Heather has been so busy the past couple of days that I haven’t seen her when I take Ollie home. But she did emerge from her bedroom/office just before I left. She was all dressed up, so I asked where she was going. She was making a Zoom presentation for the Peabody Essex Museum at 7 pm. That was only 45 minutes away, but I asked if I could still sign up. She hadn’t told anyone about the presentation because she wasn’t sure she was pleased with it. But I hurried home, signed up, and tuned in at 7 pm. The presentation was entitled The Tale of Two Crises—Climate Change and the Coronavirus Pandemic. She addressed the lessons learned from Covid-19 crisis that also apply to the climate crisis. I jotted down some quick notes, so hopefully my outline of her presentation is accurate. According to my notes, the lessons learned from the two crises are:
• Words Matter
• Flattening the Curve is Key
• Listen to the Science–We can’t embrace something we don’t understand.
• Federal Leadership is Critical, but . . .
• Individual Action is Necessary and Worthwhile.
• Data are Personal
• Our Current Systems Perpetuate Injustices
• Crises Offer Opportunities for Positive Change
• It’s Never Too Late . . . “The next best time is NOW.”
I am so glad I decided to do a laundry today and found about the presentation. I had never really thought about the lessons learned from these two major crises we are facing. It was a great presentation, very thought provoking.
