by Judy Handley | Sep 6, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 249: Happy Anniversary to Heather and Jed
Date: Sunday, September 6, 2020
Weather: Sunny; High 78, Low 62 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Today was a beautiful day, much like the day that Heather and Jed got married 17 years ago on Saturday, September 6, 2003. The wedding destination was in Boothbay, Maine, at Spruce Point Resort. Jed’s family has a summer home in Boothbay and the oceanside Spruce Point Resort was the perfect place for their wedding. They are in Boothbay today, so I hope they got to drive out to Spruce Point in honor of their wedding day. Happy 17th to Heather and Jed.
I completed canning the tomatoes today and spent time talking to Justin and family in Puerto Rico and to Lynne Kirwin in New Zealand. Heather and family return tomorrow and I am anxious to see them. And let this gorgeous weather continue forever. It has truly been absolutely beautiful.
by Judy Handley | Sep 5, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 248: Back to Tomatoes
Date: Saturday, September 5, 2020
Weather: Sunny; High 77, Low 59 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
This log didn’t get posted yesterday because my computer took hours to update. I went to write my log at 9 pm, but my computer said it was updating. I know they have to do this from time to time, but it usually happens overnight. I waited patiently until 10 pm, then 11 pm, and finally midnight. It was still updating, so I gave up. It wasn’t a very exciting day anyway. It was a beautiful day, but I spent most of it processing the last half of the 30 pounds of tomatoes I got earlier in the week. I did take an hour out of the afternoon to just sit in the sun. Tomorrow I will can the tomatoes and be done with marinara sauce for this year!
by Judy Handley | Sep 4, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 247: Judy Handley Squared
Date: Friday, September 4, 2020
Weather: Sunny and Hot; High 83, Low 59 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Can you believe there are really two of us? Today I met with another Judy Handley. Here is what she posted on Facebook: “Today’s happy meeting between two strangers, now friends. The reason? .. we are both named Judy Handley, and we both live in Falmouth. My namesake is way more interesting than I am, but we got along great, and we look forward to figuring out ways of getting to know each other with COVID restrictions. Maybe I can think of something as exciting about my life as her … among other things…sailing around the world for six years on a 42 foot sailboat.”
And here is what I added: “Now I must add that the other Judy Handley has done things in her life that I find fascinating. For one, she taught middle school for her entire career. That makes her a saint! And after retiring, she trained and became a guide at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The stories of the people she has met through that connection are so interesting. I must admit that it is a strange feeling to meet someone with your same name. It kind of felt like we were long lost friends. We will definitely continue to meet and get to know one another.”
It did feel surreal to meet another person with the same name, but we hit it off right away.
Judy and her partner Craig met me on Main Street. Craig went to the French bakery to get coffee for all of us and we sat at a picnic table on the library lawn and talked for two hours. Judy and I are both retired teachers and both of us lost our husbands to colon cancer. The other Judy has lived in the same part of Massachusetts all of her life while I have bounced all over the country. She is a Handley by birth. I am a Handley through marriage. She is tall; I am short. She’s an Aires’ I’m a Pisces. So, we have some similarities and some differences in the paths our lives have taken. But I really felt like I was meeting a kindred soul and I look forward to opportunities to get to know each other better.
This evening I went to the Baranowskis for dinner. We had barbecued ribs, coleslaw, and calico beans. The food was fabulous, but as always the company was even more awesome. Bob and Jan Paninski, also Newscomers, were also there and were celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary. Great evening. And congratulations to Bob and Jan.
by Judy Handley | Sep 3, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 246: A Very Special Group of Friends
Date: Thursday, September 3, 2020
Weather: Overcast Misty Rain, Clearing Late PM; High 75, Low 69 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
This afternoon at 4 pm, my Newcomers Dining-in Group came here for our September get-together. Karen and Peter Baranowski joined with me in hosting this evening’s affair on the deck of my landlord next door, Shirley Wiedemann, who is also Karen’s aunt. Shirley is currently staying at her sister Doris’ home in Scituate, but she said we could use her deck for our gathering. Shirley’s deck is elevated and overlooks the Eel River. The view is beautiful and I was hoping that by being elevated above ground level we would have fewer insects. But that theory didn’t bear out. No-see-ums evidently don’t care about elevation. At least we didn’t have mosquitoes. So that was a good thing. The misty rain that we had all day was supposed to stop by 2 pm, but it did persist through the first hour of our gathering. Then it cleared. So that was another good thing. I love getting together with this group. The conversations are always lively and over the past three years, we have all become very good friends. Due to Covid, we have met outside this summer, all of us bringing our own food and keeping appropriate social distancing. In anticipation of cooler weather, we will meet in the Baranowski’s two-car garage in October with the doors open. If weather allows, we can pull out chairs out into the driveway. We are going to have to get very creative to think how we might be able to continue to meet in person during the winter. If our creativity fails us, we’ll go back to Zoom meetings. But by whatever means, we will continue our monthly gatherings.
by Judy Handley | Sep 2, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 245: Tomato Time . . . Again
Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High 72, Low 70 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Once again, as I got up this morning I heard the ding on my phone telling me I had just received an email. It was from Carrie at Peach Tree Farm telling me she had 60 or 70 pounds of organic sauce tomatoes. Did I want them? Just yesterday, I delivered the 38 pints of marinara sauce that I canned last week to Heather and Jed’s and I really thought I never wanted to see a tomato again. But I couldn’t resist Carrie’s offer. I did have the good sense, however, to tell her I only half of what she had. Processing 30 pounds is a LOT EASIER than 90! I told Carrie I would pick up the tomatoes at 2 pm. In the meantime, I had a dentist appointment. a chiropractor appointment, and an appointment with Shadow to take a walk. The dentist appointment was to check out a tooth. In June, I was eating blackberries when something felt funny in my mouth. For weeks, I kept having this weird feeling and it felt like I had lost a chunk of one of my lower molars. But I convinced myself that I was imagining this. Who chips a tooth while eating berries? But sometime in August, I realized that I needed to have this checked out. Sure enough, the molar was chipped. I assumed I would have to make an appointment to return to have it fixed. But, no. The dentist was going to do it in the here and now. I had to have a crown put on a tooth sometime in the 1990’s. Other than that, I have not had dental work done since I was pregnant with Heather. That was one filling. And before that, it was when I was a kid. I hate dentists. It scares me to death to think about having a tooth pulled or drilled. When I was in second grade, I kicked a dentist in the groin as he approached me to pull a baby tooth. That just didn’t happen. I had to go to another dentist and be put to sleep to remove that tooth. So, today I really had to conjure up all my strength to tell the dentist to proceed. It wasn’t terrible, but I stilI really, really don’t like the sound of a drill in my mouth.
There is a full moon out there somewhere tonight, but it is so totally overcast here that it can’t be seen. Maybe I’ll get a glimpse tomorrow night as the clouds are supposed to start clearing during the afternoon. I sure hope so as the Baranowskis and I are hosting Dining-in Group tomorrow evening–outside, properly distanced, and with masks when needed. Looking forward to that.
by Judy Handley | Sep 1, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 244: Oh, What a Beautiful Morning
Date: Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Weather: Another Mostly Sunny Day; High 73, Low 63 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Oh, what a beautiful mornin’.
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I got a beautiful feelin’
Ev’rything’s goin’ my way.
?
This first morning of September, after a wonderful sail in Buzzards Bay aboard Bruce and Jane Woodin’s sailboat, I found myself humming this song from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma. Bruce, Jane, Sam Patterson and I weren’t riding horseback in the Midwest this morning, but we were gliding smoothly through the water aboard L’Escargot. The wind was perfect and we quickly sailed all the way up to the Cape Cod Canal and back to West Falmouth Harbor. I sailed with Bruce and Jane on their previous sailboat, Pooh, but today was my first time aboard L’Escargot. Sam had a 12:30 pm appointment, so we got back to West Falmouth Harbor after that perfect three-hour sail. And then I got an invitation to join Bruce and Jane for lunch at their house. Thank you to Bruce, Jane, and Sam. “Oh, what a beautiful day.”
Later in the afternoon while I was at Heather and Jed’s feeding the guinea pigs, I went into the garage looking for a ladder that I had used a few weeks ago to set up an irrigation system on the deck. I didn’t find the ladder, but I found an envelope on the garage floor. H & J’s mail is delivered via a slot in the garage door and the mail drops into a big box. Obviously, this envelope just didn’t make it into the box. Then I noticed it was addressed to “Heather or Judy M. Handley.” Hmmm. I opened the envelope and found a card inside saying, “Dear Heather—I’m sure this is the strangest piece of mail you have received in a while, but I am in the process of trying to track down your mother—Judy Handley. My reason for this quest is that I have recently purchased a condo in Falmouth and my name is . . . Judy Handley. The other remarkable coincidence is that my mother’s middle name was Martin – same as the two of you.” All I could think was, “Oh, no. There are two of me!” The other Judy Handley included her phone number in the card, so I called tonight to accept her invitation to meet “masked and distanced for a cup of coffee” on Friday morning. Can’t wait to meet her.
