by Judy Handley | Jul 20, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 201: Skatepark, Legos, and Beach
Date: Monday, July 20, 2020
Weather: Sunny, Hotter; High 84, Low 70 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The window fan in my bedroom shows the current temperature and this evening when I got home it was 80 degrees in the bedroom with the fan going full blast. That is the hottest it has been this summer. We have had a couple of days where the outside high was 80, but today it was 84. That must have been just enough to cause the indoor temperature to rise to an almost uncomfortable level. Even I, the person who loves hot weather, was hot inside this evening. The saving grace is that the outdoor temperature is going down, slowly, so hopefully it will be a comfortable sleeping night. Jed went to Boston today and he said it was 96 degrees F there. That really is hot and thankfully we just don’t usually get high temps like that here on the Cape.
Each of the Goldpebbles wanted to do different things today. I tried to accommodate all their wishes, but that made the day too rushed. Lesson learned. Sam and Jonah wanted to go the skatepark, so we started there. Then we went to my house to have lunch and to play with Shadow and then back to the Goldstones to play with Legos. That was a request of Ollie and Jonah.
Then we headed to the beach in the late afternoon. That was the perfect way to end a hot day, and although we had all agreed that we would just spend an hour at the beach, it just wasn’t long enough for any of us. I got in the water and did some snorkeling today. We were at Surfside Beach and there were lots of small, and some large, fish in the water. Jonah found a big scallop that would open and shut for him. It was great, but we all just needed more water time. So tomorrow we’ll do skatepark and then head straight to the beach, have a picnic lunch and stay for the afternoon. We agreed to save the Lego play for non-beach days.
by Judy Handley | Jul 19, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 200: Lovely Sunday
Date: Sunday, July 19, 2020
Weather: Sunny, Hot, Windy; High 80, Low 71 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a lovely Sunday. My landlord and friend, Shirley, who lives next door, will be leaving tomorrow for an undetermined length of time. She and her 101 year-old sister Doris live together, half time here at Shirley’s home and half time closer to Boston in Doris’s home. Tomorrow is the day they head back to Doris’ home, so I decided to host a luncheon for them. The idea was to have a fully coronavirus approved luncheon on their deck, but it ended up to be too windy for them, so we ate indoors. I was a bit nervous for them as we weren’t wearing masks and we were indoors, but hopefully we are all coronavirus free. Karen Baranowski is the niece of Shirley and Doris, so she and Peter joined us for lobster rolls, salad, and corn on the cob. 
Karen provided a blueberry roll for dessert and everything was delicious. I haven’t visited much with Shirley and Doris since March due to being coronavirus careful, but I will miss knowing they are next door. Both are amazing women that I am proud to call friends.
After lunch, I headed to Heather and Jed’s to pick up Sam and take him down town to Board Stiff, the local skateboard headquarters. He is trying to put together the parts for a new skateboard and we both thought it would be helpful to see things in real time rather than on the internet. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the parts he needs to put this ‘perfect’ board together, but he got some good advice and we will be ready to order tomorrow after he does a little more research tonight. I dropped Sam off and hurried home to connect via Skype with Justin and family. They are doing okay so far despite the fact that the coronavirus is on the rise there. Justin recounted an event that happened in their town yesterday. Econo is the name of the local supermarket and they have a security person on duty at the door to make sure that anyone entering is wearing a mask. Evidently a tourist from mainland USA wanted to enter the store without a mask and was told that was not an option. He promptly spit in the face of the security person and had to be subdued by bystanders until the police arrived. Justin said that everyone that lives in Rincon just accepts that they must wear a mask and it was shocking to see such a display by a tourist. It makes me feel so blessed to live in Massachusetts where everyone just automatically wears a mask. But here on the Cape I have heard of similar incidents as Justin described with visiting tourists—not quite as violent, but just as defiant. I just cannot comprehend why people don’t accept that wearing a mask is good for them and good for everyone around them.
After my Skype call, I headed to a gathering of my Newcomers Wine Group. It is the first time I have been with the group in person since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and it was great to see everyone. We met in one member’s backyard with individual tables set very far apart. We all felt very safe and really enjoyed being together.
We hope to have a beach gathering in August. I didn’t get a photo of the group, but I did capture the saying on the napkins: “Alcohol—Because no great story ever started with someone eating a salad.”
by Judy Handley | Jul 18, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 199: Waste of a Beautiful Summer Day
Date: Saturday, July 18, 2020
Weather: Sunny and Hot; High 84, Low 67 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Technology is great until it isn’t. Here’s the long story. My phone dropped out of my back pocket Thursday a week ago when I was in the Menauhant Beach parking lot. I was packing the back of my car after an afternoon at the beach when my phone plopped face down on one little piece of gravel in the dirt parking area. That’s all it took to make my screen look like an intricate spider web. The phone was still usable, but I knew I had to get the screen replaced. Without checking, the next day I called the Cellfone Fixer and said I needed a new screen for a Samsung J8. I was sure that was what I had bought. The woman who answered the phone said that they didn’t have a J8 in stock and since it was a Friday, it would be in on Monday or Tuesday. She would call. But she didn’t. This week flew by and yesterday I called to see if the screen was in. Yes. I was instructed to bring the phone in anytime time and 40 minutes later, it would be fixed. So today around noon I headed to the Cellfone Fixer in Mashpee, about a ten minute drive. When I got there, the guy who does the fixing took a look and told me my phone was not an J8 as I had told them. So much for being sure and not checking. He said it was an S8 and he didn’t have any of those screens in stock. Ugh. But he had a slightly used S8 that he assured me was just fine and he could take the mother board out of my phone, put it in the new phone, and I would be all set. Since I didn’t want to spend any more time on this, I agreed. While I was waiting, I walked down the street in the Mashpee Commons to the little organic grocery store I have been using since the early days of the coronavirus. I can always order from Rory’s and have things delivered on the same day. But since it was just down the street, I went in today and picked up a few items. When I returned to check on my phone, the phone still wasn’t ready. So I waited another 10 minutes in the car. Finally, it was done. It looked like everything was fine, so I drove home. Next on my ‘to do’ list was to check on the delivery of the planters that I ordered for Heather and Jed’s deck on May 9th. Finally, on July 1, I got a message from UPS that said the packages had been labeled. But there has not been an update since then. This afternoon, I tried a back and forth messaging ‘conversation’ on my computer with UPS and got nowhere, so I decided to call. That’s when I got a message telling me I had no mobile network connection. Sure enough, when I looked closely at my home screen, it showed no bars. I tried turning the phone off and on and checked the settings, but I got nowhwere. So now I needed to call AT&T. But, of course, I got another ‘no mobile network’ message. I turned on my computer and tried to call via Skype. That worked and I got a real person almost immediately who couldn’t help me. She had to transfer me to technical support and I had to wait about 30 minutes to get someone who asked me if the person who worked on my phone replaced the SIM card. I had no idea. She gave me instructions on how to pop open the door to the SIM card on my phone, but the instructions didn’t work. She explained that I was going to have to call the person who worked on it, ask him, and then call back and go through the waiting time again. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I used Skype to call the Cellfone Fixer. No answer and a nice little message that said they have a busy little shop and in order to talk to someone, I would need to come in. I won’t say what I thought about that message, but I got back in the car and drove back to Mashpee. The ‘fixer’ listened to my story, opened the back of the phone, and discovered that evidently in Samsung phones you also have to transfer the mother board plus the mechanism that holds the SIM card. The fix was fairly quick and the phone does work fine now. But what a waster of a beautiful afternoon.
Unfortunately, the day was almost over by the time I got home and I just couldn’t face trying to battle with UPS over where in the world the deck planters are, so that will have to wait until Monday morning. Instead, I headed outside to remove some of the briars that I obviously missed in the spring when I worked on prickly briar removal. Everyday when I take Shadow for a little walk in the woods by the cottage, I get caught by these prickly vines. I made some progress, did some watering in areas not yet covered by the drip irrigation system, and called it a day. In between all of this, Heather and gang stopped by on their way to a late day stop at the beach. All of the beach equipment like boogie boards and buckets and shovels are in my car, so they stopped to get that. Then Peter Baranowski stopped by to share the bounty of clams he got this afternoon. It was way more than I could eat, so I, in turn, sent a text to Heather and said I’d drive to the beach when they were ready to go home and share some of the clams with them. The clams saved an otherwise wasted day. Thank you, Peter!
by Judy Handley | Jul 17, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 198: Free and Easy Friday
Date: Friday, July 17, 2020
Weather: Overcast with Periods of Light Rain; High 71, Low 67 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
As predicted, today was overcast with periods of light rain . . . enough rain to make the pavement wet which curbed the plan to take the Goldstones to the skatepark this morning. Instead, when I arrived to pick them up, we worked on practical things like music practice for Ollie and Sam (Jonah had already practiced) and finishing up writing birthday thank you notes for Jonah.
Ollie went down to the basement first to practice violin and I followed along with my phone so he could use the tuner on my phone to tune up. Once he started playing, I stayed to listen and was able to get a couple of photos of him in action. Delightful. I headed back upstairs and folded laundry while Sam practiced drums, but even with the basement door closed, you can hear the drums upstairs. So, I got to enjoy his playing, and then Jonah’s as he went down to accompany Sam, but I didn’t go back down to get photos. While we doing all of this, a new skateboard was delivered and Sam was so very anxious to try it out. He did take it out on the street for a couple of runs and then we packed it in my car, along with the second skateboard, so we could go to the skatepark later if the weather improved. Somehow, all of this took about two hours and it was way past lunch time when we headed to my house. On the way home, I stopped at Wicked n’ Wood to pick up ribs for lunch. This is a summer-only roadside BBQ place, a trailer with a great wood smoker that is open only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and sometimes Thursday. But today it was closed with the ‘Gone Fishing’ sign. I had promised the boys this take-out treat, but since they were closed, I suggested we go across the street and try the take-out at Le Bon Jour. This is a tiny little take-out place run by some young men from Senegal. Friends have recommended it, but I had never tried it. Much of the menu is Mexican, which seems inconsistent with the French Name, but the Senegal is French and the young men speak French and English. The menu allows a build-your-own burrito, so that is what Sam and Ollie ordered. Jonah decided that he would make his own burrito when we got to my house, so I went along with that idea for myself. The service was fast and efficient, and according to Sam and Ollie, the burritos were delicious. Sam was able to get both steak and braised lamb in his burrito and he was in heaven. I got to taste enough to know that the spicing is delicious, so this place will be added to the Goldstone take-out list. I’ll return to order their gumbo. Just reading about it made me hungry.
After eating lunch, we decided to watch a Harry Potter movie which took the rest of the afternoon. After the movie, Jonah and Sam headed out to the street with the skateboards and Shadow on a leash. It appears that Shadow enjoys skateboarding with Sam and is strong enough to pull him up the gentile hill. I went out to watch the show but unfortunately didn’t have a camera with me to catch the action. I’ll definitely follow along with a camera the next time as it is quite a sight!
by Judy Handley | Jul 16, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 197: Skate Park Morning, Wood Neck Afternoon
Date: Thursday, July 16, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Still Cool; High 72, Low 57 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was another morning at the skatepark. Then at noon, Ollie, Jonah, and I dropped Sam at home and we took off for lunch at my house. Sam’s friend Sebastian had a kayaking birthday party this afternoon and Jed was taking Sam to that that. At my house, Ollie and Jonah played with Shadow and just had fun hanging out and doing almost nothing while I fixed lunch.
00 Jonah and Sam with Their Salt Marsh Collections
00 Marsh Exploration at Woodneck
Then after lunch, we headed to Wood Neck Beach and Little Sippewissett Marsh. Ollie and Jonah always prefer the marsh side, so we set up home base there and they headed into the marsh to collect and observe crabs. I sat at home base and watched . . . and that brought back so many memories. I think the first time I took the boys to Wood Neck was during the summer of 2013 when we attended a Buzzards Bay Coalition kiddie activity there. And since then, we have returned many, many times. Tonight I found a photo of the Goldpebbles with Granddad collecting crabs there in the summer of 2014. The boys are bigger now and the boogie boards that magically become science labs have evolved, but we still have one of the shovels from that summer and used that today. Sam was 7 years old that summer and today Ollie, now 8, reminded me so much of Sam at that age. This afternoon Ollie and Jonah took their crab collecting very seriously and I was invited to see the final collection. Such special times with the grandkids.
by Judy Handley | Jul 15, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 196: Beginning or Half Over
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Weather: Cloudy, Clearing Mid-Afternoon, Cooler; High 70, Low 59 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The question is . . . Is summer just beginning or is it half over? When I took the Goldpebbles home at the end of our day together, Heather and I spent some time talking about school options for the fall. Then when I got home, I did some chores and then Justin called to bring me up-to-date on what is happening in their lives in Puerto Rico. We also talked about school options for Ziggy and Coco this fall. By the time I took Shadow on his evening walk, I noticed that the sun is setting earlier in the evening these days. Yikes, yikes, yikes! In my mind, summer is just beginning. But the earlier sunset and the discussions about school in the fall tell me that summer is quickly slipping away. Where has the time gone since that fateful Friday, March 13th, that was the last day of school as we know it? Actually, it was the last day of life as we know it. It is when most of us started to feel the full impact of living in the days of the coronavirus pandemic. April flew by with the Goldstone’s move from Vidal Avenue to Grasmere Drive. During the month of May I started kidnapping the Goldpebbles on some afternoons to bring them to my house to go kayaking. And we even made a few early trips to the beach. June was filled with many beach afternoons and then when school was officially over for the year, Camp Oma Afternoons began on a daily basis. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but July has been the month skateboarding and scootering. The Falmouth Skatepark has become an almost daily stop for the Goldpebbles and myself. It was not planned. It just evolved. And it has been a great activity for the boys. Even today when it was cool with no humidity, an hour of scootering or skateboarding results in sweaty boys getting a full workout. Late yesterday Ollie’s new helmet arrived. It is a Triple Eight Certified Sweatsaver Helmet and even on this cool summer day, the sweatband was soaked after an hour. But it is still much more comfortable than helmets without the sweatband. So this afternoon, we ordered two more–one for Jonah and one for Sam. When you have to wear a helmet and a face mask, you want both to be comfortable.
Our day together started at 10 am this morning. We headed to the skatepark to get more time there before others start arriving in the early afternoon. We did have the whole park all to ourselves for part of the morning and things were going great until Jonah and Ollie started having difficulty steering their scooters. Their Razor A3’s are just a couple of weeks old. They have had a daily workout, but they shouldn’t be giving us trouble already. Jed is taking a look at them tonight and hopefully he can figure out the problem. We headed to my house for lunch, loaded up two of our spare scooters, and then back to the skatepark. There were more people there this afternoon, but it was still easy enough to keep a distance from others. Late in the afternoon, we headed to Highfield Hall to check out this year’s fairy houses. Unfortunately, we weren’t terribly impressed, but we only saw about half of them. We will return on another day to search out the others and hope we are more impressed than we were today. We ended the day with one more skateboarding and scootering activity. There is a nice down hill run from the Falmouth Academy just down from Highfield. So, I dropped the boys and let them ride down the hill. It was so much fun that they did it twice and can’t wait to go back and do it again. So this unplanned love of skateboarding and scootering is helping keep the boys fit and happy during this very different summer.
