2020 Life Logs, Day 178: More Birthday Fun
Date: Saturday, June 27, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Then Rain; High 80, Low 66 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Just after noon, I headed downtown to pick up cupcakes from Cupcake Charlie’s for Jonah’s birthday party with his friends. Then I headed to Heather and Jed’s for the party. Jonah was allowed to invite three good friends—Luke, Kaiden, and Noah–whose parents were onboard for a coronavirus-age birthday party—bring your own water bottle, wear a mask, keep proper physical distancing, and cupcakes served by a server with mask and gloves. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to assure that this is all real. It is like living in a science fiction movie, but despite the restrictions, the Goldstones pulled off a safe and fun birthday party. The boys played lawn games—kubb (a Swedish lawn game where you knock over wooden blocks by throwing wooden batons), corn hole, bocce ball, and supervised soccer on the field at the nearby school. Jonah has had one play date with Luke, but otherwise the boys had not seen each other since mid-March. So, it was a very special time. And Jonah’s special times continued after all of us went home. Jonah was taken to the Crooked Coast shop where his new bass guitar was signed by members of the local band. The whole family loves Crooked Coast and Jonah must have been over the moon with the signing.
It started sprinkling near the end of the party and by the time I got home, it was raining. The rain has finally stopped, but we had more than six hours of pretty steady rain which was much needed. But because of the rain, I didn’t feel motivated to go on a long walk with Shadow once I got home. Instead, I did a little cooking and Shadow and I watched a couple of episodes of Our Planet. This is a series that the Goldstones have been watching and the boys really wanted me to watch as well. I had to sign up for a free month of Netflix to do this, so I need to make sure I do all the Netflix watching I want in the next couple of weeks before my free month runs out.
I got Jonah a baseball trainer which is a pole on a very substantial portable stand with a baseball on a swing trainer. You swing the baseball so it winds around the pole and then hit the ball sending it spinning in the opposite direction so you can hit it again. Since Jonah was a toddler, he has been obsessed with playing games with balls of all kinds, but especially soccer balls, basketballs, and baseballs. I don’t know how long it will last, but today the baseball trainer kept Jonah’s attention. He is constantly wanting someone to pitch to him and now he has a full-time pitcher on duty at all times. 
Jed’s mom, Marti, got him a frisbee golf practice basket. Frisbee or disc golf is a game in which players throw a disc at a target basket. In a large park, there can be 9 to 18 of these baskets and the game is played using rules similar to golf. Jonah’s practice basket came with 5 colored discs or frisbees that you try to throw and get into the basket. I didn’t get to try it today, but it looks like a lot of fun. And the scooters I ordered from Amazon also arrived today, not part of the birthday celebration, but we had to go to the Skate Park to give the new scooters a try. Then we ended the day with a family dinner.
Jonah made sure he brought his friends to dinner with him—polar bear, hippo, and his very favorite lamby. For Jonah, no birthday is complete without his little stuffed lamb that shares his birthday. Then there was the opening of Jonah’s present from mommy and daddy. His gift from them last year was a bass guitar and in the last twelve months, he has become quite an accomplished bass player. But the bass guitar that gave him last year was an adult size and quite challenging for him to handle. So this year, they got him a smaller bass that should make playing a little easier. All the Goldpebbles headed to the basement to play a bit of music with Jonah—Sam on drums, Ollie on electric violin, and Jonah on electric bass. Then it was time for the angel food birthday cake. Tomorrow afternoon we will celebrate again with three of Jonah’s friends.
We went to Wood Neck, my favorite beach as it has both waves on the shore of Buzzards Bay and the beautiful Little Sippewissett Marsh where you can spend hours exploring. We usually set up our things on the marsh side and that is what we did today. Soon after we arrived, a family that was using our favorite spot left and we moved to what the boys call The Living Room. The view from there is of the entire marsh. Jonah, Ollie, and I walked through the water and back into the marsh and eventually Sam joined us. Jonah brought the Moray boogie board that was Justin’s when he was a teenager. Everyone had a great time running and jumping onto the board and surfing across the water. That boogie board is over 25 years-old and is still going strong. Near the end of the afternoon, we returned to The Living Room home base, where I sat with the sun at my back watching the boys build a sand fortress on a little islet.
Sam was interested in making some money by cleaning out the roof gutter on the front side of the cottage, so we launched into that project. The hose attachment that the Baranowski’s loaned me for gutter cleaning looks like a very long, extendable cane. You put the curved part in the gutter and turn on the water full blast. Sam was super excited about having a water battle using the attachment after we finished our job. It wasn’t much of a battle as a regular hose with a spray attachment was absolutely no challenge. But all three boys enjoyed seeing just how far they could shoot a stream of water with the attachment. Best water gun ever.
It was another foggy morning, but the fog didn’t clear by noon as it has on most days recently. The overcast skies persisted into the afternoon.
