by Judy Handley | May 4, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 124: A Very Little Gardening and a Shadow Problem
Date: Monday, May 4, 2020
Weather: Partly Sunny and Warm; High 70 degrees, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
For whatever reason, I had trouble getting motivated to do much of anything today. It was mostly sunny and the warmest day we have had this spring, so I am not sure why I wasn’t biting at the chomp to get outside and work in my raised bed gardens. But I wasn’t So I didn’t . . . until later in the afternoon when it got cloudy. When I think about it, the probable cause for my reluctance to go out and do gardening was my back. I had another appointment with my chiropractor this morning after a weekend with a lot of pain. Once he got things back in alignment this morning, the pain went away and I just wanted to keep it that way. When I did go out, I realized that there was no way I could lift the heavy bags of garden soil that need to go into each bed without stressing my back. Instead of doing that, I did a little clean out of leaves and am hoping to employ the Goldstones to help me at some point this week. Later in the evening, on a walk with Shadow, I thought of one solution if I can’t get the boys to come help. I can open the bags where they are and roll them onto a tarp where I can empty all the soil. Then I can transfer it to the raised beds, one shovel at a time. A little labor intensive, but it will get the job done. It is not going to be as warm as today for the next few days, but it should be warm enough to enjoy being outside.
When I was having a late lunch, I saw my neighbor and landlady, 94 year-old Shirley, outside walking around. I put Shadow on his leash and took him out to say hello from a distance. The distance drove Shadow crazy. I really had to pull hard to restrain him and in doing so, he got tangled in his leash. When I went to untangle him, he nipped at my hands. Not hard enough to break the skin, but still unacceptable. And stern as I was, he didn’t stop. This was not the first time this has happened, so I spent a great deal of the afternoon thinking about what to do. My “people training” was halted by the coronavirus shutdown. Training or no training, I have just not been able to keep him from jumping all over the Goldpebbles and nipping at them. They have started calling him a crazy dog. This afternoon, I wrote to Melissa Berryman, the trainer, and explained my situation. She asked me to drop him off at her kennel tomorrow morning and leave him for the day so she can assess the situation. I am going to do that. Then on Saturday or Sunday, wearing a mask and gloves and practicing social distancing, she will have a one-one-one outdoor class with me and my adorable, but much too feisty seven-month-old puppy. When it is just Shadow and me, we have no issues. But he loves other people and just wants to be all over them. Wish me luck on this one. It would break my heart to have to find him a new home, but I know I can’t have a dog who nips at anyone ever for any reason, especially around children. And the jumping on people has to stop. Melissa assures me we can get this under control. I sure hope she is right.
by Judy Handley | May 3, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 123: Wild Caught Alaskan Salmon
Date: Sunday, May 3, 2020
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 58 degrees, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Since I have not been out shopping anywhere since the middle of March, I haven’t had any fresh fish since then. I usually eat fresh fish at least once a week and for the past few days I have been craving salmon. I don’t know if the fish markets have been open for this whole time, but I checked online and found that The Clam Man is open for business. You can order what you want and they bring it to your car. I called and they had wild caught Alaskan salmon. It is $30 a pound, but I didn’t care and neither did Heather. She ordered three pounds, two for them and one for me, and I went to pick it up. Either this was very special salmon or absence really does make the heart grow fonder. I had salmon and asparagus for dinner and it tasted soooooo good.
Another thing that hasn’t happened since the middle of March is a bath for Shadow. So I spent part of my morning bathing and grooming my little guy. I then left him home to dry while I went to Heather and Jed’s to see if I could be helpful. There is certainly no end to the jobs to be done there. They are still working on unpacking boxes while they are engaged in remodeling the second floor bedrooms. Carpet has been removed and today they were working on prepping the walls in what will be Sam’s bedroom to be painted. Once that is done, they can lay the wood flooring. The walls in the second-floor bathroom still need to be stripped of all the glue that held the wallpaper in place to get it ready for painting. And in what will be Jonah and Ollie’s bedroom, they have been working on removing a wall. I think that is almost done, but before it can be painted, they are going to have to have an electrician come in to rewire connections that were in the wall that was torn down. That was unexpected and will slow things down a bit, but progress is being made. The work seems never ending, but the downstairs is looking great. Tomorrow is back to school and work, but Heather is hoping that they can get enough done during the evenings to get the upstairs painted next weekend. Then the flooring can be laid and the boys can move from what they call the ‘big room’ over the garage to their new bedrooms. Because of my back issues, I am not very helpful with all the renovations, but I offered to take over laundry duties this afternoon. I switched laundry loads and folded clothes in between. It was after six when I got home and time to take Shadow for a walk and then fix dinner.
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Cavossa is a disposal and excavating company here on Cape Cod and you can rent a dumpster from them. Heather and Jed had one delivered the day after closing on the house, so it has been a part of the landscape from the beginning. But now totally full. Tomorrow is the pick-up day, so there was a bit of scurrying today to get the last bits in. The Goldpebbles have enjoyed putting things in the dumpster, so I have dubbed them the Kings of Cavossa and took photos of each of them at the top of the heap. Since the dumpster takes up a huge hunk of the driveway, I will be glad when it is hauled away tomorrow. The two-car garage is full of boxes that still need to be unpacked and the driveway has been filled with the dumpster, so visitor parking has been challenging.
Not sure what is on my agenda for tomorrow, but there never seems to be a lack of things to do. No Covid-19 slowdown here!
by Judy Handley | May 2, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 123: Beautiful Day
Date: Saturday, May 2, 2020
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High 67 degrees, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a beautiful day and I am going to be greedy and ask for more. This afternoon I sat down by the dock as the Goldpebbles headed out in the kayaks for a water battle. I was wearing a spring sweater with a tank top under and soon had to shed the sweater. It felt great to just sit in the sun and do nothing.
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Once the water warriors returned, we went back to The Cottage so everyone could take a shower. While one was in the shower, I got the other two on Arcade Bloxels on my computer and on the tablet so they could play the computer game Ziggy recently published. 
I took a photo of them playing and one of them waving to Ziggy and sent the photos to him. I had a 5 pm Zoom call with my dining-in group, all of whom have become my closest friends. I had hoped to have the buns I was making for dinner at Heather and Jed’s done before the call time, but that didn’t happen. So, I made those 40-minute hamburger buns while talking to my friends on Zoom. I had given the boys an outside job which they completed while I was Zooming and they played in the hammock and built volcanoes in the sandbox that they converted to a dirt/sand digging box last week. Ollie and Sam had black hands and feet when they were done, but a little soap and water took care of that. And then we headed to Heather and Jed’s for dinner. I took the pulled pork I bought at Wicked and Wood yesterday and the just-out-of-the-oven buns. Wicked and Wood is a trailer with a serious barbecue smoker that sits in an empty lot on the highway close to where H & J used to live. As I drove home yesterday, I saw that there was no one in line, so I stopped and picked up the pulled pork. You just walk up to the window in the trailer, put in your order, and few minutes later someone comes out with your bag of goodies. There is usually a line, but not yesterday. So, I lucked out. For dinner tonight we had pulled pork on buns to which Heather added coleslaw with fresh dill. And Jed made a huge latke. Then Heather brought out a chocolate pudding she made. Life is good.
by Judy Handley | May 1, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 122: May Day During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Date: Friday, May 1, 2020
Weather: Overcast, Turning Sunny Late Day; High 59 degrees, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The first day of May conjures up images in my head of children dancing around a Maypole decorated with brightly colored ribbons. They would be celebrating the fact that this day is the approximate midpoint between spring equinox and summer solstice. It is normally a day that gives hope that warmer days are on the way. Some people celebrate May Day by filling paper baskets with flowers or sweets and leaving them on the doorsteps of friends. The original custom was to knock on the door and yell “May basket!” before running away. If the person receiving the gift ran after and caught you, they would give you a kiss. If you tried this during the coronavirus pandemic, the receiver would be afraid to touch the basket and you would be horrified if someone tried to kiss you. These are times in which we are living. I don’t write this to be a downer, even though it is, but just as a reminder of what we are living through. “The strict Puritans of New England considered the celebrations of May Day to be licentious and pagan, so they forbade its observance, and the springtime holiday never became an important part of American culture as it has in many European countries.” Those Puritans would probably do well during this pandemic!
Maybe because it is the first day of new month or maybe because I have been staring at my computer for too many hours every day this week, for whatever reason, I thought a lot about living through this pandemic today. I tried to envision what summer will be like. I didn’t like what I saw, so I decided it is just too soon to think about that. For now, for this month of May, I will continue to focus on staying at home, either mine or Heather and Jed’s, and get my food and other necessities delivered to my doorstep. And I’ll continue visiting with friends via Zoom. Because today was Friday, I tuned into Governor Cuomo’s noontime press conference. I think he does a press conference every day, but I just like to tune in Friday to get his take on how the week has gone in New York. I like to listen to him because he makes so much sense. He makes me feel grounded. He ended today’s press conference with a new Andrew Cuomo quote: “When life kicks you on your rear . . . learn . . . grow . . . get backup.” All of us have been knocked for a loop by this pandemic, but some more than others. For those who have truly been kicked hard in the rear, the rest of us must work together to find ways to help them get backup.
My end-of-the-week statement of gratitude: Hurray for warmer weather with no rain. No winter coat or raincoat needed today. Tomorrow is forecast to be even warmer, so this calls for a celebration.
by Judy Handley | Apr 30, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 121: A Day of Battles
Date: Thursday, April 30, 2020
Weather: Overcast; High 51 degrees, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a gray and gloomy day, a great day to stay inside and have a battle with my computer. I don’t even want to try to explain my back up system for my photos. The first issue is the sheer number. Since 2005, my computer tells me I have 149,000 photos filed in 3,551 folders. That’s the original photos. I then edited each one of those folders and labeled each picture to be posted on my website. And until March of 2016, I kept up with that process and regularly backed up everything on two different hard drives, plus the copy on my computer. But when Mark’s medical condition worsened and we had to leave Windbird and move back to land, I got behind on my editing and labeling. Some folders got done, some did not. And what I have been working on for months, a day or so here and there, has been going back to name photos that were never named and then cross referencing every folder in the three different locations. It is painstaking work, but I think I am winning the battle. I have at least one more full day of work left, maybe two, and then I will be up to date. Whew!
That was my day today. No change with my back problem. Well, maybe just a tad of improvement. So that battle continues. It is still difficult to walk because of the pain shooting down into my hips, but walking is the only thing that helps. So I have to force myself to walk that first half mile until it gets easier. I also had a bit of a battle with food and beverage deliveries today. I still have not been in a store of any sort since Thursday, March 12. Heather has gone shopping twice for both of us and I order from a small organic market in Mashpee to have the things delivered that we don’t get in our weekly Misfits fruit and vegetable boxes that are also delivered. Today, I ordered a delivery of beer from a small liquor store that I ordered from once before. And then I waited and waited. The last time I ordered from the liquor store, they arrived an hour later. And each time I order from the organic market, they deliver in a one-hour time period indicated. Today neither of those things happened. I kept calling to check, but was assured things were coming. Then the truth came out. Both had been delivered to the wrong address. The beer delivery guy thought it was strange that he had called me 5 minutes before he was to arrive, but when he left the beer on the doorstep, I didn’t come to the door. He started to drive away, but then called me again. He was only two doors away at 23 Madeline. I live on a cross street at 23 Debbie Lane. Shadow and I walked out onto the street and he found us. Then I called the market again and the drivers had returned and assured the manager that they had delivered the bags of groceries at my house. I assured them that they had not. Then I wondered, “Did they also deliver my things to 23 Madeline. So Shadow and I walked down there and sure enough, the three bags were on the doorstep. Luckily no one was home, so all goods were recovered. I love living tucked in away from the street, but it is obviously not a good thing for deliveries. Both deliveries had used GPS and had gotten to the right area, but the GPS kept telling them to do a U-turn at 23 Madeline once they had missed my driveway, so they assumed that was the right house. I am going to have to get a big, bright sign posted out on the street because I don’t see these days of deliveries ending anytime soon.
The sunny news of today was that Ziggy has published another computer game. His first one was called Farmhouse Fortress and was only available on an iPad. This one is called Parkour Paul and is available to all. I went to arcade.bloxels.co, searched for Z1G0, that’s uppercase Z, number 1, upper case G, zero, and the game came up. Justin warned me that playing it might make me feel old, and it did. I couldn’t even figure out how to play! But I tried and I am very proud of Ziggy for persisting and publishing his accomplishments.
by Judy Handley | Apr 29, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 120: Back and Weather Better Than Yesterday
Date: Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 55 degrees, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Both my back and the weather were better today than yesterday, so I’ll call that a win, win. And then I had a fun afternoon with the Goldpebbles, so that’s a third win. But in these coronavirus days, the good news always seems to come with some disturbing news. Tonight on the Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel shared the results of a coronavirus projection model produced by Mass General Hospital, Harvard Medical, Boston University, and Georgia Tech. It shows that for the state of Massachusetts, if we keep doing everything exactly the way we are doing them right now, by the end of August, the number of deaths will go up from the current 3,000+ to almost 5,000. But if current standards are relaxed, that August death toll is projected to be almost 29,000. By this model, if we stay in lockdown, we save 24,000 lives. That part is good news. Lives can be saved, but it means continuing to live as we do right now and that is the reality according to this model. While Heather and Jed were here for dinner tonight, Heather got the news that there will be no 4th of July fireworks this year and that the Falmouth Road Race has been cancelled. It is most certainly going to be a different kind of summer.
Speaking of summer, there were times this afternoon when it felt like summer. I picked up the Goldpebbles around 1:45 pm and brought them here to spend the afternoon. We watched some of the Woods Hole Research Center webinar hosted by Heather and then headed outside to transplant raspberries. We didn’t get them all transplanted, but I called a halt to the work as it was time to head down to the dock to launch the kayaks. 
The boys spent the next hour and a half out on the water while I sat and watched. I had on my winter coat, which was needed while sitting still while the wind blew. But there were times when there was no wind orders the sun shining down on my face felt burning hot. It felt so good. But all good things must come to an end, so we headed back to The Cottage around 5 pm. I needed to make another batch of those 40-minute hamburger buns that I made last Thursday when the boys were here, as we were once again having hamburgers for dinner. Heather and Jed arrived in time for Jed to do the grilling. Thank you, Jed. He, Heather, and I had portabella mushroom burgers instead of ground beef burgers and the mushroom burgers were delicious.
No plans for tomorrow other than doing some online shopping for food and beverage deliveries. Afternoon activities will depend on the weather.
I leave you with a stark statement by Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times Columnist. He wrote, “The world has loved, hated, and envied the U.S. Now, for the first time, we pity it.” How I wish we had had wise, thoughtful leadership in this time of crisis.
