by Judy Handley | Nov 28, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs, Cape Cod, USA |
2019 Life Logs, Day 332: Happy Thanksgiving Day
Date: Thursday, November 28, 2019
Weather: Rainy Day; High 55, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Here’s hoping you had a Happy Thanksgiving Day! I went to Heather and Jed’s in the early afternoon and other guests arrived at 3:30. We talked, ate oysters and other appetizers, and watched Jed put together a fabulous mushroom wellington to add to the feast as a vegetarian alternative.
The dinner was fabulous with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, roasted veggies, Brussels sprouts slaw, cranberry salad, and the mushroom wellington. And for dessert we had a choice of chocolate pie, pumpkin pie, apple-cranberry pie, or pumpkin cheesecake. I still feel like a stuffed turkey! 
Everyone enjoyed the dinner, especially Ollie who decided he needed a whole turkey drumstick. 
And just a bit ago, I got an email from my daughter-in-law Jo in Puerto Rico sharing their Thanksgiving bounty with me. It is so hard to be apart from family and friends on special holidays, but photos sent across the miles really help.
by Judy Handley | Nov 28, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 331: A Day with Grandkids and Shadow
Date: Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Weather: Mostly Cloudy with Some Rain; High 60, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It’s late and I have to get the puppy to bed, so this will be short even though there were so many highlights today. Nothing earth shattering, just a fun day with grandkids who had no school. I had a huge list of things I wanted to do today, so I went to the Goldstones and offered a minimal babysitting fee for any grandson who was willing to come spend an hour with Shadow and help me with my chores. I got three volunteers, but I explained that it would be just one boy at a time. Three hours turned into the rest of the day, but I think everyone had fun, especially the puppy. 
Sam came home with me first and played with Shadow while I unloaded my car. Earlier in the morning I had gone to the lumber yard and the hardware store and had supplies that needed to be put away. Sam and Shadow romped inside the exercise pen I put together yesterday and when it was time for Sam to leave, I had him disassemble the pen and pack it in the car. When he got home, he re-erected the exercise pen in their backyard so Shadow will have a safe place to play tomorrow. 
I then picked up Jonah and Ollie, delivered Jonah to my house to puppy sit while Ollie went with me to the laundromat where he had a great math lesson figuring out how many quarters were going to be needed, the grocery store for more Thanksgiving essentials forgotten yesterday, and to Michael’s to buy a few things. We were gone almost three hours, so Heather had picked Jonah up when she came over to borrow some seating for tomorrow. 
Ollie then had his play time with Shadow. Heather returned with Jonah to borrow a coat rack for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner guests. They went home and a little later I took Ollie home and came home to make the traditional cranberry salad among other things. I quickly realized that I had forgotten to get the cranberry mold from Heather, so she returned with all three boys with the mold and everyone had one more romp with Shadow.
I have spent the entire evening doing the cooking for tomorrow that I thought I would get done today, and now to bed. There will be the six of us at Heather and Jed’s tomorrow plus four friends for a late afternoon dinner, so at least we have tomorrow morning to finish the preparations. Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.
by Judy Handley | Nov 26, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 330: Thanksgiving Food Shopping
Date: Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Weather: Sunny Day; High 61, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
There was a special holiday Farmers Market today, so late morning I headed to town to go to the Market and to finish up my food shopping for Thanksgiving. Heather and Jed ordered the turkey and Jed picked it up at the Farmers Market today. I bought butternut squash, cranberries, and Brussels sprouts to add to the dinner, garlic to plant, and green tomatoes and turnips just because they were there. I will make fried green tomatoes, but not for Thanksgiving. I then headed to other stores to buy items, none of which were all available at the same store. Oysters from the fish market, sparkling wine from another market for a Thanksgiving toast, other some items from the grocery. Then there was a stop at the Vet’s office, a stop at the hardware store, and a stop to get my hair trimmed. Three hours later I returned home and spent a great deal of the afternoon playing outside with Shadow. I put together his outside exercise pen and actually ate lunch outside while Shadow played in the pen. Then we went for our first long walk through the neighborhood. Tonight, I talked with my friend Lynne Kirwin who is flying to New Zealand for the winter on Friday. We talked about the 10 inches of snow and cold weather she has been experiencing in Michigan and she promised not to rub reports of lovely weather in New Zealand once she arrives there and cold weather hits here. It was beautiful here today with a high temp in the low 60’s. But if the forecast is correct, it won’t be this warm again in the next ten days, and maybe not until spring. I also talked to Heather and to Jonah tonight. Jonah and Ollie have recently taken an interest in playing the piano. Last week I arrived at the Goldstones and got to hear Ollie composing a beautiful song on the piano. This evening Jonah figured out how to play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. He recorded this on his tablet and spent quite a bit of time talking to me on the phone while trying to figure out how to send me the recording. He doesn’t have email or messaging capability on his tablet, so he had to send it to Heather’s phone via Blue Tooth and was trying to share it with me that way. We had technical difficulties, so I will have to see the recording when I visit tomorrow, but it was fun being on the phone with Jonah while he was trying to figure this out. Heather was in the middle of a “bountiful crisis”. Jed had brought home lots of veggies from the Farmers Market and they got a Misfits Market organic fruit and veggie delivery this week as well, so she had way more produce than she had room to store. Misfits delivers certified organic produce to your door for less than grocery store prices. It is called Misfits because it is produce that doesn’t meet the appearance test needed for supermarkets, but it is still tastes great. Hopefully Heather was able to figure out ways to store al of the produce. Tomorrow morning, I have an 8 am appointment with my primary care physician to follow up on reflux issues and then I will spend the rest of the day getting a head start on preparing all the food I bought today ready for Thanksgiving dinner.
by Judy Handley | Nov 26, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 329: Focus on Shadow, 7th Grade Art Show, Mah Jongg
Date: Monday, November 25, 2019
Weather: Sunny Day; High 56, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was a bit of a whirlwind. The morning started with the ‘new normal’ schedule—up at 6 am to take Shadow outside, back to bed for a couple of hours, and then a morning of reading about puppy training. 
I will continue that project tomorrow as a new friend from Newcomers was coming over to meet Shadow and bring me a puppy stroller. I had no idea there was such a thing, but just as young mothers put their babies in stroller so they can go jogging, old puppy mommas can put puppies in the stroller for long walks.
It will be months before Shadow will be able to take long walks with me, so I’ll give the stroller a try. After the friend left, I rearranged the living/dining area of the cottage to make room for a card table for tonight’s Mah Jongg lesson. We rotate between homes, and tonight was my turn.
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Then I headed out to see Sam’s art work in the 7th Grade Art Show at Lawrence Middle School. I was especially impressed with the results of a group project, a Christmas tree made out of plastic water bottles.
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And Sam’s ‘ugly mug’ was spectacularly ugly. I cut my time at the show a little short as I needed to get home to get ready for the mah jongg class. Our teacher’s name is Jackie, and she promised not to help me tonight as I have won all the games we played to date. It worked. I didn’t win any of the games tonight, but I did feel like I am starting to understand the game a little better. I let Shadow join us and she was a very good puppy.
by Judy Handley | Nov 24, 2019 | Cape Cod, USA |
2019 Life Logs, Day 328: Thinking About the Holidays
Date: Sunday, November 24, 2019
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High 60, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today started with a Skype video call with Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco. It was delightful to see them and catch up on what is happening in their lives. And they got to meet Shadow. He was playing with the big fuzzy ball that Jonah gave him.
It is almost as big as him, and the kids enjoyed seeing him at play. At some point in the conversation, Coco was talking about having only two and a half weeks of school after Thanksgiving and that gave me a little jolt. I have been so preoccupied with thinking about getting a puppy and then getting one, that I honestly have not thought about the holidays. So, I spent some of today doing that and then went grocery shopping. And who greeted me at the door of the store but Ollie. He was dressed in his Cub Scout uniform and was passing out donation flyers to shoppers.
The flyer was a list of what could be bought while in the store and then given to the Scouts to be donated to the Falmouth Service Center. As Heather noted on her Facebook page, this is one of her favorite days of the year. Watching the young Scouts working so hard to get donations for people who wouldn’t have a turkey for Thanksgiving without their help. Jonah was taking a bathroom break when I arrived, but he returned just as I entered the store. Heather was with Ollie and Jonah and Jed was with Sam at the Service Center receiving and storing all of the donations. Sam said there were so many frozen turkeys donated that the freezers were overflowing. How wonderful! Heather and gang come over for dinner this evening and the boys got their puppy time. Unfortunately, Shadow had been quiet most of the day, so he was a wild one while they were here. But the boys are learning to deal with him when he has too much energy. They take him outside. Of course, it was dark by this time and one boy would run around the perimeter of the house with a flashlight and another would follow with Shadow leading him on his leash. When the boy have too much energy, we often tell them to go outside and run laps around the house. So they are using that same strategy. Fun to watch!
by Judy Handley | Nov 23, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 327: Saturday at Home
Date: Saturday, November 23, 2019
Weather: Sunny Day; High 48, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a lovely, sunny day at home with Shadow. I did go out in the morning to go to Heather’s to continue to help with the ‘clean out the basement’ project by picking up some items to give away—some lumber and large outdoor Christmas ornaments to donate to the Newcomers Holiday Parade float and an old sail from Windbird and some bottom paint to give to Sam Patterson and Bruce Woodin for L’Escargot. Bruce came to pick up the sail and paint and to meet Shadow.
We sat and talked and he and Shadow had a good time playing together. Jane arrived just as Bruce was leaving and she stayed for tea and to get her play time with the puppy. I spent some time reading while cuddling Shadow and that was my day. Heather spent her day in Boston at WGBH helping moderate TedX Talks and Jed took the boys to New Haven to see the Yale-Harvard football game. I read that the game was delayed by a climate change protest during the half-time. Hundreds of students and alumni entered the field to demand “that both universities clear their combined, $71 billion endowments of investments in corporations tied to oil, gas and coal. They also protested the schools’ holdings in Puerto Rico debt, seen as exploitation of a poor, besieged nation.” The 40-minute delay in the game caused the game to end as dark was descending. I’ll be most interested in hearing about this event first hand from Jed and the boys.
