by Judy Handley | Apr 10, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 100: Switching Gears
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2025
Weather: Sunshine, Still Cool; High Temp 46, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Since July of 2023, I have served as Co-President of Encore of Falmouth Newcomers. Today I started switching gears to become Vice President of Programs. For 8 months of the year, Encore has monthly general meetings. Three of those are luncheons and the other 5 are programs. Today I met with the woman who will be the Assistant VP to brainstorm what programs we want to present. I met this woman for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and today we had a great meeting. Together we have some great ideas and I am really going to enjoy working with her.
I ran some errands this afternoon and sent a text to Ollie to see if he wanted me to pick him up. I didn’t hear back, so I assumed he was riding the bus home. One of my errands was getting things for Jonah from CVS, so I delivered those and saw that Jonah is doing great. As I was leaving Heather and Jed’s, Karen Baranowski was dropping Ollie off. What? He forgot his phone today and assumed I was picking him up. By the time he figured out I wasn’t coming, he had missed the bus and was walking home. Karen just happened to driving by and asked if he wanted a ride. And he was happy for the offer. It takes a village.
Tonight, I attended the Falmouth Democratic Committee monthly meeting and now I have to finish my reading assignment for a class I signed up for that begins tomorrow morning. Busy, busy.
by Judy Handley | Apr 9, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 99: All is Well That Ends Well
Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Weather: Sunshine, but Windy and Cool; High Temp 43, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I did not mention in last night’s log that Jonah’s weekly check up appointment at Boston Children’s was unlike last week’s optimistic report. After a lot of weighing of the alternatives, the decision was made to go for surgery to ensure he will have full mobility in his left arm. Heather and Jed learned early this morning that the surgery would be this afternoon. The operating room and surgeon had to fit Jonah in, so the wait in pre-op ended up to be longer than expected. But late tonight, he arrived home with a much ‘enhanced’ sling and an ice machine. He looked good and was in good spirits. It was a bit of an intense day for all of us, but all is well that ends well.
Christina Brodie and I both have birthdays the first week of March, but today was the first time our group could get together to celebrate. We went to Leeside in Woods Hole. I had hoped to go for a walk in the village after lunch, but it was just too cold and windy. But lunch was great. 
by Judy Handley | Apr 8, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 98: How to Eat an Elephant
Date: Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Weather: Cloudy with Rain, Windy, Freezing Tonight; High Temp 44, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
“The World Played Chess” is a book by Robert Dugoni, also author of “The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell” which I read a few years ago and loved. “The World Played Chess” is a coming of age story that revolves around the Vietnam War. But that description in no way expresses the depth of this historical fiction novel. For me, this book helped me to finally understand what “woke” really means. The book awakened me to devastation of the war in Vietnam like nothing else I have ever seen, read, or heard. I highly recommend this book.
Now to the question of the day, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer, of course, is one bite at a time. But here is why that is important. Tonight, I attended the weekly meeting of Indivisible Upper Cape where a woman elegantly spoke about recently being fired from her job with NOAA after 19 years of service. I don’t think I need to repeat her story. It is the same story we are hearing of so many federal workers. It was the way she ended her story that impressed me so much. She listed more than 20 things that each of us could be doing daily to push back and end by asking the question about how you eat an elephant. It is a great analogy for how we need to proceed each day in pushing back against what is happening in Washington to destroy our democracy. It is overwhelming, but one ‘bite’ at a time we can eat this elephant.
by Judy Handley | Apr 7, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 97: Happy 16th Birthday to Ziggy Milo Handley
Date: Monday, April 7, 2025
Weather: Drizzle On and Off All Day and Evening; High Temp 47, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Sixteen years ago today, a star was born. During the month of February and March, 2009, Mark and I were living in a tiny apartment in the Boat Lagoon in Phuket, Thailand. Windbird was on the hard getting a ‘facelift’ but we could see her from our tiny apartment balcony. We spent those two months falling in love with life in Thailand and overseeing the work being done on our beloved sailboat, which was also our home. We needed that work to be completed by early April because Justin and Jo were expecting their first child the middle of April and we wanted to be home for the birth. Heather and Jed were also expecting, but not until June. Our plan was to sail Windbird back to Rebak Marina in Malaysia and fly home to the US in mid-April, stay for a month, and then get to Cape Cod for the birth of another grandchild. Our plan was to be in Sante Fe, New Mexico, for Ziggy’s birth, but he decided differently. He decided to arrive a couple of weeks early. On this day, April 7, 16 years ago, just as we were dropping the lines to leave the Boat Lagoon for Malaysia where we would leave Windbird to fly home, Mark was checking for email one last time before losing our internet connection. There was an email from Justin and Jo saying that Jo’s labor had started. The message said that her water broke two days prior and that they had sent emails but didn’t hear back from us. Somehow, we never got those emails. We tried to call them while we still had land cell service, but they didn’t answer. We called our daughter Heather and found she had also received the emails and would forward them to us. We were literally drifting away from the dock while all of this was happening. But we knew we had to go ahead and leave so we wouldn’t miss our flights out of Malaysia in just a few days. As we sailed south, we heard nothing the next day. We changed our sail plan to stop at an island the following day where we knew we would have phone service. We arrived and rushed to land to try and contact Justin and Jo. We were successful and found that we had a grandson named Ziggy Milo Handley. He had a tough time getting into this world, but both mother and baby were fine. It was a moment of great relief after two days of anguish not knowing what was happening. We celebrated that evening by sending a Chinese lantern into the starry, starry night sky and cried tears of joy that our little ‘star’ was born. This is long, round about story of Ziggy’s birth, but a necessary story to explain while he will always be my shining star. Happy 16th Birthday to Ziggy Milo Handley.
I am at Heather and Jed’s tonight, waiting for Jed to get home from Town Meeting. As I said last night, Heather is in Boston and Jed is a voting Town Meeting member. I have been checking Falmouth cable television during the evening to see how things are going. Town Meeting is set for two nights each spring, but sometimes everything can get done in very long night. From what I have seen tonight, it will be two nights this year. And if so, they will probably close tonight’s meeting around 11 pm. Everyone here is asleep now, so I could go home. I’ll end this, check the tv one more time, and make my decision.
by Judy Handley | Apr 6, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 96: April Drizzle
Date: Sunday, April 6, 2025
Weather: Drizzly Off and On All Day, Clearing Late PM; High Temp 48, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
It was a very slow Sunday, with April drizzle on and off all day. We seem to be getting our share of April precipitation, so hopefully we will have beautiful May flowers. But in the meantime, it is a bit depressing. After such a full day yesterday, I have very little to report today. Heather left for a work-related few days in Boston late this afternoon. She will return home on Wednesday. Falmouth’s spring Town Meeting is tomorrow night, and Tuesday night if everything does not get done in one night. Jed is a Town Meeting representative, so I will get dinner for Jed and the boys tomorrow evening and probably Tuesday as well. Sam is at a Red Sox game in Boston tonight with his fellow classmates. This is one of their senior trips. Thankfully, Ollie has recovered from his cold, and Jonah is holding his own using just his right arm. All is well here. It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow with no hope of warmer weather until next weekend. But Wednesday is supposed to be sunny. I will look forward to that.
by Judy Handley | Apr 5, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 95: Hands Off Protest in Boston and Evening of Jazz in Falmouth
Date: Saturday, April 5, 2025
Weather: Overcast Am, Rainy PM Starting at Noon; High Temp 45, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
What a Day! I left home at 7:45 am to head to Boston with friends Christina and Warren Brodie to attend the Hands Off! protest rally in Boston.
If you read this blog often, you know I wanted to go to DC, but the Boston rally was great. There were thousands of people, all peaceful and joyous, despite our very serious mission. As we walked from the Boston Common to the Boston City Hall, there were cheers of “Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Trump and Musk have got to go.” And that was mixed with a band following along playing a mix of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ with ‘This Land is Your Land’. Shoulder to shoulder, we walked the half mile, albeit VERY slowly with so many people, but with a feeling of solidarity.
I heard from Bruce and Jane Woodin back in Falmouth that there was a great turnout here at home. And when Heather and Ollie were returning from a soccer game in Yarmouth, they sent great video from the rally around the traffic circle in Hyannis. A message at the end of the day from Indivisible said, “Today, millions of Americans flooded the streets (all across the country) to demand an end to Trump’s authoritarian power grab. We expected hundreds of thousands. But at virtually every single event, the crowds eclipsed our estimates.”
Then tonight Jane Woodin accompanied me as my ‘date’ for the Falmouth High School Evening of Jazz at the Coonemessett Inn.
The Falmouth High jazz band is really good. And that is despite the fact that my grandson Jonah could not play his trombone tonight due to his broke arm that is in a sling. But he joined the percussion section tonight keeping beat with various instruments. Great evening.
