2024 Life Logs, Day 310: Election Results
Date: Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny: High Temp 66, Low 55 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
Sadness doeth prevail. Now, let’s get to work!
2024 Life Logs, Day 309: Election Day 2024
Date: Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Weather: Glorious Fall Day: High Temp 65, Low 58 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
What a roller coaster ride today was, and still is, for me. I will start at the very beginning, at one minute after the stroke of midnight. I stayed up to watch Kamala give her final campaign speech on the steps of Philadelphia’s Art Museum. The City of Brotherly Love was the perfect place to end her campaign as the speech was all about how we can go forward together as a country. She was introduced by Oprah, and as she left the stage, hand in hand with the second gentleman, Lady Gaga was singing “On the Edge of Glory.” The speech was uplifting and left me feeling so very optimistic. Then I took Shadow out for his last pee break before we went to bed. We walked out to the end of the driveway as we do every night, but all of a sudden, I felt like I was being watched. Shadow obviously didn’t have the same feeling as he was just happily smelling the leaves on the ground. I looked out toward the street and there I saw my stalker. I had on a headlamp so the coyote’s eyes that were staring at me and my Shadow looked like huge glowing devil eyes and they were only a few feet away. Shadow still didn’t notice, so I started walking backwards toward the house so I could keep my eye on our little friend. He watched us as we got further and further away and then finally, s/he walked away. Whew. Now the adrenaline was really running high but the over-the-top feeling of optimism had gone away.
After a good night’s sleep, Shadow and I headed out for a walk through downtown Falmouth. It was so warm that even the vest I had on was too much. The sun was shining brightly and everything was glistening. There was a little wind that kept the leaves dancing before us as we walked. As we walked by the entrance to Town Hall, I waved at the sign holders for Harris-Walz and Dylan Fernandez, a local running for state senate. Keeping the Harris-Walz signs in the ground at that location has been challenging during the last couple of weeks of early voting. My friend Judy Fenwick had to take on the job of babysitting the signs at night by taking them home with her nd coming back in the morning to put them in the ground again. If she didn’t, someone was removing them and either throwing them in the ornamental grass or just taking them away. Whichever, they were gone and replaced with Republican signs. But today they were there, and I was feeling optimistic again. But then, I drove by other precincts in town and found that at my precinct and the one in East Falmouth, there were no Harris-Walz signs, only Trump signs. That feeling of optimism started slipping away again.
I spent the afternoon doing some yard work and some packing for my upcoming trip to North Carolina, trying to put the election out of my mind for a few hours. I picked Ollie up after school and dropped him at home with the promise that I would be back before 5 pm to take him to this sax lesson. I went home to spend time outdoors with Shadow, did a little more yard work, and declared it time to end the day’s activities and get on with the evening. Heather and Jed were off to Dedham to attend the FHS soccer game. I dropped Ollie at his sax lesson and went to visit friend Karen Baranowski for a bit. Then after the sax lesson, Ollie and I headed downtown to have a sushi dinner at Bluefins Sushi and Saki Bar. That was definitely a high point in the day. When we got home, we watched the last quarter of the soccer game on NFHS Network which streams Live and On Demand high school sports. Sadly, Falmouth lost so it is the end of the soccer season. I watched election returns until Heather and Jed got home and am now home doing the same. But this is just too nerve wracking, so I think I am going to go to bed and get up in the morning to see how things are going. It is looking too close for comfort, so I am going to hope for an overnight miracle.
2024 Life Logs, Day 308: Keeping Busy on Election Eve
Date: Monday, November 4, 2024
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Warmer: High Temp 53, Low 52 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
This election certainly has my attention. And I got an email from my daughter-in-law’s mother in England this afternoon explaining that this election has the full attention of England as well. So much rides on the outcome, but now all that can be done is to wait for the results. While waiting, I decided I just had to stay busy. I spent most of my day sending emails and making phone calls. Before I leave for North Carolina on Thursday, I have to send out the agenda for the Encore Board meeting next Wednesday and building the agenda requires communicating with other Board members on various issues. And I had to send out an email to the Exploring Public Policy Group reminding them of our meeting next Wednesday. I talked to A Place for Mom to have them help me set up appointments for places in or near Mooresville, NC, where I might move my sister. I have an appointment with the powers that be at her current assisted living facility on Friday morning to try and work out some of the issues with her care. But in case that doesn’t go well, I want to visit other places to see what options there are. I canned the chicken bone broth I made the other day and I made a dessert for the Goldstones for tonight. After picking Ollie up after school and taking him home, I came back home to play outside with Shadow before the early sunset. Then I headed over to Heather and Jed’s to take the dessert over for the boys and to just hang out for a couple of hours while Heather and Jed were in meetings. The boys are fine alone, but I feel better being there just in case. And I count it as one of my civic contributions. Heather had Select Board meeting tonight and Jed had a Health Board meeting. While they are serving their community, the least I can do is support them by making sure things at home are going smoothly in their absence.
2024 Life Logs, Day 307: Falmouth Varsity Soccer—Go, Clippers!`
Date: Sunday, November 3, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Crispy Cool: High Temp 48, Low 33 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, Ma
Okay. I lied. Certainly not intentionally, but on a Wednesday, nearly two weeks ago, I wrote about how sentimental I felt about the fact that after 14 years of watching Sam play soccer, I had just watched him play for the last time. But then they made it into the regional finals and their first game in that series was on this crispy cool autumn afternoon here in Falmouth. I got to see Sam (number 16) play again, and they won.
The best part of the whole game was watching the over-the-top excitement of every kid on the team after winning the game. Post game when they ran across the field to greet the crowd, you could feel the joy.
The Falmouth Clippers now play Dedham, in Dedham, on Tuesday night. It is election night, but evidently high school sports do not stop playing just because of an election. Heather and Jed will travel to Dedham to see the game and I will stay here with Ollie. He has his saxophone lesson and really isn’t interested in traveling an hour and a half times two to watch a soccer game on a school night. Instead of watching a soccer game, I’ll have to try and interest him in watching election returns.
2024 Life Logs, Day 306: Dinner and a Movie in Woods Hole
Date: Saturday, November 2, 2024
Weather: Partly Sunny and Cooler; High Temp 57, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, Ma
Shadow got a bath today and I then spent a huge chunk of my afternoon dealing with yet another issue with my sister in North Carolina. There is an ongoing problem with the care givers at her assisted living facility leaving her in her pajamas into the afternoon. When her companion arrives in the afternoon and discovers this, they call or text me and I then have to call the facility to talk to the Care Manager. They have to check to see why this happened and call me back so I can call the companion to tell her what I have been told. Then I have to write up the incident and send it to the Health Director. And it goes on and on. So today I reached out to A Place for Mom to get recommendations for another facility in the area. I don’t know if I will actually move her, but I want to find out what else is available so I can visit the places while I am in North Carolina later this week.
That was the not so fun part of my day. The fun part was dinner with Heather, Sam, and Jonah in Woods Hole this evening and then going to a Woods Hole Film Festival showing of the film Water for Life (Aqua es Vida) with Heather. This documentary film follows Indigenous leaders Alberto Curamil in Chile, Francisco Pineda in El Salvador, and Berta Cáceres in Honduras as they face imprisonment, death threats, and even murder in the case of Berta, as they fight for the survival of their precious water natural resources on their native lands. The film was made over 12 twelve years and documents the struggle of these three activists who work tirelessly to stop multinational corporation hydroelectric projects, a hydropower dam, and a gold mining project that is releasing cyanide into their water. Any of these developments would destroy their agricultural way of life. The dedication of these people, their families, and their communities is amazing.
2024 Life Logs, Day 305: Fly Me to the Moon
Date: Friday, November 1, 2024
Weather: Some Sun, Some Clouds, Windy; High Temp 68, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
Fly Me to the Moon is the name of a movie I saw this afternoon. It is not an expression of what I would like to do right now to escape these last few days before the election. But since I am stuck here, I am trying to think of things to do to get my mind off politics. I thought going to a movie would do that, but things happening in the movie kept reminding me of politics. Ugh. The movie was released this July, but I had never heard of it. It was showing at the public library and a friend invited me to go. It takes place in 1968 as NASA is gearing up for the moon launch. And, yes, when Richard Nixon was President. It is billed as a romantic comedy, showcasing a different, light-hearted twist on the launch of Apollo 11. A fun movie, worth the watch.
