2023 Life Logs, Day 192: A Day of Meetings
Date: Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 79, Low 68 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA

I made a super early morning trip to the cottage to load up some outdoor things that have been in the side yard and have been a bit of an eye sore. I had hoped to have time to take things to the Swap Shop, but I came home and gave Shadow a much needed bath instead. Then it was off to book club, home to meet Ollie after his pottery, meeting with Christina and working together to things ready for tomorrow’s big meeting, and a 3 pm meeting with the Encore treasurer. In the middle of all this, Ollie went to the beach with Lily, the Dearman’s daughter who is staying at Heather and Jed’s while doing a high school internship at WHOI. She made the offer and Ollie was excited to go. Then at the end of the day, I needed to switch out air conditioners. The one I put in on Sunday was working great, but I had evidently installed it improperly and it was leaking all over the outside of the house. The one I put in is not as good. It is cooling, but not enough to feel cool. I’m hoping that by tomorrow morning by some miracle it will be cooler in here since there will be twenty of us in here for more than two hours. I simply don’t have the time or the energy to put the other one back in. Now to bed to get ready for a busy day tomorrow.

2023 Life Logs, Day 191: Happy 90th Birthday to My Sister
Date: Monday, July 10, 2023
Weather: Cloudy; High 70, Low 65 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA

Happy 90th Birthday to my sister, Patsy. We will celebrate her birthday the day after her granddaughter’s wedding in late August when the whole family will be together. But today, her sister-in-law, another Judy, came to visit with her daughter and grandson. They took her out to lunch and brought flowers and a Happy Birthday balloon. Since I could not be with her, I was so pleased that some family could be with her to celebrate.

Camp Oma is with only Ollie this week. Sam was at work today and Jonah will not be home for two weeks. Ollie is in a pottery class at the Falmouth Arts Center from 9 to noon this week. The Center is an easy walk from here, so when the weather clears up, he will bike or walk to here at noon each day. Today was a rainy one, however, so I went to pick him up. He played on the tablet while I went to Walmart to get more plastic storage bins. While there, I decided to buy a Lego Technic car for him to assemble as I had to work on getting the final things stored away in order to get ready for the Encore Board meeting here on Wednesday. After lunch, Ollie worked on the Lego set for the remainder of the afternoon, taking breaks to help me get things set up for my meeting. During this time, we had a torrential rain. Once that passed, Ollie went outside to get some of my lawn chairs to put in the dining room for the meeting. There will be nearly twenty people here, so I needed to supplement my inside chairs. Setting up was so much easier with his help. Thank you, Ollie!

Tomorrow morning, I have a book club meeting. I will leave the meeting early to get home before Ollie gets here after pottery camp. I have a couple of meetings here tomorrow afternoon, so Ollie will continue to work on his Lego set. Then on Wednesday afternoon, after my Board meeting, Ollie and I will head downtown for the annual Falmouth Street Fair. There is never a lack of things to do in the town.

2023 Life Logs, Day 190: Another Weekend Workday with a Lunch Break
Date: Sunday, July 9, 2023
Weather: Cloudy; High 75, Low 68 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA

It was another weekend workday continuing to get things put away in the new house. But the highlight of the day was a long lunch break. Andrew and Lara Dearman brought their daughter Lily to Falmouth today to spend the next month doing an internship with Jed in his lab. The Dearman’s took us all out to lunch at Shipwrecked and then came to ‘meet’ my new house. I will miss being the Dearman’s neighbor when they stay here in their summer home , but I had to admit to them that I am really loving it here and not missing being in the cottage. Every day that I spend here, I love it even more. Lara agreed with me that this place has the same vibe as the cottage.

The Dearman’s left to spend some time with Lily. They were going to do a few things, have dinner, and then drop Lily at Heather and Jed’s around 7:30. They are spending the night in a hotel and will return to New York in the morning. Heather and Jed took Jonah to Mass Maritime for the ASLP (Advanced Studies and Leadership Program) two-week camp. I took Sam to a friend’s house for a birthday overnight after his day of work at Corner Cycle. And Ollie biked over to my house. We then picked up sushi and met Heather and Jed at their house for dinner.
I will spend tomorrow continuing to get things put away here and getting ready to host about twenty people here on Wednesday for the Encore Board meeting. After Wednesday, I will continue to move the items that still remain in the basement of the cottage. And I am hoping to get time to work in my garden and in the yard. I still have a few plants I want to bring here. So this move just continues on.

2023 Life Logs, Day 189: Weekend Work Day
Date: Saturday, July 8, 2023
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 78, Low 67 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA

It was a beautiful day, but I had to put everything aside to get ready for my first Encore Board meeting as co-president. I worked for six hours with Christina Brodie, the other co-president, to put together Board books for each Board member. We meet here at my house on Wednesday. It will certainly not take six hours every month to prepare for the Board meeting, but this one, being the first, took more preparation.

After leaving Christina’s, I stopped by the cottage and packed up a few more things. I need more coffee cups for Wednesday’s meeting, so I actually unpacked a bin in the basement labeled as ‘Justin’s Mugs’. I thought they were all mugs he had collected on our travels when he was young. But actually most of the coffee cups were vintage public radio cups. So, I brought a few home with me.

Tomorrow, I plan to get the things I have transported from the cottage in the past couple of days put away and get the house ready to host 15-18 Board members on Wednesday. It is what I need to do regardless of hosting a meeting but that gives me the extra incentive to get the job done.

2023 Life Logs, Day 188: A Birthday Memory Celebration for Mark
Date: Friday, July 7, 2023
Weather: Another Beautiful Day; High 76, Low 67 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA

Mark would have celebrated his 81st birthday today. Since he is no longer with us, Heather and family and I celebrated in his memory. They came to my new house and brought cheese cake and strawberries. We had a fire and ate and reveled in memories. Jed is still testing positive, just barely, for Covid, so he came masked and sat a good distance from the rest of us. Mark’s sister and brother-in-law, Mary Ellen and Lee, also called this evening, and we reminisced as well. Mark and I had a wonderful like together and I miss him so very much. But I carry his spirit with me every moment. And sometimes I think he is watching from afar.

A book club friend, Sally Holbrook, volunteered to help me bill her vehicle and mine with stuff from the cottage basement and deliver it here today. Thank you, thank you, Sally. We accomplished so much. After I got all of that packed in the basement here, Jonah, Ollie, and I went to the beach. But that didn’t work out as we thought. It was a beautiful, sunny, hot day until I we drove down to Falmouth Heights Beach. When we got there, it was very foggy. We drove on to Menauhant Beach, but it was foggy all along the water. We got out on the beach and it actually felt cold. There was a strong wind blowing and no chance of sunshine coming through the fog. Jonah got in the water and played catch with Ollie, but they pretty quickly decided to head back home. But we did make the mandatory stop at Smitty’s for ice cream.

2023 Life Logs, Day 186: Afternoon at the Beach
Date: Wednesday, July 5, 2023
Weather: Beautiful Day, Foggy Evening; High 79, Low 68 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA

It was a beautiful day, but I had to spend my morning on the phone with various health care providers for my sister. As her medical POA, I have to deal with all aspects of her health care and today was one of those days that I had to sit on hold waiting for people to talk to and then finding that they need more paperwork to talk to me. Frustrating. But it had to be done.

Sam doesn’t work on Wednesdays, so this afternoon, I took all three Goldpebbles to the beach. It was wonderful, but it was a wake-up call for me. I know Sam and Jonah are teenagers, but it didn’t dawn on me until today how that impacts Ollie. Sam and Jonah no longer dig in the sand and play,. They just like to get in the water and then lay in the sun. That is certainly not what Ollie wants to do, so I sat in the sand with Ollie and we built a sea wall. I think I will be doing a lot of this this summer. On the way home, we stopped for ice cream at Smitty’s which is another thing we will probably be doing a lot of this summer. As Sam noted this afternoon, Cape Cod ice cream never disappoints, and Smitty’s is one of the best.

Tonight I met Heather and boys at the beach for the delayed 4th of July fireworks . . . that were once again delayed. This time the delay was a late evening fog that rolled in. The fireworks should have begun at 9 pm, but at 9:10 all we could see were boats heading back into the harbor. Then we saw people beginning to leave. They had heard on the radio that the fireworks were delayed once again. But it was a great evening to be on the beach.

2023 Life Logs, Day 185: Rainy 4th of July
Date: Tuesday, July 4, 2023
Weather: Rainy Day; High 78, Low 65 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA

We had a rainy 4th of July. It rained overnight and in the early morning. Then the rain held off for a few hours—long enough for Heather’s neighborhood to have their 4th of July mid-day pool party. Then the rain returned. In the early evening we had thunderstorms causing the 4th of July fireworks to be cancelled for tonight and rescheduled for tomorrow night. So, our 4th celebrations will continue tomorrow. But I did watch the Boston Pops Fireworks on TV and Shadow and I are hearing lots of fireworks going off in town.

I had my own little Independence Day celebration. I got the remainder of the boxes unpacked and put away. Hurray! And I went back to the cottage and got everything left in the house packed up. That does not include the basement, but hopefully I can get the boys to help me get the packed boxes moved here and then pack my car with things that need to go to the Swap Shop. When that is done, I have to find a home for the pieces of furniture I am leaving behind. It is just small pieces, but I need to get them out of the cottage. Then I’ll start on the basement. But the immediate need is to get things out of the house. The never-ending move continues.

I think the new house looks great. Bruce and Jane Woodin stopped by for a few minutes this afternoon to see the progress and they loved what they saw . . . a living room with books on the shelves instead of in boxes, a dining room with a table and chairs and built-in shelving full of books and memorabilia, my little ‘office’ on the top of my old treadle Singer Sewing machine in the hallway, a bedroom with all boxes unpacked, a panty filled with food, and a fully working kitchen. It has taken 10 days to get to this point and it feels so good to be settled in.

2023 Life Logs, Day 184: A Wild Goose Chase of a Day
Date: Monday, July 3, 2023
Weather: Party Sunny, Morning Fog, Rain Overnight; High 78, Low 67 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA

It was one of those days when things just don’t work out. Heather had to work today, so I had the boys. We had not gone to the boat to pump all of the rainwater out of the dinghy due to July 4th weekend traffic. But traffic was lighter today, so we decided to do that. And as long as we were going that far, I decided to drive on up to IKEA to get the half-high book shelf I need to complete the living room. I have the television sitting on the top of one half high, but the base is a little longer than the shelf top and needs another shelf for support. Jonah was tired from his overnight and I needed a break from lifting and unpacking boxes, so off we went. Sitting in the car sounded like a good thing. But, unfortunately, IKEA did not have the book shelf I needed. Bummer to drive all that way and not get it. I should have checked the website before I went, but I didn’t. Then we went back to the boat and there was very little water in it. The friends of Heather’s who are letting her use their mooring had pumped it out for us because it was looking ‘precarious’. Good to have friends who will do that for you. So, the trip to IKEA and to pump out the dinghy were the day’s wild goose chase. Then, just now, I got a text from Heather. Jed got home from Denmark tonight and he has Covid. As Heather said, that complicates things a bit. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!

2023 Life Logs, Day 183: For the Love of Fish
Date: Sunday, July 2, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 76, Low 64 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA

Yesterday I wrote about the love of turtles because I believe I have turned into one. At least, I am working at the rate of a turtle. Today was all about the love of fish. I found out this morning that Ollie has talked his mom into letting him take my aquarium. Lynda, the friend and woman I rent from, is hesitant about having an aquarium in the house. She has just had all the floors redone and doesn’t want to take the chance of ruining them with an aquarium that might leak at some point. So, I have just left my aquarium at the cottage until I figured out what to do with it. The number of fish left had dwindled to only one as I have not been replacing any since I knew I was going to move. But I didn’t want to flush the one survivor! It was great news to hear that Ollie wants it, so we all went out to pack up a few things and to transfer the aquarium to 43 Grasmere. Ollie has named the lone Tetra Filmore. If Filmore survives the move, he will be getting some new friends.

Sam worked today, but Heather and the boys had an afternoon and evening of parties. Their next door neighbor from their previous house on Vidal was having a 50th birthday party. Happy Birthday, Melissa. Then Ollie has a friend named Reese who was having a party. And at 4 pm, they picked up Sam early from work to go to Sam’s friend Sebastian’s Sweet Sixteen party. Heather left Sam at that party long enough to take Jonah to an overnighter with a friend and bring Ollie here. He was bored with the teenagers. Heather returned to the party and Ollie and I accomplished so much. He helped me put hardware cloth around the small back deck to keep Shadow from escaping. In the evenings, I like to sit out there and not worry that Shadow might wander off. Well, while we were putting up the fencing, my fears materialized. All of sudden, Shadow was gone. We called and called, but he didn’t return. It was still light out, so I got in the car. As I reached the end of the driveway, I saw a couple walking down the sidewalk with a dog that looked like Shadow. It was. They live three houses away and found him in their backyard. He had gotten there by going through the woods behind our houses. The problem is that they live only one house away from a very street in town. My country dog is going to have to learn how to be a city dog and not stray away from home.

Ollie and I finished the deck surround and then went inside and put books on shelves. He was able to put things on the very top shelf in the dining room and it looks great. Later Heather returned to pick up Ollie, but she was going to have to go back and pick up Sam later. Instead of going home, the three of us ended up talking away the rest of the evening. A friend brought Sam home, so at almost 11, Heather and Ollie headed home. Ollie was really tired, but we had a great evening.