2022 Life Logs, Day 288: Ollie’s Soccer Game
Date: Saturday, October 15, 2022
Weather: Overcast AM, Sunny PM; High 67, Low 51 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

For the past few years, Saturday Falmouth Soccer Club games have been a staple. On some Saturdays, both Sam and Jonah would have an FSC game and Ollie a Falmouth Rec game. But this year, only Ollie is playing in the Falmouth league and today was the first game of his I have been able to attend. I was so glad the sun came out in the afternoon so we could enjoy a sunny, late afternoon game.

After the game, Heather and Sam headed to New Hampshire for Sam’s regatta tomorrow. Early in the morning, Jed and Jonah will drive to Harwich for Jonah’s 8 am game. I will not go to either of those—too far and too early—but I will be with them in spirit.

2022 Life Logs, Day 287: Mah Jong and Teeny, Tiny Ticks
Date: Friday, October 14, 2022
Weather: Rain and Windy, Clearing Late PM; High 66, Low 63 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

No. Mah Jong and ticks have nothing in common as the title to this log might indicate. I just experienced both today. During the night, I kept waking up when I rolled onto my left side. There were two places just under my rib cage that really hurt when touched. I assumed I had somehow bruised my side. Once I got up, I forgot about it. But when I was getting ready to go play Mah Jong, I put on a different top. In doing so, I once again felt the pain and decided to take a look. What I found were two very red spots with a teeny, tiny tick dug into my skin in the middle of each red spot. I quickly removed the ticks, rubbed the spots with alcohol, and took off for my 1 pm Mah Jong game. I had to set the ticks aside for a couple of hours.

In the fall of 2019, I joined a Newcomers group to learn how to play Mah Jong. I was just getting the hang of it when Covid came along, and I stopped playing for the next two years. This spring I joined another learning group. Again, I was getting the hang of it when summer came along and ended my playing again. Today was my first Mah Jong game since the spring. I am still learning, but the group I played with today was very tolerant. I will continue to play once a week and hope the other players can be patient with me while I continue developing my skills.

I must admit that I was a bit distracted today knowing I needed to talk to my doctor about the tick bites. As soon as we ended our games for this afternoon, I headed to a walk-in clinic to deal with the tick situation. Since I had a whole-body scan at the dermatologist’s office yesterday morning and no ticks were seen, I’m virtually positive that I picked up the little critters during my walk at Bourne Farm yesterday. The doctor agreed and prescribed one megadose of Doxycycline that I was directed to take at bedtime tonight. Then all I can do is watch for symptoms over the next six weeks. Sure hope the Doxy does the trick.

2022 Life Logs, Day 286: Bourne Farm AM, Sam to Rowing PM
Date: Thursday, October 13, 2022
Weather: Overcast, Windy, Rain Late Afternoon; High 66, Low 63 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the American chestnut tree was one of the largest, tallest, and fastest-growing trees in the forests in the eastern United States. Then they were taken from us by blight. This morning I had an 8 am annual dermatology check-up in North Falmouth and afterwards, I arranged to meet friend Kate Eldred at the Bourne Farm in West Falmouth for a long overdue walk. Shadow and I arrived early and parked facing the fields of the farm. Directly in front of me were three trees with people picking up something on the ground under the trees. I watched more carefully and realized these were young chestnut trees that were full of nuts, many of which had fallen to the ground and were being scooped up. Beyond the chestnut trees, people were picking pumpkins. And fields were filled with people walking their dogs. The farm, founded in 1775, was abuzz on this morning. It was overcast, but we still had a nice walk. We had to do a bit of back-tracking as more than once we came to dead ends on the trail, but we still had a nice walk with beautiful fall views. About halfway through the walk, I looked down and saw red Indian pipe growing. I have always thought there is only white Indian pipe, but I Googled it and sure enough there is a red variety. That was an exciting find.

By the time I got home, had lunch, and watched a bit of the Congressional Hearing, it was time to go pick up Sam and head to Harwich for rowing practice. We knew it was going to start raining at some point in the late afternoon. Sure enough, as soon as the boats got out on the water, the sky opened, and we had pouring rain for a bit. Then it calmed down and become more of a constant drizzle. Sam said no one minded the rain. They actually thought rowing in the rain was fun.

2022 Life Logs, Day 285: Lunch by the Dock, Wine Group Evening
Date: Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High 71, Low 56 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Today was a beautiful Cape Cod fall day. I invited Karen Baranowski over for lunch and we ate down by the dock. We had Quiche Lorraine, with artichokes added, and a fall salad of Brussels sprouts, bacon, pecans, and dried cranberries. All delicious. After Karen left, I made Leaf Pie (Swiss chard and Manchego cheese) to take to my late afternoon wine group. It was my pairing for my Southern Right sauvignon blanc from South Africa. It was a beautiful day and a great day visiting with good friends.

2022 Life Logs, Day 284: Book Club, Rowing, Shadow to Groomer
Date: Tuesday, October 11, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 65, Low 51 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Sunday night’s full moon is still hanging big in the sky above and the last couple of days have been ‘model’ fall days—mostly sunny, a little cool, just delightful. Today was doggie beauty shop day for Shadow, so we were up early and on the road to Pampered Pets for Shadow’s 9 am appointment. I dropped him off, stopped at the grocery store on the way home, checked email when I got home, and then it was time to head to my month book club. I came home, had a late lunch, and then headed into town to pick Sam up and head to Harwich for rowing practice. We left 10 minutes early so we could pick Shadow up on our way. It was a busy, but delightful day.

2022 Life Logs, Day 283: Sailing Day
Date: Monday, October 10, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 64, Low 46 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Heather and family headed to their sailboat late yesterday to spend the night aboard and go sailing today. I was invited to sailing with them today, so off I went. The drive from here to Marion was a beautiful reminder that autumn is in its pride here on the Cape. We don’t get the the bright colors found further north, but the subtle colors of fall were beautiful.
It was overcast early with very little wind, but just after I arrived at the boat, the sun began to burn through the clouds. It became partly sunny, and the wind picked up and we had a great sail. There was enough wind that the captain actually had to roll in the head sail and put out the jib to keep us a little more upright. We sailed south through Buzzards Bay, down around Cleveland Light, and back to Wings Cove. The wind was behind us on the way home and we sailed wing and wing for most of the return trip. It felt so good be out on the water.

2022 Life Logs, Day 282: Quiet Sunday
Date: Sunday, October 9, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny, Cool; High 60, Low 42 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Honestly, I didn’t do much of anything today. I did go to into town to run some errands and took Ollie to the skate park for an hour. I took Shadow for a walk early and played ball with him in the afternoon. And I watched a movie. That was my Sunday.

2022 Life Logs, Day 281: Celebrating Autumn with Ollie
Date: Saturday, October 8, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Cool; High 61, Low 42 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

There was a chill in the air today and the leaves are showing their fall colors. So, it was the perfect day to celebrate autumn with Ollie. When I picked him up last night to bring him to the cottage to spend the night, I asked him what he wanted for breakfast. His answer was crepes. I don’t think I have ever made crepes, so I looked up a recipe. It called for milk, which I never have, but I told Ollie I’d run to Family Foods in the morning to get some and attempt making crepes. My attempt went well. The crepes were delicious, but what wouldn’t be when smothered with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. I had some Reddi Wip in the refrigerator left over from a dessert I made for the Goldpebbles a while back. But Family Foods had heavy cream, so I bought that as well and made fresh whipped cream. Yummy.

Our decadent breakfast gave us the energy we needed for making fall-shaped (pumpkins, apples acorns, and leaves) sugar cookies and pumpkin cookie cut outs, and for decorating small pumpkins with acrylic markers. Then we went outside and worked together to do some fall garden clean up and clear the briars and fallen branches from the paths I walk in the woods around the house with Shadow. Ollie cut while I pulled and carried wearing my heavy suede work gloves. Mid-afternoon we went to Heather and Jed’s. Jonah was home from his morning soccer game, but Jed was reffing a couple of local afternoon games. Jonah and Ollie cut the grass and gathered up any leaves that had already fallen. Then we ended the day with a trip to the skate park. The boys haven’t been on their scooters at the skate park for months and they really enjoyed it this afternoon. By the time we got home, Heather and Sam were home from Sam’s regatta. They left at 5 am this morning and both of them were exhausted. Sam’s boat didn’t do as well as he had hoped, but I didn’t get to talk to him about it as he was napping in his room. I’ll have to wait and hear about this when I take him to rowing practice on Monday afternoon.

2022 Life Logs, Day 280: A Day with Grandkids
Date: Friday, October 7, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High 69, Low 47 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Today was the first day of a four-day vacation weekend for Falmouth students. I invited the Goldpebbles over to do some paid yardwork and two of them took me up on the offer. Jonah got an invitation to go spend the afternoon with his good friend Joey, so I had only Sam and Ollie. Sam’s job was to pull some aggressive weeds in Shirley’s lawn and then cut the grass. Ollie and I were the trim and clean up team, plus we worked in my gardens getting rid of some monster weeds, taking out some of the tomato cages to store them, and a long laundry list of other chores. At 2:30 pm, I left to take Sam home as he had some things to do at home before he and Jed took off for rowing practice. Ollie stayed at my house and when I returned, we spent another hour outside and then came in to start one of our planned fall arts and crafts projects. We are using acrylic markers to decorate small pumpkins. We barely got started when it was time to go pick up Jonah and then take both boys home to see their mom and have dinner. Heather returned this afternoon from a couple of work days in Boston and she will be gone all day tomorrow with Sam. Ollie is returning to spend the night with me as Heather and Sam leave at 5 am in the morning for a full day regatta in Worcester which is about two hours from here. At 8:30 am, Jed and Jonah head to Harwich for the first game in a tournament this weekend. There are two more games on Sunday and then one on Monday if Jonah’s team makes the finals. Ollie and I will stay here and hold down the home front. We will continue our pumpkin decorating, make some seasonal sugar cookies using our autumn cookie cutters, and finish up one last outdoor project. We should still have some sunshine for our outdoor work, but the temperature is dropping overnight–not getting as warm tomorrow as it was today and yesterday. But as long as the sun shines, I’m fine with that.

2022 Life Logs, Day 279: Sunshine
Date: Thursday, October 6, 2022
Weather: Sunshine; High 69, Low 55 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Once the sun came out today, I found myself singing a John Denver tune.

“Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high”

Glorious sunshine after days of rainy, overcast weather was most welcomed today. Unfortunately, my nephew Tommy was off the Cape before the sun came out. He was on the Cape for five days and never saw the sunshine. Tommy and I got up early and took Shadow for a walk around the neighborhood. Then Tommy said farewell to the cottage and to Shadow and we drove into Falmouth for a quick tour of Heather and Jed’s home and then on to Betsy’s Diner for breakfast. Betsy’s is a retro 1950’s diner in downtown Falmouth. Elvis was blaring on the sound system and Tommy had the Elvis omelet, while I had the Spin City. Great fun and “service with a smile” as advertised. Tommy then headed to Providence for his flight home and I returned home to spend time trying to catch up on life. Then at 3 pm, I headed back to town to pick up Sam and take him to rowing in Harwich. Heather was in Boston today and will return home tomorrow. Jed had a ‘Meet the Teacher’ night at the high school tonight, so when Sam and I got home at 7:45 pm, Jonah was busy fixing Mac and Cheese for dinner. I stayed until Jed returned home and came home to have an artichoke for dinner.

Tomorrow is the beginning of a four-day weekend for Falmouth students. I will pick up the boys at noon and they will spend the afternoon with me doing yard work and fall craft and cooking projects. Life is definitely back to normal.