2022 Life Logs, Day 278: Great Visit with My Nephew
Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Weather: Overcast, Misty Rain, PM Thunderstorms; High 60, Low 57 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

My nephew arrived around 5:30 this evening and we had a great evening visiting. I invited the Goldstones over for dinner, so we visited while we ate. Tommy arrived on Cape Cod on Sunday for a conference, and he has not seen the sunshine since arriving. The conference was at the Wequassett Resort and Golf Club, right on the water in Harwich. Despite the weather, it was a successful conference and he even managed to play 18 holes of golf. We are going to get up early and go to Betsy’s Diner for breakfast before he drives from here to Providence to fly home to Charlotte. Most of my family lives too far away for frequent visits, so it was great that Tommy could take time to visit before heading home.

2022 Life Logs, Day 277: Hurray–Negative Covid Test
Date: Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High 60, Low 57 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

This morning I tested negative for Covid. Today was day 13, but I haven’t tested since day 9, so it took me somewhere between 10 and 12 days. I was so happy, as my nephew Tommy from North Carolina is coming tomorrow evening for a one-night visit. Now we won’t have to be masked! I am baking lasagna right now for dinner tomorrow night. Heather, Jed, and boys will stop by at different times to visit with Tommy and have lasagna on their way to (in Jonah’s case) or from (in Sam’s case) soccer and rowing practice. I feel like I am back in the land of the living.

2022 Life Logs, Day 276: Depressing Weather
Date: Monday, October 3, 2022
Weather: Overcast and Windy; High 54, Low 52 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

The past two days have been cool, totally overcast, and windy. Not one little ray of sunshine. And it looks like the next two days will be more of the same with rain added to make it even more dreary. I think I am feeling a little better each day, but it is hard to tell as this kind of weather is certainly not my cup of tea. It makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide until the sun comes out. I got a little house cleaning done today and then took Sam to rowing practice. He has another regatta this coming Saturday, but it looks like practice tomorrow and Wednesday could be cancelled due to rain. Maybe it won’t be as rainy as forecast.

2022 Life Logs, Day 275: Another Day of Rest
Date: Sunday, October 2, 2022
Weather: Overcast and Windy; High 59, Low 49 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

It was another day of rest for me. I am feeling fine, but I just don’t have enough energy to do much of anything. In the meantime, life goes on without me. Heather and Sam headed to Lowell very early this morning and by 9 am, Sam’s boat won second place in their first regatta rowing together. Heather sent a photo and Sam looked so very happy. They stayed to cheer on the other boats from the Cape and Island Rowing Association and then they headed south to Mansfield to watch Jonah’s soccer game. Jonah got a ride up with a friend and then came home with Heather and Sam. I did not hear how his game went.

I reached out to Justin and Jo to find out if electric and water have returned after Hurricane Fiona. Jo got back to me letting me that both actually returned mid-week, but literally as she was writing the text to me, the electricity went out again. At least they had a break for a few days. Hopefully, this afternoon’s outage was temporary.

I did manage to make it through the day without a nap and made Tuscan Stew for dinner and did a little house cleaning. My nephew Tommy from North Carolina is on the Cape for a business conference this week and he is hopefully coming for an overnight visit on Wednesday before flying home. It’s a good excuse for getting the cottage in order.

2022 Life Logs, Day 274: Rainy First Day of October
Date: Saturday, October 1, 2022
Weather: Rainy All Day; High 59, Low 54 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

This first day of October was rainy from start to finish, so not much to report today. I felt the same today as yesterday but found myself exhausted by mid-afternoon after doing nothing. So, I put down my book and took a nap. Not sure if my lack of ambition was because I had no energy or just because the weather was so miserable. I am feeling fine tonight, so I will blame it on the weather. Unfortunately, it looks like we have more days of rain to come.

2022 Life Logs, Day 273: Happy Birthday to Heather
Date: Friday, September 30, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny, Getting Cooler; High 63, Low 51 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

This will be short as I really need to get to bed. I did get back to life as usual today and that doesn’t include a nap. Now I am exhausted, but it’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix. Tonight, I went to Heather and Jed’s for Heather’s birthday celebration. We ate out on the deck and I sat a my own little table. I took Shadow with me, and he enjoyed seeing the boys . . . as did I.
Share I am still testing positive, but I continue to feel better every day. Just don’t want to overdo it, so to bed I go.

2022 Life Logs, Day 272: Progress Toward Normal
Date: Thursday, September 29, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 63, Low 49 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

About 4 pm this afternoon, I suddenly felt a burst of energy. I immediately took off on a walk with Shadow and for the first time in nine days, I didn’t need to turn around and come home. We successfully completed the mile loop in my neighborhood. I think that is progress toward normal, so I’ll take it. Otherwise, I spent my day dealing with more of my sister’s health issues and reading. This bout with Covid has caused me to abandon my rule of no reading during the day. I have read many days away in the past week. Years ago, I read Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth and the next two books in the Kingbridge series. Last week when I was desperate for a book to read, I realized that a year or so ago I bought The Evening and the Morning which is billed as a prequel to the earlier trilogy. I am really enjoying it and find it hard to put down.

2022 Life Logs, Day 271: Not ‘Back to Normal Life’ As Hoped
Date: Wednesday, September 28, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 69, Low 52 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Last night I declared I was done with Covid and hoping for a ‘back to normal day’ today. That didn’t happen. Even though it is day eight, I still have lingering Covid symptoms. Very slowly the congestion is clearing, but it is the exhaustion that just doesn’t go away. I did try to take Shadow for a walk, but I didn’t get very far before turning around and heading home. But Covid was not the real reason that it was not a normal day.

I started my day by calling the hospital to check on my sister’s condition. I was assured that she was doing fine and would be released today. Then I got a text from my nephew Tommy who was spending his morning in Patsy’s hospital room. He had just gotten word that my niece Jennifer passed during the night. Of course, we were expecting this at some point, but that doesn’t lesson the blow. The rest of the morning was spent on the phone with family trying to decide the best way to tell my sister. Losing a child has got to be the hardest thing a parent can go through. Who was going to tell her? When were we going to tell her? Who was going to spend the night with her? She did come home mid-afternoon and her son-in-law and granddaughter came to her apartment to tell her. She took it stoically and when I talked to her tonight, she sounded good. Her sister-in-law, another Judy, came to spend the night with her. She is well taken care of. I will not fly down to be with her for a few days until I am free of Covid symptoms. I surely don’t want to fly while still congested.

I also spent a good deal of today watching the progress of Ian on the Weather Channel. My friend Jane Wooden stopped by to make a special delivery of printer paper for me (Thank you, Jane!) and we sat in the sunshine and talked about friends and family in Florida. I heard tonight that Mark’s nephew Danny in Naples is fine and his nieces Kristi and Stacey and families in Cape Coral are also safe. They were all in areas that were very hard hit, so I was very worried. When I heard that Ian made landfall at Caya Costa, it brought back so many memories. Caya Costa is a small state park on a barrier island just north of Sanibel and Captiva. It has been described as a wild beach on a remote island. Mark and I borrowed his dad’s little motorboat and spent our honeymoon anchored off Caya Costa . . . a beautiful spot in this world. But evidently a spot hurricanes like. Hurricane Charley in 2004 made landfall in almost the same exact spot.

2022 Life Logs, Day 270: Holding My Own
Date: Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Windy; High 74, Low 51 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

When I woke up this morning, I could tell that miracle I have been waiting for had not happened yet. I felt pretty much like I did when I went to bed last night. My stomach is still not quite right, I still have some congestion, and I definitely have brain fog, but I knew I felt a tad better because my back was giving me trouble. It probably has all along, but Covid issues overshadowed the back pain. Now it is back. But I didn’t get to think about any of us for long. At 8:35 am, I got a call from an aide at the assisted living facility where my sister resides. She had fallen and hit her head and they were informing me that they had called an ambulance to take her to the emergency room to be checked out. I spent a good deal of the rest of the day dealing with that. The CT scan checked out okay, but they found that she had a UTI and a slower than normal heart rate. They started her on antibiotics for the UTI and are keeping her overnight for observation. Hopefully tomorrow she will be back at home.

Other than talk to nurses and doctors and family members about my sister, I’m not sure what else I got done today. I did take an afternoon nap out in the sunshine and tonight I finished watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy and I took the last of the Paxlovid. So, I am ready to be done with this Covid life! Enough movies and medicine. Tomorrow, I hope to start getting back my normal life.

Tonight, I am thinking of Mark’s family in southern Florida. His sisters and brother that live in the Bonita Springs and Fort Myers traveled to the east coast to ride out the storm in the Ft. Lauderdale area. I watched the Weather Channel tonight but it was so depressing, I just had to turn it off. Ian just seems to get stronger every hour.

2022 Life Logs, Day 269: Better
Date: Monday, September 26, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Windy; High 70, Low 64 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA

I’m almost afraid to say this, but I think I have turned the corner on Covid. I am definitely better, still shaky at times, still cough once in a while, stomach still a little off, but otherwise, I feel good. This was day 6 and I have one more day of Paxlovid to take, so I am not declaring victory quite yet. Just saying I am better.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, but quite windy. In the afternoon, Jane Woodin stopped by to bring me some sunchoke flowers. She knows how much I love the yellow flowers. Having them inside is like inviting a bit of sunshine inside. While we were sitting outside visiting (masked and far apart), Karen and Peter drove into the driveway. They were coming to take Shirley’s recycle bin out to the curb, but their timing was perfect, and we all had a nice visit. When everyone left, I went inside and discovered that I had forgotten all about the soup I was warming up for a mid-afternoon lunch. When Jane drove in, I went outside to say hello. When that turned into a visit, I just completely forgot about the soup. As a result, I had totally charred veggies that had to be scraped out of the pan and a nasty smell that will be with me for a while. About that time, I heard Shadow bark and saw Heather, Jonah, and Ollie getting out of their van. They had been at Mahoney’s to buy chrysanthemums and bought a pot for me, as well as an inside, fall blooming plant, a cyclamen. Just seeing the boys in the driveway made me feel so much better. It has been only six days since I have seen them, but I have really missed them. They had fun picking tomatoes, hot red peppers, and purple beans in the garden, and they even found a few strawberries. They couldn’t stay long as Heather had to get them home so she could go to ‘Meet the Teacher’ night at Ollie’s school. She sent me a photo of an essay he wrote called, “I Am.” It is a beautiful example of why Heather has always called Ollie the Ollie Lama . . . our own ten-year-old philosopher.

I am a helpful guy who likes soccer
I wonder what lies beyond the known universe
I hear the clanking of hammer on anvil
I see the finished form of a forged piece of metal
I want to discover more planets
I am a helpful guy who likes soccer

I pretend to fall into a book and in stuck in the pages
I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders
I touch all of the moons, the planets, and the stars
I worry about the health of my guinea pig
I cry for all the poor people
I am a helpful guy who loves soccer

I understand the frustration of not being able to do something easily
I say that we are all different but interesting
I dream of going other places on earth
I try to help all others in need
I hope that the war will end soon
I am a helpful guy who loves soccer

by Oliver Goldstone

Wow!