2022 Life Logs, Day 188: July 7, 1942
Date: Thursday, July 7, 2022
Weather: Sunny, Breezy, Warm; High 76, Low 61 degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

If a day can be described as delicious, then today was just that. The sky was blue and the sun was shining brightly. There was a steady breeze. It was not too hot, not too cold, just right. Jed posted a copy of the today’s weather on Facebook this morning and said, “This is why people come here to Cape Cod for the summer….” And this is one reason why people who live on Cape Cod love it here. But instead of taking advantage of the perfect weather, I spent the day inside thinking about Mark Daniel Handley who was born 80 years ago on July 7, 1942. An early morning text from my son steered my thinking. Justin sent a link to an article about The Limits to Growth that he remembered hearing his dad talk about from time to time.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-infamous-1972-report-that-warned-of-civilizations-collapse/

Justin was correct. Mark did often talk about the 1972 report, The Limits to Growth published by the Club of Rome. It was the result of a study that used a computer model to simulate the consequences of human action on earth’s systems. The question was, “What is the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with a finite supply of resources?” The answers published in The Limits to Growth report captured the world’s attention. It stated that unchanged population growth and resource consumption would dramatically worsen the conditions for humanity within forty to fifty years. And that was fifty years ago. My question this morning was, “Have population growth and resource consumption dramatically worsened the conditions for humanity in the last fifty years?” I’ll let you answer that question for yourself. Unfortunately, at the time, this report was seen as a doomsday scenario by many. In the current article Justin sent, it states that The Limits to Growth model described scenarios in which humanity either reined itself in and got more sustainable and equitable, thus flourishing, or humanity continued letting capitalists plunder the planet and our civilization to its death. It outlined serious consequences to our actions. But by the 1980’s Reagan era, people were no longer talking about limits. Reagan’s personal response was that there are no limits to growth. We could have it all. Really?

I met political activist Mark Handley in 1973. The following is an excerpt from the Prologue to my book-in-the-making, The Voyage of Windbird. “There he was . . . the man of my dreams. I just didn’t know it quite yet. He was standing at the check-in desk at the Cross Keys Inn in Baltimore when he first caught my eye. I was there for an Eastern Public Television conference to give a presentation on how to help teachers better utilize instructional television programs in their classrooms. Surely, he wasn’t there for our meeting; he didn’t look like the rest of us. Even though the year was 1973, there were no hippies in public television management, at least none that I knew. At this conference, all the men wore blue suits with conservative ties and I and the other two women at the conference were dressed in suits. But this guy, he was wearing herringbone bell bottoms, expensive bell bottoms, mind you, but still bell bottoms. His shirt was sprinkled with little blue flowers like those on feed sacks in days past. His wool vest didn’t match his shirt or his pants. It had geometric designs in shades of tan and brown. His hair was a little too long and he had a beard. I walked on thinking he could not be part of our group.” A few hours later, I found out differently.

In the late 1960’s, Mark had returned from a two-year stint as part of a team setting up an instructional television system for the US government in American Samoa. He had returned to a country deeply divided by the Viet Nam War and in 1971 he joined a newly formed group called Movement for a New Society. At that point in my life, I had no idea we needed a new society. I was clueless. But Mark was hardcore. He had become close friends of one of the co-founders of Movement for a New Society, George Lakey, and somehow through that connection, he met Dana and Dennis Meadows, who in 1972 published The Limits to Growth. I never met any of these people because hours after I first saw Mark, we knew we were meant for each other. And only seven months later, we had sold everything we owned, bought five acres of land next to a national forest in northern Idaho, and were building a log cabin where we would live without any modern conveniences, including electricity. We believed there were limits to growth and we were trying to do our part to reduce consumption. Things changed, however, when we found out we were going to have a baby. We only had $250 of the $7,000 we started with and there were absolutely no prospects for employment for us in northern Idaho. We continued for the next ten years to try and live in a sustainable manner, but in 1984, we returned to what others called a ‘normal’ way of life.

So, these are the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head all day and I have a proposition for you. If you knew Mark, I propose you give him an 80th birthday gift. Think of just one thing you can and will do to reduce consumption starting today. Your gift can be something small like making sure you always turn the lights out when you leave a room or taking shorter showers. Or it can be something big like limiting travel in a fuel consuming vehicle or changing your diet to eat more vegetables which are more sustainable than more meat. And if nothing else, I do hope you will read the article linked above. Whatever you do, think of Mark when you do it:-)

Mark’s farwell parties 067

2022 Life Logs, Day 187: Joys of Summer
Date: Wednesday, July 6, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 81, Low 61 degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Clam chowder, strawberry rhubarb pie, gardening, time for kids to pursue special interests, baseball games . . . these are some of the joys of summer. The weather today was sunny and hot, the kind of summer weather I love. This morning I spent time gardening and I made clam chowder from clams that were the product of a clamming expedition by Peter Baranowski and his son who was visiting this weekend. When I was done, I sent a message to Peter telling him I had chowder for him just as I got a phone call from Karen saying they wanted to deliver a piece of homemade strawberry rhubarb pie to me. Great trade! In the afternoon, I took Ollie to the second day of his pottery class. When I took him home, I announced that I had a pot of clam chowder for him to share with his mom and dad. Jonah is away at camp and Sam does not eat clams in any form. But since clam chowder is Ollie’s favorite food in the world, he was so excited he hugged the pot. And I think Heather and Jed were even more excited. They were all going to a Falmouth Commodore’s baseball game. They wanted to take a picnic dinner, but they had no idea what it would be. Clam chowder was the answer. Then I came home and spent an hour reading, something I rarely do except at bedtime. But this new book is a summer read, The Nantucket Hotel by Elin Hilderbrand, a prolific ‘beach read’ author. I figured it is fine to take time to read a summer book any time during a summer day. It was a perfect summer day, and I did not spoil it with house cleaning. Those cobwebs are still there. Maybe I’ll get to that tomorrow. Maybe not.

2022 Life Logs, Day 186: Summer and Dust
Date: Tuesday, July 5, 2022
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High 72, Low 68 degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Tonight, I was having dinner with Sam and Ollie and at the start we held hands and I said, “Now it is officially summer.” Sam asked me what I meant by that, and I had to explain that I should have said “Now it is officially summer vacation for me.” Obviously, summer officially arrived on June 21. But because school didn’t end until June 29, because the boys headed to Maine for a few days immediately, and because we then had July 4th, Camp Oma didn’t begin until today. This is the tenth summer that I have been doing Camp Oma. It is going to be very different this year because the boys are older and have different needs. This afternoon, Heather and Jed took Jonah to the Mass Maritime campus for a ten-day Advanced Studies and Leadership Program, a residential college-like experience for 7th and 8th graders, and I took Ollie to his first of four 3-hour-long pottery classes. It still doesn’t feel like summer weatherwise, but today’s activities did make it feel like the first day of summer vacation to me. The updated Camp Oma has begun.

Somehow, I managed to skip spring cleaning this year and for some reason, I woke up this morning in a frenzy because this cottage needs to be dusted. There are cobwebs everywhere. Then tonight I was checking my Facebook feeds and I came across this quote, “You come from dust and you will return to dust. That’s why I don’t dust. It might be someone I know.” Perfect. Maybe those cobwebs can just stay here. Then I started asking myself, “Why are they called cobwebs, not spider webs?” Here’s the answer I found when I Googled my question. “Spider webs are called cobwebs because the old English word for spider was coppe. Turns out that cobwebs are only produced by Theridiidae (cobweb spiders) and Linyphiidae (money spiders) – all others should be just known as spider webs.” I kept searching and found that I might have a species of Linyphiidae called Neriene radiata. This is a filmy dome spider that is a sheet weaver. Whatever they are, we have learned to live together since I moved here. They are prolific, producing cobwebs faster than any spider I have ever encountered. Good excuse, but maybe tomorrow morning I will do a little cobweb removal.

2022 Life Logs, Day 185: Fabulous Falmouth 4th Fireworks
Date: Monday, July 4, 2022
Weather: Beautiful Day; High 80, Low 64 degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Falmouth’s 4th of July fireworks tonight were fabulous. Near the end, things got a bit frenzied and some of the fireworks went off at barge level making us wonder whether things had gotten out of control. If not, then it was just spectacular. But if so, hopefully everyone on the barge was okay and there was no damage. Either way, it was great to have fireworks again after a two-year hiatus due to Covid. Heather and family, plus myself, had front row seats on Bristol Beach which is right next to Falmouth Heights Beach, but much less crowded. I made one tactical error, however. Jed biked and I took everyone else in my car and parked too close to the beach. It was great getting there but getting out was a traffic nightmare. Next time I will definitely park much further away and either walk in and out a mile or so each way to avoid a traffic jam like tonight. Or better yet, bike from Heather and Jed’s. Jed had no problem and got home quickly and safely. Live and learn.

2022 Life Logs, Day 184: Did Nothing Until 5pm
Date: Sunday, July 3, 2022
Weather: Cloudy AM, Sunshine Mid-Afternoon; High 78, Low 61 degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Success! I managed to do nothing until 5 pm. I did stop at the Baranowski’s on my way home after dropping Sam at work. I got see their son David and his family and Shadow got to meet their dog, Duke, a Berniedoodle puppy. He will be one in September but is three times the size of Shadow. Then I did nothing until I picked Sam up after work and drove him to Gillette Stadium where he met up with Heather, Jed, Jonah, and Ollie who drove from Maine for a Revs soccer game. They sent a text after the game saying they had a great time and even got to watch a fireworks display after the game. Thankfully, Heather is feeling much better.

After dropping Sam off, I drove back to Bruce and Jane Woodin’s as a late arrival to a wonderful dinner party with other friends from our dining-in group. When I arrived, everyone was just finishing up dinner on Bruce and Jane’s deck. The deck looks great with all of Jane’s summer flowers. They saved food for me, but Bruce insisted on fixing a fresh burger. That seemed like a lot of trouble to me, but it was delicious, as was his strawberry sheet cake with strawberries for the red, blueberries for the blue, and whipped cream for the white. Before we left, Bruce introduced us to his newest ‘pet’—a one-year old horseshoe crab. So tiny and so cute. Using a special microscope attached to a monitor, we were able to watch Spike eat his dinner. Thank you, Bruce and Jane, for a lovely evening.

2022 Life Logs, Day 183: Not a ‘Do Nothing’ Day As Planned
Date: Saturday, July 2, 2022
Weather: Rain Early, Then Mostly Cloudy with a Few Raindrops; High 74, Low 66 degrees
Location: At Home with Sam, Falmouth, MA

Today was supposed to be the day when I was going to do nothing. That didn’t happen. I took Sam to work in his mom’s car, came back and had Sullivan Tire call a Lyft ride for me to come pick up my car, drove Shadow home to get his breakfast, and drove back into town for an 11 am program at the Museums on the Green called Celebrating Independence! with introductions by my dear friend Olivia White. I was ten minutes late, but at least I made it. Afterwards Bruce and Jane Woodin invited me out to brunch and when I got home, I took Shadow for a walk. As we walked past my neighbor Andrew’s yard that the Goldpebbles mow, I noticed it was looking a little shaggy even though Sam cut it less than two weeks ago, but it definitely needed a trim. So, I decided to mow part of it since there are no boys here to do it. It didn’t take long and I did then come inside to do nothing. The problem was that it was almost time to go pick Sam up from work. Maybe tomorrow will be a ‘do nothing’ day.

By the time I have gotten around to writing my logs the last few days, I have been too tired to think straight and have left out some very important details. Here they are:

The most exciting news is that on Thursday, Heather and Jed heard from the owner of Eider, the Cape Dory 36 they have been trying to purchase. He agreed to reduce the asking price to cover the cost of some of the issues found during the survey and sea trials. As of Thursday, they were scrambling to set a new closing date. Soon they will be Eider’s owners and we will have a sailboat in the family again!!! Congratulations, H&J.

More good news is that Heather is feeling a little better and her fever has subsided. The bad news is that results of blood test to determine if she has a tick-borne disease came back and revealed that she has Borrelia miyamotoi. This tick-borne disease infects humans through the bite of one of several species of hard-shell lxode ticks. These are the same critters that spread Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria that causes Lyme disease. So related, but not the same as Lyme. Borrelia miyamotoi infections have been successfully treated with a two-to-four-week course of doxycycline, so hopefully this will do the trick.

2022 Life Logs, Day 182: Tire Surprise
Date: Friday, July 1, 2022
Weather: Sunny; High 80, Low 69 degrees
Location: At Home with Sam, Falmouth, MA

Tonight, Shadow and I are spending the night at Heather and Jed’s with Sam as everyone else is in Maine. Sam returned from Maine this afternoon to go to the birthday party of a friend he has known since they both entered this world in 2007. I picked him up at the bus station late this afternoon, took him home to get dressed, and then took him to Sebastian’s party. Shadow and I went home for dinner and watched another movie! This is a record for me—three movies in two days. I changed gears tonight and watched Downton Abbey: A New Era. Just as the movie ended, I got a message from Sam that it was time to pick him up. We then went to his house to spend the night, as in the morning I need to take him to work here in town and it seemed silly to fight the July 4th weekend traffic from my house into town in the morning.

I spent the earlier part of my day driving in and out of town and fighting that traffic. I had to drive to town this morning to feed the kittens and guinea pig at Heather and Jed’s. While in town, I decided to go to the library book sale. I didn’t buy anything as it was overwhelming. Just too many books. I walked back to my car to go home, and it was then I realized that my front passenger side tire was almost flat again. Two weekends ago, the same thing happened with the same tire. Unknowingly, two weeks ago I had driven on it while it was flat and damaged the tire. It had to be replaced. Why was this happening again? I drove to Sullivan Tire to announce that my tire was cursed, and they agreed. Unfortunately, they were slammed at the time and couldn’t take a look until later in the afternoon. I decided to have them fill the tire with air so I could drive home, get Shadow, and figure out how I was going to pick up Sam without a car. I sent a text to Heather to ask if I could use her car. The last I had heard, it needed brake work and could only be driven for short distances. I hadn’t even noticed that it wasn’t in the driveway when I was there this morning. The good news was that the brake problem had been solved and it was at Sullivan Tire ready to be picked up. So, I once again braved the traffic to drive into town, leave my car at Sullivan’s. and pick up Heather’s car. I had to drive home again as I had not eaten lunch and I needed to get Shadow. Then it was back to town again to pick up Sam.

Basically, I spent my day driving to town and back in horrendous holiday weekend traffic. My car is ready to pick up, so tomorrow I will take Sam to work, pick up my car, and see if I can figure out a way to leave Heather’s car here at her house. Evidently the tire problem was sensor related. I will have to figure out what that means tomorrow. Right now, I feel brain dead. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will solve that problem.

2022 Life Logs, Day 181: Gardening, Gardening, Then Movie Night
Date: Thursday, June 30, 2022
Weather: Sunny; High 80, Low 63 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I gardened here and gardened there today. I did some planting and worked on my drip irrigation system here at home, went to Olga’s to check on the tomatoes I have planted there, and while there, I extended her existing drip irrigation to a raised bed where we planted cucumbers and squash. Then I returned home and planted the last of the tomatoes. By the time I came inside it was 5:30 pm and I decided to watch a movie. I really want to go see the new Top Gun: Maverick, but I wanted to watch the original Top Gun first. So, I decided tonight was the night. I loved Top Gun in the 1980’s and I think I enjoyed it even more tonight. That prompted me to watch yet another movie that I loved from that era, The Right Stuff. I enjoyed it but it was very different from the way I remembered it. For one thing, I didn’t realize it was so long—almost three hours, but again, I enjoyed every minute. Now I just have to find a time to go to the theater to see Maverick.

Heather and family arrived in Maine by noon today. I hope this wonderful weather continues so they can enjoy their long weekend there. I saw on Facebook that Justin and family arrived in England to spend a month there with Jo’s family. So I guess I am holding down the fort here at home.

2022 Life Logs, Day 180: Yard Work
Date: Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Weather: Sunny; High 77, Low 61 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was another beautiful day–not too hot, not too cool, just right. I spent the entire day doing yard work in my yard and in Shirley’s yard. Ollie got part of her lawn mowed after school yesterday, but I had to finish it today. I love mowing, but my oh my, my body is letting me know that I am not as young as I used to be. I finished the day doing some repairs to my drip irrigation system. I have to complete that in the morning. And I went to buy a bolt cutter so I could shorten some of my tomato cages for those tomatoes that I planted in big, felt growing bags. They are growing and have baby tomatoes, so it was definitely time to get the cages in place.

Today was the last day of school, and tomorrow morning Heather, Jed, Ollie, and Jonah head to Maine for a few days. They return on Sunday evening to attend a Boston Revs soccer game at Gillette Stadium and to celebrate the 4th at home. Heather is really not feeling good. Over the weekend, she had a fever and chills, body aches, and headaches. She has tested for Covid multiple times and that does not appear to be the problem. She is waiting for blood work to determine if she possibly has a tick related disease. She is feeling a little better today, but something is definitely not right.

2022 Life Logs, Day 179: Shock and Awe
Date: Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 75, Low 58 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Late yesterday the January 6 Congressional committee announced it would hold a last-minute hearing today. The witness was not announced. Hmmm? What was up? Well, today we found out.

I left home at 8:45 am to go pick Sam up after his last final to drive him to the bus station at South Station where he got on a bus that would take him to a stop in Maine very close to Boothbay. Our timeline was tight, but all went well. I did not have time to park and go in with him. I dropped him at the door and made him promise to text me once he was on the bus. The bus was to leave South Station at 11:15 am. We arrived at 10:59 am. I waited (illegally) outside the South Station entrance and finally at 11:11am I got the text from Sam that he was on the bus. I could then head home. I made the obligatory stop at Costco, this time to return things. In the end, I also bought a few things and was then on my way. Soon after I truly headed home, I turned on the radio and heard the words, “The January 6 Committee hearing begins in three minutes.” The next thing I knew I was in my driveway, unable to get out of the car for fear that I would miss the next revelation. If I had been reading a book, I would have called today’s hearing a real page turner. I thought I could no longer be shocked by anything former President Trump did, but this afternoon, I found myself shocked and ashamed that a President of the United States could act in the ways being testified to. I finally got out of the car and went inside to turn on the television to finish watching the proceedings. Finally, I tore myself away to take Shadow for a walk and then go get Ollie to do a little yard mowing. Life must go on.

Sam arrived safely in Maine and will return on Friday as he works on Saturday and Sunday. Heather and gang will head to Maine on Thursday and return on Sunday for a Boston Revolutions soccer game at Gillette Stadium on Sunday night and to celebrate July 4 at home.