2022 Life Logs, Day 128: Happy Mother’s Day
Date: Sunday, May 8, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Very Windy; High 53, Low 43 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, but most especially to my daughter Heather and my daughter-in-law Jo. Not only are they my daughters, they are the mothers of my fabulous grandchildren. I talked to Justin today and he assured me Jo was having a great Mother’s Day. And I was with Heather today and I know ‘she, me, and we’, all had a wonderful day.

Just after 8 am this morning, Heather, Jed, Sam, Jonah, Ollie, and I headed to Cambridge. Our first stop was Harvard’s Museum of Natural History. The street parking was free on Sunday, the museum was free until noon, and it was a sunny day. What more could one ask for? Warmth!!! The wind was blowing a steady 20 miles an hour from the northeast, and even with the sun, it was chilly. It was a perfect morning for wandering through a museum. We started our exploration of the museum in the earth and planetary science gallery that is filled with rare rock and mineral specimens. It was difficult to find a favorite as all the specimens were so interesting, but all of us were taken with a large fossilized ammonite shell. Now extinct, ammonite shells looked like nautilus shells, but are thought to have been more closely related to squids, octopuses, and cuttlefishes. Evidently during fossilization, this ammonite shell was “chemically transformed into an iridescent material called ammolite, which is aragonite.” It was spectacular.

Next, we visited the glass flowers exhibition. From 1886 to 1936, a father and son team from Czechoslovakia produced 4,300 glass models representing 780 plant species. The plants look so real that it is hard to believe they are made of glass. Heather loved the banana blossom. Ollie was trying to find all the items listed in a museum scavenger hunt. One of those items was listed as a ‘piranha’ plant which was a Malayan pitcher plant. Again, spectacular.

By this time, Sam was chomping at the bit to go see what he called the dead animal exhibits. There are fossils of animals, stuffed life-sized animals, sea creatures, forest creatures, animals from all around the world, beetles, birds . . . all creatures great and small. Jonah loved the huge python while Sam was partial to the tigers. Heather loved a painting of deep-sea tube worms and Ollie loved it all. Jed particularly loved the sea creatures done in glass. Years before the Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka were commissioned by Harvard to make the now famous Glass Flowers, they had made lifelike models of marine animals and many of those are on display in the museum. I fell in love with the little curly octopus done in glass.

Each of us truly enjoyed the museum visit, but as noon approached, we knew we had to move on. Sam had a soccer game at 1:30 pm in Cambridge but needed to be there by 12:45 pm for warm-up. And we were all in need of lunch. Jed found a bakery with sandwiches close to the field, and it was a great find. Each of us got something different, and each of us loved our choice. Sam ate on the way to the soccer field, but the rest of us had a little picnic beside the fields. The two teams were well matched, and both played a good game which ended in a 1-1 tie. As Heather noted, there was just enough drama to make it an exciting game to watch. And Sam played one of the best games I have seen him play. We were all freezing by the time the game ended, so we went on a search for coffee and hot chocolate before heading back to the Cape. We also made a stop at IKEA and picked up Cambodian take-out for dinner at Stir Crazy.

All in all, I was away from home for twelve hours today. I would never have left Shadow that long, but it was made possible due to the help of good friends Karen and Peter Baranowski. Peter has Covid, but is on the mend, so last night I sent a text to Karen asking her if she could come over and take Shadow out for a pee break mid-day today. I did not know that she had tested positive for Covid yesterday until this morning. When I found out, I sent another text telling her that under no circumstances was she to come over to deal with Shadow. But, of course, she and Peter came anyway and that allowed us to stay take our time coming home. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Peter and Karen.

2022 Life Logs, Day 127: Does Not Feel Like May
Date: Saturday, May 7, 2022
Weather: Cloudy, Cold and Windy; High 50, Low 44 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It’s that northeast wind that is making it feel so cold and it promises to be with us through Wednesday. It certainly does not feel like May, but I guess we just have to pretend it does and continue on. I put on my winter coat and took Shadow for his walk this morning. Then at 1:00 pm, I put that winter coat on again and went to Jonah’s soccer game. Ollie’s early morning game was cancelled due to the overnight rain, but Jonah was playing on turf, so I soggy field was not a problem. Besides, the wind had dried everything by afternoon. Jonah played his normal offense position during the first half of the game but was needed as goalie for the second half. He is just not big enough to be a goalie, but he did a great job. Goalies don’t run up and down the field to keep warm, however, and he was frozen by the end of the game. Ollie came home with me after the soccer game to cut Shirley’s grass. It was so high he said he felt like he was cutting hay like he has seen his Uncle Johnnie do in Maine!

Tomorrow morning, we are off to Boston/Cambridge. Sam has a 1:30 pm game in Cambridge, and I have been invited to come along. For a Mother’s Day celebration, we are going to Harvard’s Museum of Natural History and then out to lunch before Sam’s game. Since it is just too cold to enjoy doing yard work on Mother’s Day, we will just have to enjoy the beautiful glass flowers inside at the museum.

2022 Life Logs, Day 126: Mostly Cloudy, Rainy Friday
Date: Friday, May 6, 2022
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Rainy; High 62, Low 47 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was spent thinking about gardening, buying organic garden soil to top up raised beds and fill big black felt bags that will have Brussels sprouts and tomatoes growing in them, researching things to do in the Charlottesville, Virginia area the first week of June with Ziggy and Coco, renting a car that I thought I had already rented for that trip, changing appointments during that week, researching composting toilets for sailboats, checking out Eider (on paper and on the internet), another Cape Dory 36 Heather is checking out that is located in Brooklin, Maine, and making dog food. Poor Shadow. He really struggles with gastrointestinal issues. The recent food that had been working for him is no longer available on Cape Cod, at least for now, due to supply chain issues, and my substitute last week made his issues worse. I have ordered a trial of Farmers’ Dog food, but that won’t arrive until next week and who knows if it will work. So, I made a ground beef, sweet potato, kale, and quinoa mix for him tonight and he LOVED it. Now I just have to wait and see if his system loves it. What I made is very much like Farmers’ Dog food, so if it works, I can make some and buy some to give myself a break or for when I am out of town. One thing I have discovered in all of this is that the dry kibble I have been giving him might be the culprit. I eliminated that two days ago and he is so much better already.
The weather was not inspiring today. There were moments this morning when the sun tried to shine through the clouds, but those moments were few and short-lived. At least I got a lot of indoor things done and did a lot of thinking about what I will do when the weather is sunny and warm.

2022 Life Logs, Day 125: Shop ‘til You Drop on Cinco de Mayo
Date: Thursday, May 5, 2022
Weather: Sunshine!!!; High 63, Low 46 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

On this sunny Cinco de Mayo, I went with friend Jane Woodin across the bridge to shop ‘til we dropped. Actually, we just made a trip to Costco, but we did make a couple of other side trips . . . more shopping than I have done for some time. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed our little outing. When I got home, I went for a walk with Shadow, and then drove into town to pick up Jonah and bring him here to do yard work for a neighbor. Ollie and Jonah have said they will do the yardwork for two neighbors this summer season, Andrew and Lara, and Shirley. When I took Jonah home, Heather came out to say hello. We were checking our calendars and I saw a new entry for this Saturday. Sam is going to work at Corner Cycle. I am so proud of him for getting a job, but it literally brought tears to my eyes. How could he be old enough to work? My grandbabies are growing up.

2022 Life Logs, Day 124: Book Club Luncheon
Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Weather: Overcast with Light Rain, Fog Tonight; High 57, Low 47 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was another cloudy day with some rain. For my evening walk with Shadow, I wore my winter coat. It is not really cold out, but the damp, sunless days make it feel that way. Tomorrow we are supposed to get a glimpse of the sun before it disappears again for a few days. I can’t wait to celebrate the sunshine.

The highlight of my day was meeting with my book club for lunch. We cancelled our normal book club meeting for this month and decided to just meet socially. It was so nice to spend time getting to know more about one another and to talk about current issues rather than a book for a change. We did all bring a recommendation for a book that we have read recently that others might be interested in, but that was the extent of our book ‘talk’. We met at the Flying Bridge on the Falmouth Harbor and they let us sit in a huge dining hall that was empty other than us. With the threat of Covid rising again, it was great to have our own dining room. This morning I got word that friend Peter Baranowski has Covid. My thoughts are with Peter, hoping he has a light case and bounces back quickly . . . and that somehow Karen manages not to get Covid.

2022 Life Logs, Day 123: Some Enchanted Evening
Date: Tuesday, May 3, 2022
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High 56, Low 45 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

“Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger across a crowded room,
And somehow you know, you know even then,
That somehow you’ll see here again and again.
. . . Once you have found her/him, never let he/him go,
Once you have found her/him, never let her/him go.”

I love that song and many others by Rogers and Hammerstein. Their music dominated the early lives of those of us now in our ‘twilight’ years. Lyrics from musicals like Oklahoma! (1943), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951), The Sound of Music (1959) . . . just to name a few.
Tonight, my good friend Jane Woodin invited me to attend an opening celebration at the Cotuit Center for the Arts. This celebration hosted an evening of conversation, music, and art with Oscar Andrew Hammerstein, the grandson of the beloved librettist and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein. This event was free, and it was wonderful.

There was food, live music, complimentary drinks, and an intimate conversation between the Executive Director of the Cotuit Center for the Arts, David Kuehn and Oscar Andrew Hammerstein (pronounced ‘stine’ not ‘steen’), painter, writer, lecturer, and family historian.
The conversation kept me at the edge of my seat. The current Oscar Hammerstein described his grandfather as being ‘marinated’ in the theater as his father, his grandfather, and his uncles, all were in theater in various ways. When he went to Columbia in pre-law, he met and married, had a child, needed money, and reverted to the family ‘business’ of theater to make money. And he was good at it. As his grandson said tonight, “Theatre is a communicable disease.” He also shared a family belief about theatre: “When things are too emotional to say, you sing. When things are too emotional to sing, you dance.” He talked about how some of his grandfather’s music was specifically written to match the talent as in “South Pacific” with Mary Martin and Ezio Penza, while other scripts were rewritten to fit the talent, as in the case of Yul Brenner in “The King and I.”

The current Oscar Andrew Hammerstein, known as Andy, also talked about his life’s work as an artist. There were examples of his artwork in the background during the interview, and he pointed out how some of his work expresses space over time (circles), while other works express time over space (rectangles).

It was an enchanted evening. Thank you, Cotuit Center for the Arts. And thank you, Jane.

2022 Life Logs, Day 122: Atlantic White Shark Conservancy Field Trip
Date: Monday, May 2, 2022
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 54, Low 46 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Chatham is a lovely town located on the eastern most coast of Cape Cod in the area known as the Lower Cape. And located in Chatham is the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. I traveled there today with a Newcomers group. The displays are very informative and very user friendly.
After spending an hour in the Conservancy, we drove to the Chatham Fish Market where, in season, there are always lots of seals. But today not a seal was to be seen. Obviously, we are not ‘in season’ yet. We then had lunch in a Chatham favorite, the Chatham Squire. Fun day.

2022 Life Logs, Day 121: Breakfast, Soccer, Another Cape Dory
Date: Sunday, May 1, 2022
Weather: Sunny, A Little Warmer; High 62, Low 44 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Jonah, Ollie, and I started our day with French toast smothered with whipped cream and strawberries. Then Jonah was off to a Scout leadership committee meeting. Ollie went with me to take Jonah, but then wanted to come back to my house while Jonah was in his meeting. In the early afternoon, Heather and I watched Ollie’s soccer game that Jed was refereeing while Jonah and Sam played soccer on another field with friends. It was Sunday soccer time.

During all this, Heather received an email from the young woman who showed us the Cape Dory 36 yesterday. This morning’s communication was about another Cape Dory, a 33-footer, that could be viewed in Cohasset this afternoon. Heather couldn’t go as she was hosting her book club, so Jed, the boys, and I went. Heather wanted the boys to see if they thought the reduction of 3 feet made this boat too small for the family. This boat was one year older than the one we saw yesterday, but it was in much better shape and the boys loved it. In fact, all of us were impressed. And even though the trip took 4 hours of our day, I think we were all glad we went to see it. Jed and boys were going to give Heather a full report over dinner, and I shared all the photos I took. The boat search will continue, but we have all learned a lot in just two afternoons.

2022 Life Logs, Day 120: Soccer, a Sailboat, and an Overnight
Date: Saturday, April 30, 2022
Weather: Sunny; High 56, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

My morning started with a walk with Shadow and a then going to one of Jonah’s soccer games. The sun was shining, and the sky was a beautiful blue dotted with puffy white clouds . . . but I was still wearing my winter coat due to the chilly north wind.

This afternoon, Heather and Jed invited me to go to Tiverton, Rhode Island with all the Goldstones to check out a Cape Dory 36 sailboat that is for sale. They have been looking for a sailboat for a couple of months, but this is the first time they have gone to see one. Inside, the Cape Dory 36 is so much like Windbird that I felt right at home. Heather, Jed, and all three Goldpebbles loved the layout inside and, like me, they felt right at home in the cockpit. There are two other Cape Dory 36 boats for sale in New England right now, so they might try to check those out before making the decision to purchase. But I think they have agreed that this is the type of boat for them.

We had planned to have artichokes for dinner at my house when we returned. I had prepared them before we went as I knew the turnaround time was going to be tight as Heather and Jed were going out for a “jazz night” date. But it was tighter than expected because we spent more time going over every inch of the sailboat than planned. So, I sent Heather and Jed home with two of the artichokes and kept the boys with me for dinner. Then after dinner we made an obligatory stop at Smitty’s Ice Cream as it is the opening weekend for the summer. Oh, my, that ice cream was so good! I then took Sam home as he has to be up for an early soccer game tomorrow, but Jonah and Ollie decided to stay with me and Shadow tonight. When I dropped Sam off, they grabbed their PJ’s and back we went to the cottage. It has been too long since they have spent the night and having them here has made Shadow especially happy. The three of them are now tucked in for the night. Life is good.

2022 Life Logs, Day 119: Skylark Concert and Travel Planning
Date: Friday, April 29, 2022
Weather: Sunny, Still Chilly with N Wind; High 54, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was another quiet day spent walking with Shadow, working on editing The Voyage of Windbird, and checking into flights for another trip. Justin called yesterday and asked if I would be interested in flying to Virginia in early June to spend time with Ziggy and Coco while he and Jo attend a workshop at The Monroe Institute, Justin’s new employer. We can all stay on the campus, and I will keep Ziggy and Coco company during the days when Justin and Jo are in workshop sessions. I jumped at the chance to go as I really didn’t get to spend any alone time with Z and C while in Puerto Rico. This opportunity is perfect.

Tonight, I attended a Skylark concert. Skylark is a vocal ensemble made up of vocal soloists, chamber musicians, and music educators from around the country. Listening to this group sing is truly like listening to voices from the heavens and tonight’s concert was especially interesting. “What might happen if Robert Langdon, acclaimed professor of Symbology at Harvard University (and fictional hero of Dan Brown’s best-selling novels, including The Da Vinci Code), were enlisted to explore hidden symbols, secret codes, and long-forgotten historical connections buried in manuscripts of choral music over the centuries?” This concert was created by Skylark’s conductor, creative genius, and three-time Grammy-nominee, Matthew Guard, along with composer Greg Brown, and his brother, author Dan Brown. It made for a fascinating evening of code-breaking music.