2021 Life Logs, Day 353: Revels and Boston Commons Ice Skating
Date: Sunday, December 19, 2021
Weather: Overcast Turning Sunny Late PM; High Temp 43 (Boston), Low Temp 24 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Shadow and I were up early to do our mile walk in the misty rain this morning. Then I left Shadow for the day to go to Christmas Revels in Cambridge with Heather and family.

We knew we would not be home until evening, so I asked my trusty friends Karen and Peter Baranowski to come over in the afternoon to play outside with Shadow. Shadow and I send a big thank you to them.

Fifty one years ago author and performer, John Langstaff, launched the very first Christmas Revels. Here is what he wrote in the program notes in 1971: “Long before there was a Christmas, man celebrated at this time of the year upon noticing the return of the sun to higher elevations in the sky. Pagan rituals sprang up around this event, later to become tangled with Christian lore, which called for a celebration at a nearly identical date. Folk dances, songs, and plays often blended and blurred the pagan and Christian traditions. The result was a unique type of expression that was both wild and holy.”

Each year since, with the exception of the year of Covid 2020, Christmas Revels has been performed in the beautiful Sanders Theatre on the Harvard campus in Cambridge. Heather, Jed, Sam, Jonah, Ollie, and I thoroughly enjoyed this year’s production which takes place in the present day. Usually, the audience is transported to another part of the world in a much earlier time. But this year, the ‘past’ visited the present at a 17th-century English pub, the George and Dragon, owned by an American couple and famous for its annual Christmas caroling party. I think it was particularly interesting to the boys as there were many references to the happenings in our lives over the past two years, including a plea for world peace and for reaching out in some way to the homeless among us. We all especially enjoyed the music played by the pub jazz band which was superb. It was a different kind of performance but still held true to the tradition of audience participation in the singing. That is by far the best part!

We attended an early afternoon performance and exited the theatre just before 3 pm. It was overcast and dreary when we entered, but the sun was shining brightly for our next adventure. We drove through Cambridge and across the bridge to the Boston Commons to go ice skate on Frog Pond. I was only an observer of this activity, but again, every one of us enjoyed it. I was dressed for the cold weather and sat on a park bench to watch the action. I could easily spot Ollie as he spun round and round the outdoor rink as he had on a bright blue tie-dyed sweatshirt. The others were a little harder to find amongst the many merry skaters, but I eventually got good at finding them all. As the sun sunk slowly in the background, I got to also enjoy watching the color changes in the sky. And we walked back to the van, we enjoyed the view of the State House gleaming in the setting sun.

As we drove out of Boston, we got to see a very dramatic full moon rising through the dark clouds. We had hoped to go out to dinner in Boston, which is our tradition, but due to the threat of Omicron, we cancelled our reservation at Fire and Ice and had a wonderful sushi dinner at home. After dinner, I helped Sam roll the cookie dough he made last night to make Chocolate Krinkles. Messy to make as the dough was very sticky, but delicious cookies which brought back memories for Jed as his grandmother used to make these same cookies. He doesn’t remember her dough being as sticky. He checked her recipe and it was the same as the one Sam used except his called for oil and Jed’s grandmother’s called for butter. Maybe we’ll try another batch with butter.

2021 Life Logs, Day 352: Christmas Cookie Frenzy
Date: Saturday, December 18, 2021
Weather: Overcast and Rainy; High Temp 46, Low Temp 40 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Weatherwise, today was the opposite of yesterday when it was wonderfully warm and sunny. Today it was overcast, cool, and rainy. A good day for making Christmas cookies. But Heather and gang went to Hyannis this morning to test drive a new vehicle possibility and ended up Christmas shopping their way home. I had texted Heather early in the day asking if anyone might be interested in making Christmas cookies and she replied that they were planning to do just that when they got home. But she added that Sam had deemed me the Cookie Woman saying they couldn’t make Christmas cookies without me. So late in the afternoon when they got home, we dove into a full out Christmas cookie making frenzy.

Now that the boys are older, all I had to do was hand them a recipe and they took it from there. I had made one batch of Martha Stewart’s sugar cookie dough in the morning ‘just in case’ they wanted to make cookies today and I put Ollie in charge of rolling out that dough and cutting out the shapes. I gave Sam a recipe for chocolate crinkles that are coated with confectionary sugar which makes them look like they are covered with snow. And Jonah got his favorite recipe which are Hersey’s Kiss cookies without the peanut butter. Sam was also in charge of the music and for the next two hours we all worked and sang and danced and made merry. Heather and I basically staid out of the way, only coming when we were called. But then Heather took the challenge of turning some little cube-shaped wafer cookies I bought into little presents by covering them with icing and putting a bow on with decorating icing. They will put those around a cookie tree the boys made out of the sugar cookie dough and sit it outside their gingerbread house that is yet to be made. We will continue working on this project after school this week and on Christmas Eve.

Tomorrow we are off to Boston to go to Revels at the Sanders Theatre, a beautiful concert hall on the Harvard campus. This is a tradition for us, but we haven’t been since 2018. In 2018, we went to both Revels and a Celtic Christmas, but in 2019 we decided to go to neither. Then, of course, last year in 2020 there were no performances. So, we bought our tickets for this year when they went on sale in October and when there was no Omicron variant. We are all very excited to go tomorrow even though we know it is a COVID risk. But everyone attending must show that they have been fully vaccinated and must be masked. We do hope our reveling will be done safely.

2021 Life Logs, Day 351: Beautiful Day from Beginning to End
Date: Friday, December 17, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Blue Skies, Warm Wind; High Temp 60, Low Temp 36 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The weather today was wonderful—bright sunshine, Cape Cod blue skies, a warm wind blowing. I reveled in it and enjoyed my walk with Shadow wearing no coat. But all good things must come to an end. It will be almost 20 degrees cooler tomorrow and getting down into the 30’s for a daytime high by Christmas. I took advantage of the warmth to get the kayaks covered for the winter and I put in the snow stakes around the driveway. This will be my fourth winter here in the cottage and there has not been enough snow to plow since I have lived here. But with the unpredictable weather, I put the stakes in the ground ‘just in case’. Then I went inside to get ready for the evening.

Tonight, my dining in group met at Midge Frieswyk’s for an evening of French food and festive fun. Midge’s beautiful home was all decorated for the holidays and looked fabulous. We started our food fest with delicious baked brie brought by Terry and Olivia and then moved on to a four-course dinner. Karen and Peter Baranowski brought French onion soup. Yum! That was followed by Midge’s seafood and chicken crepes. Yum! We then took a little break to share things people had brought for each other. I contributed an activity instead of a gift. I bought five jigsaw puzzles, each one with a scene from a different country. I gave one to each couple and one for Midge and one for me. The idea is to work the puzzle, take a photo to document your success, and then put the puzzle back in the box and bring it to the next dining-in gathering and trade with another member. This should keep us busy all winter. Midge gave each of us the cutest little chocolate mice and Terry and Olivia gave each of us a bag of Christmas baked goodies. Karen and Peter are going to keep us looking good with a gift of hand cream and lip balm.

The plan was to have salad after the main entrée, so we proceeded although we were all stuffed by this point. I provided the French country salade. We ended the evening with a yummy chocolate cake with caramel sauce made by Jane and Bruce. Double yum! Stuffed or not, it was wonderful to be together. Since the last time we met, Bruce and Jane have both had knee replacements and Peter had brain surgery. They are all doing great and for that we are all thankful. It was a beautiful day from beginning to end.

2021 Life Logs, Day 350: Marsh Mud
Date: Thursday, December 16, 2021
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, A Little Rain; High Temp 55, Low Temp 52 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Nothing on my ‘to do’ list for today got done. Life got in the way. I keep forgetting that you have to cook, clean, do laundry, walk and play with Shadow, and shop for groceries. That’s what I got done today. I did all of that except for playing ball with Shadow, so just before sundown we went down by the water to play. Things were going great. There was a strong, but warm wind blowing and we were watching all the geese in the water. About that time, I somehow I managed to throw the tennis ball a little too hard and it went into the water. I could see it right at the water’s edge, so I walked down the rocky embankment to retrieve it. It was low tide and all I needed to do was make one step on what looked like sand and I could reach the ball. Big mistake. What looked like sand was marsh mud with a light coating of sand. My right shoe went into the muck about 8 inches before I could pull it back. It was like quicksand. I had on my only pair of everyday shoes, other than my tennis shoes, and the shoe was covered in thick black muck as was the bottom of my jeans. I got the ball and headed back up the embankment just in time to hear my phone ringing in my back pocket. I quickly checked to see who was calling and it was a number from Virginia. What terrible timing. I knew it was a call from a relative of my Aunt Ethel that I had been trying to reach for two days. I answered the phone and tried to sound composed, but I could feel the mud squishing in my shoe as I walked back toward the house. I managed to slip out of the shoes at the door and come inside to finish the call. Then after the call I retrieved my shoe and started the clean up process. My bathroom still smells like marsh muck and now that the shoe is drying, I can see that it is still covered in a thin layer of muck. I soaked the bottom of my jeans in water and hung them in the shower, but they still stink to high heavens. I will have to continue the cleaning process tomorrow. But at least I was successful in getting more information about my aunt’s death.

2021 Life Logs, Day 349: Day Off
Date: Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds; High Temp 47, Low Temp 45 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I took the day off today and read. I started by reading emails from the past week that were not urgent but that I wanted to get back to. Every morning I read the NYT’s The Morning, but I often don’t have time to follow many of the links to other articles. The Monday, The Morning focus was the anti-democratic movement in the United States. I reread that and then downloaded an article from The Atlantic by Barton Gellman that was referenced. I first heard about that article last week on The Rachel Maddow Show when she interviewed Gellman. He was also interviewed by Terry Gross on National Public Radio. I highly recommend that you either try to find a way to read the The Atlantic article, “Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun” dated December 6 or listen to the interview on NPR’s Fresh Air aired last Thursday, December 9. That program is entitled, “The end of American Democracy as we know it?”

I took a long walk with Shadow and when I returned, I spent most of the rest of the day reading my current novel. I intended to just read while I ate lunch, but it turned into a true page turner, and I just could not put it down. In fact, I am going to head to bed and hope to finish it before I go to sleep tonight. That way, I can put my full attention to Christmas tomorrow. I need to inventory to make sure I have or have ordered everything and do some wrapping. I also have to go to Heather and Jed’s to see if there are any soccer cleats in the basement that might fit Coco. Jo sent a photo of her with her soccer team today. The majority are boys, and Jo said Coco was unimpressed by her coach today for commending her for a girl who stuck with it all semester and for being a good player. In her mind, she thinks he should be looking at her as a soccer player, not a girl.

2021 Life Logs, Day 348: Computer Tutoring Session and Book Club
Date: Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 52, Low Temp 30 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was a beautiful and a busy day. I started with an hour-long computer tutoring session. A Newcomers member, Art Gilbert, offers free one-on-one tutoring sessions at the Falmouth Senior Center. He is so popular that it takes a month or more to get an appointment, but it is worth the wait. From the computer session, I ran a couple of errands and then headed to meet with my book club. It was our first inside meeting since the beginning of Covid, but all of us have been fully vaccinated and boosted and we wore masks today ‘just in case’.

The literary interests of the members of this group are diverse and that was evident in our recommendations for books to read in 2022. Each of us brought a list of three books to present as possibilities. After each member’s presentation, we discussed the merits of the three books and chose one and paired it with a month. The one member that could not come sent her three suggestions in writing. Honestly, every book sounded fascinating, but we forced ourselves to come up with our favorites. Each choice seemed like a special gift. Since there are only eight of us, we will need to choose three more books at some point. We don’t meet in July, so we only need eleven books each year. We are set through September and at some point, we will go back over the list of recommendations and come up with choices for the last three months of the year.

Since so many people I know are always looking for book suggestions, I am going to list our recommended books here. The ones with three asterisks were the ones we chose. Happy reading in the New Year!

• ***The Immortal Irishman by Timothy Egan (2017) 384 pages
• Maid, Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive by
Stephanie Land (2019) 270 pages
• Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (2021) 626 pages
• Additional Choice—Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (2021) 250 pages

• ***This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger (2019) 424 pages
• Love and My Husband’s Daughter by Emma Robinson (2020 ) 268
pages
• Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
(2008) 425 pages

• ***The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria
Christopher Murray (2021) 352 pages
• Summer on the Bluffs by Sunny Hostin (2021) 400 pages
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, (2021) 600 pages

• ***Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (2017)
383 pages
• The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas (2017) 240 pages
• The Vanishing Half by Gail Honeyman (2017), 383 pages–Already
Read

• ***Miss Bensen’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce (2020) 368 pages
• State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton (2021) 512
pages
• Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (also recommended by another
member)
• Additional Choice–Ordinary Grace by William Kent Kruger (2014)
336 pages

• ***A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allegne (2020) 336 pages
• An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff (2012) 272 pages
• Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020) 304 pages

• ***The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley (2021) 480
pages
• Beloved by Tony Morrison (1987) 324 pages
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813) 380 pages
• Non-fiction Recommendation for Personal Reading—This Land is
Their Land by Bob Silverman

• ***Circe by Madeline Miller (2018, Reprint 2020), 416 pages
• Still Life by Sarah Winman (2021) 464 page
• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell ( 2021) 320 pages
• Recommended for Historical Fiction Readers–Beatriz Williams
books

2021 Life Logs, Day 347: The Sound of Music
Date: Monday, December 13, 2021
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High Temp 48, Low Temp 39 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today my grandson Ziggy in Puerto Rico had his first piano recital, along with three other students. He has only been taking lessons for a short time, but the video Jo sent of him playing at the recital was fantastic. Then I got a text from Heather asking if I would like to go to Jonah’s middle school band concert tonight. Jonah plays bass in the jazz band and trombone in the regular band. He had to wear all black tonight and he looked so grown up and handsome. The sound of music in the auditorium was wonderful. There were no in-person concerts last year due to Covid and tonight they took all sorts of precautions. You had to sign in with contact tracing information and you were asked to scan a QR code on the program and enter your seat number. There was also social distancing. All seats were labeled with a red or a green sticker. You could only sit in seats with a green sticker giving lots of space between people and everyone was masked. The district music director greeted people at the door explaining the Covid precautions and he started the program by saying how exciting it is to have live music programs once again. I certainly agree and really appreciate the care they took to make sure the event was done as safely as possible.

2021 Life Logs, Day 346: Great Day for a Walk in the Woods
Date: Sunday, December 12, 2021
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 59, Low Temp 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The sun was shining. The air was crisp. It was a great day for a walk in the woods with Shadow and a friend. We did a loop trail from Highfield Hall to the Punch Bowl and back in Beebee Woods. The Punch Bowl is beautiful pond surrounded by woods on all sides. When I got home, I put on a huge pot of chicken mineral broth to burble for the rest of the day. I finished the jigsaw puzzle I started with Coco when she was here. Then I read while Shadow slept at my feet. It was dark before I knew it and I had missed my chance to go out and play catch with Shadow. He didn’t seem to mind, however. He continued sleeping through most of the evening. That walk must have worn him out.

I saw a photo on Facebook of Ziggy and Coco after lighting the candles in their Advent spiral. Each year, Jo makes a spiral candle holder and puts 25 indentations in it, one for each day of December leading up to Christmas Day. The spiral image is found in all cultures over time. It is associated with the cycle of rebirth, time and seasons, and sometimes a spiritual journey. Ziggy and Coco add another candle each day in December. I love their tradition and might join them in doing this myself next year.

2021 Life Logs, Day 345: Reading, Puzzling, Watching, Partying
Date: Saturday, December 11, 2021
Weather: Cloudy, Rainy, Windy; High Temp 62, Low Temp 39 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The most notable thing about today was the weather. It was warm, even with a strong wind blowing. There was a little rain. Not enough to deter outside activities, but enough to make it seem dreary. Heather and Jed braved the weather and walked the 9-mile Falmouth Moraine Trail today as part of Jed’s 50th birthday celebration. And tonight, they had two couples over for a birthday dinner celebration. I got a text from Heather saying they enjoyed the walk and had a great evening with friends.

As for me, I did a little reading, a little walking, a little puzzling (almost finished my latest jigsaw), and I allowed myself to watch two episodes of a television series I am really into. I usually just watch one episode every night or two, never during the day. But it was a good day for binge watching. Then tonight, I went to a Christmas party at the home of one of my Newcomers Wine Group members. I knew almost no one there, but I had a couple of fascinating conversations. It was nice to be out with other people, but I was really glad it was so warm that we could actually be outside on the deck for most of the evening. The threat of a rising Covid presence makes being inside with other people a scary proposition. When I got home, I called my friend Lynne in New Zealand. We must have talked for almost two hours. I miss seeing her so much, but if Covid allows, she is coming home for a few months next summer and early fall. In the meantime, it sounds like New Zealand is the place you want to be during this pandemic. They have had only 46 Covid deaths since the beginning in the spring of 2020.

2021 Life Logs, Day 344: Remembering Aunt Ethel
Date: Friday, December 10, 2021
Weather: Overcast; High Temp 47, Low Temp 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was dreary and overcast and only became more so in the late afternoon when I got a text from a niece with a link to an obituary for my Aunt Ethel. She was my aunt by marriage to my mother’s oldest brother, but because she was like a sister to my mother, we were very close when I was young. She was beautiful and smart, an elementary teacher by trade, and had an absolutely infectious laugh. I last saw her when I arrived unannounced at her door on her 103rd birthday. And that was three years ago. At that point she was still living alone, still driving, and still young at heart. I took her on an all day road trip that day from her home in Roanoke, Virginia, to Monroe County in West Virginia, where she grew up and where she met and married my uncle who was fifteen years her senior. At the end of the day, I was exhausted, but she was still going strong. My uncle passed away in 1975 and eventually Aunt Ethel remarried and outlived a second husband by many years. She never had children, but her second husband’s family adopted her fully and made sure she was cared for in every way through the years. After she remarried, I saw her very few times over the years, but her influence on me as a young child was always with me. I had to smile when I saw the photo with the obituary. It was Aunt Ethel with her cat Bella that she loved so dearly. That picture had to be taken in the last six years and she certainly didn’t look like a centenarian. She was one amazing woman.