2021 Life Logs, Day 323: Beginning Food Prep for Next Week
Date: Thursday, November 19, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High Temp 60, Low Temp 30 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

What a difference the wind makes. Yesterday the high was 64 F and too warm to wear a jacket. Today was only 4 degrees cooler, 60 F, and a winter coat was not enough even though the sun was shining. I needed gloves. The difference was the wind. Tomorrow is not going to be as windy, but the high is forecast to be only 45 degrees F. I’m pretty sure I’ll need both my coat and my gloves for my walk with Shadow tomorrow.

Today I moved from house cleaning to beginning the food preparations for next week. As I have mentioned, Justin and family arrive on Tuesday and will be here for six days. They are staying at Heather’s, but all ten of us will eat our meals together there. We certainly don’t want to spend out precious days together slaving away in the kitchen, but we do have to eat. So, I am doing the bulk of the food shopping prior to their arrival and spending this weekend making things that can keep or be put in the freezer. I only have 96 hours left to get things done before they arrive, so I had better get to bed so I’ll have the energy to get lots done tomorrow.

2021 Life Logs, Day 322: There’s A Moon Out Tonight
Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2021
Weather: Party Sunny and Warm; High Temp 64, Low Temp 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was so warm today, but it looks like another nor-easter is headed our way and it is going to cool things down considerably. Tuesday night when Justin and family arrive is forecast to be in the 20’s overnight. Yikes! That will be our first dip into 20’s this fall. I talked to Justin briefly this evening and he said they are going to buy shoes for Coco and Ziggy tomorrow. Sandals and flip flops, the only shoes needed in Puerto Rico, are not going to do it once they arrive here, When Mark and I came home from Malaysia to New Mexico for Ziggy’s birth in April of 2009, we arrived in sandals. That was fine when we landed in Los Angeles, but when we got off the train in Sante Fe there were two inches of snow on the ground. Justin picked us up and took us straight to a shoe store. Justin remembers that and thinks buying shoes ahead of time is probably a better idea!

When I was in junior high school, a group called the Capris put out a song that I loved. Evidently not a lot of other people felt the way I did about that record because sales weren’t great and the group broke up. But every time I see a beautiful full moon, I hear the Capris singing, “There’s a (moon out tonight) whoa-oh-oh ooh.” And I sure heard them singing tonight. The moon is not officially full until the early hours of tomorrow morning, but it hung majestically in a clear Cape Cod sky tonight. There is also a partial lunar eclipse occurring around 4 am EST when planet Earth will be positioned between the sun and the moon. I will not be getting up to witness this. The beauty tonight was enough for me.

Monday of this week was shop ‘til you drop day. Tuesday was a do-nothing day. Wednesday was a super productive day. And today was just a middle of the road day. I got a few things done, but I was nowhere near as productive as yesterday. I dare not predict what might happen tomorrow. Yesterday I made granola for Heather and family. The only nuts they like in granola are sliced almonds. Today I made granola for me that is chocked full of nuts—almonds, walnuts, and pecans. I did a little house cleaning and then mid-afternoon I headed into town to pick Ollie up after school and take him to his violin lesson. Heather had a Zoom board meeting and Jed had to take Sam to the chiropractor, so they asked me to get Ollie. Last year I picked him up every day after school. I miss that, so I jump at any chance to do so this year. And the trip to Heather and Jed’s gave me a chance to deliver bags of groceries that we will need to feed ourselves next week. I am sooooo excited that my whole family will once again all be together. Only 117 hours to go.

2021 Life Logs, Day 321: Making Up for Lost Time
Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Weather: Party Sunny; High Temp 48, Low Temp 30 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

How can one day seem to have so many more hours than another? I did get up an hour earlier today and I put off doing my long walk with Shadow until later in the afternoon so I could dive right into the work early in the day. Otherwise, the two days were identical. But I got so much more done today. I did my best to make up for the lost time yesterday. I completed a number of the deep cleaning jobs that were on my list. These are things I do only once a year, usually in the spring. They didn’t get done this spring, so I was determined to get them done before the coming holiday season. What I didn’t get done today will be put on the spring cleaning list because I now need to focus on food preparation for Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco’s visit. I made a big batch of granola today and will spend Friday making a food prep list. I want to make as many things as possible before they get here so I can spend full time just enjoying their visit. They arrive on Tuesday night . . . six days or 144 hours to go.

2021 Life Logs, Day 320: Lost Day
Date: Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Cool; High Temp 48, Low Temp 30 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I’m literally not at all sure how I spent this whole day doing almost nothing. But I did. My ‘to do list’ is a mile long and maybe I was just overwhelmed by it. So, I procrastinated. Whatever, I’d better do better tomorrow. I salvaged my day by at least doing something to help someone else. Good friend, Bruce Woodin, has his knee replacement surgery today. Late afternoon I went to pick up Jane Woodin who had a knee replacement three weeks ago to take her to PT session. That was a three-hour commitment, so at least I know what I did for three hours today!

Tomorrow is house cleaning day. Wish me luck!

2021 Life Logs, Day 319: Shop ‘til You Drop
Date: Monday, November 15, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Cool; High Temp 51, Low Temp 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was a last minute decision to go shopping today, but Shadow and I took off and returned seven hours later. Costco was our first stop, and it is an hour and a quarter drive from home to Costco with no stops or traffic. When we arrived, I took Shadow for a walk and then went into Costco. I emerged two hours later with a cart load of clothes and food. I am usually a hunt and kill shopper, in and out in no time. But today I was shopping for a few winter clothing items for Justin and family and that took me longer than usual. When I did emerge, I packed the things in the back of the car, took Shadow for another walk, and then went back into Costco because there was an item I had forgotten to purchase. On the way home, I made another stop at Whole Foods to pick up some things I didn’t find at Costco. It was a shop ‘til you drop day, but a successful one.

The sun had set by the time I got home but there was still enough lingering light to play ball with Shadow. I had an early dinner and then took off again. This time I went to pick Ollie up after his Cub Scout meeting and take him home. Both Heather and Jed were attending the annual Town Meeting, so I volunteered to come get the boys to bed and stay until Heather got home. Jed is a Town Meeting member and is probably still at the meeting. But Heather just had to go make a quick presentation on behalf of the science community supporting the need for more affordable housing. The presentation was short, but she had to wait for her slot on the agenda. Even with the wait, she was home before lights out and got to say goodnight to the boys while I headed home.

2021 Life Logs, Day 318: Endings and Beginnings
Date: Sunday, November 14, 2021
Weather: Mostly Cloudy and Much Cooler; High Temp 62, Low Temp 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The storm last night blew in cooler weather. It looks like our wonderfully warm fall weather is ending, bringing us the beginning of more normal, cool fall weather. I was loving the warmth, but all good things must come to an end.

And speaking of coming to an end, the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, came to an end with agreements but no major steps forward. The diplomats struck an agreement that called on governments to return next year with stronger plants to curb emissions. I heard Bill Nye, the Science Guy, in an interview tonight say something that stuck with me. Personal decisions to recycle our plastic water bottles is not going to do it. We need whole government, whole world stronger plans now. But COP26 has ended. Bill Nye said the most important personal decision we can make is to talk about the climate emergency relentlessly to everyone we know. This can be our new beginning of heightened awareness.

According to an opinion piece in the NYT last week, one of the most compelling voices in Glasgow was the earth system scientist Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “We have more and more evidence that the planet is more fragile than we thought,” said Rockström. So it may be hard, it may be impossible, but his is not time to give up on trying to phase out fossil fuels and prevent these tipping points from tipping. Otherwise, we will be the punchline to a bad joke that made the rounds in Glasgow. Here’s the not at all funny joke.

Two plants are talking to each other. One looks like a beautiful blue marble and the other a dirty brown ball.
“What on earth happened to you?” the beautiful planet asks the brown one.
“I had Home sapiens,” answers the brown planet.
“Don’t worry,” says the blue planet. “They don’t last long.”

Let’s all begin talking about the climate emergency to spread awareness and hopefully to save Homo sapien selves!

2021 Life Logs, Day 317: Ollie’s Soccer Game, Planting Bulbs, Stormy Evening
Date: Saturday, November 13, 2021
Weather: Sunny Day, Stormy Evening; High Temp 59, Low Temp 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

This day went from beautiful to stormy and scary. I’ll start with the beautiful part. Ollie’s soccer team, the Tidal Waves, had their final game of the fall season first thing this morning. After yesterday rain, this morning was warm and sunny. Some of the kids on Ollie’s team, including Ollie, have been playing soccer together since they were two years old. Back then, they were just kicking a ball around at the Woods Hole Day Care Cooperative. It has been fun to follow them through the years.

Today they were all psyched. At their age, the league doesn’t keep score. But the kids do. According to Ollie, his team has won or tied all of their games. Today they tied, so Ollie announced to me that they won the league championship. There is no such championship, but the boys on the team felt like champions. One of the parents awarded a little trophy he had made on his home 3-D printer to Coach Rachel at the end of the game. The kids were so excited that you would have thought the team had won the World’s Cup.

Sam went with a friend to try out for a new (new to Sam) soccer league this morning. If he makes the team, he will play with them in the spring. Then later he joined Jed and Jonah at an Eagle Scout project workday. I came home from Ollie’s game to take Shadow for a walk and then I went to Heather’s to help her plant bulbs in her front garden area. It was still absolutely beautiful outside when I got home, so spent longer than normal playing ball with Shadow down by the water. Then I reluctantly came inside to cook dinner and do some work with photos on my computer. Heather sent a text requesting any good photos I have of the boys playing soccer this fall. As I went through the photos, I realized I really need a different camera with a good zoom lens for sports photos. This fall I have been using my phone. It takes great photos, but not at a distance. My old Canon does a better job, but it has seen better days. I have to do some research to figure out what I need going forward.

Around 6 pm I was in the kitchen and heard a pounding noise outside. I walked into the living room and realized it was pouring rain outside. What happened to that beautiful, sunny day? The wind was blowing really hard slamming the raindrops into the front windows. I turned on the television to check the Weather Channel, but I never got that far. Just as I turned on the TV, it went to a Weather Alert saying there was a tornado warning in my area. It was 6:10 pm and the wind was roaring outside. The warning said the tornado warning was in effect in the Mashpee area (about 3 miles from me) beginning at 6:20 pm. It was obviously in effect here right at that moment. I opened the hatch going down to the basement in case Shadow and I needed to make a quick escape. It was dark outside so I couldn’t really see what was happening, but I could tell the wind was blowing way more than 25 miles an hour. Just then, there was an update warning on the television saying to expect winds up to 50 miles an hour. Then electricity went off. It came back on almost immediately, but I must say I am not liking the frequency of these extreme storms. This one took me by surprise and was scary. After things settled down, I took Shadow outside and it looked like all was fine. It is now 10:30 pm and Shadow and I just went outside for his bedtime potty break. The wind feels like it is still blowing a good 25 miles an hour with higher gusts. Hopefully things will settle down by morning, but I wonder how many of the oak leaves will still be on the trees. They are just now showing their fall colors, so maybe they will hold on a bit longer.

2021 Life Logs, Day 316: What a Great Wine Group
Date: Friday, November 12, 2021
Weather: Rainy, Windy, and Overcast; High Temp 61, Low Temp 40 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The weather today was ugly. I took Shadow out for the first time at 8:30 am, an hour and a half later than normal, but neither of us woke up earlier. It was windy and overcast, but not raining. But by 9 am the rain came down for about an hour. Then it cleared a bit, so I took Shadow for his morning mile walk and then took him with me to do a little food shopping. We got home around 12:30 and shortly after that the rain started again. At 4 pm I had a Wine Group gathering at David and Diana Brassards. About the time I needed to leave, it started pouring rain. I thought I might melt if I went out in the deluge, but I just put on my raincoat and took off. Good news. I didn’t melt.

This evening’s wine gathering was an Octoberfest at David and Diana Brassard’s. Members were to bring their favorite German wine or beer. David and Diana went all out. They were dressed in their best Octoberfest gear. Diana was transformed into a biergarten maiden wearing a platinum blonde wig. She looked great. Others had on Octoberfest aprons, and I grabbed a pair of humongous sunglasses to complete my Octoberfest look. What a crazy but great wine group!

We first sampled German wines and then switched to the beer. Each presentation came with a paired food. We had sauerkraut with sausage, knockwurst with potatoes, warmed large pretzels, German cheeses, fruit, and a great cheese on rye bread topped with dates. Plenty of food to complement our German samplings. It was a great evening.

2021 Life Logs, Day 315: Veteran’s Day Parade, Beach Walk, Yard Work
Date: Thursday, November 11, 2021
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 56, Low Temp 46 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The Falmouth Veteran’s Day parade was back today after a year’s absence due to Covid. And it was a glorious day for a parade. What a proud mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother I was as I watched Oliver as American flag bearer for Cub Scout Pack 41, Jed as Cub Master leading all the Cub Scouts, Sam marching with his Scout Troup 38, and Jonah from Scout Troop 38 as part of the Honor Guard leading the entire parade. Then there were Molly and Joey Keefe who lived next door to Heather and Jed before they moved last year. Molly and Joey were like two additional grandchildren and today Molly was the flag bearer for the Girl Scouts and Joey for Scout Troop 38 marched right in front of Sam. I have watched Sam in that position in past years and it is good to see the responsibility being passed on to the younger Scouts. Heather was not in the parade, but she is the Super Mom that leads the Goldstone ‘troop’ forward. And as always, the firemen of Falmouth were flying Old Glory high above the library lawn. It was a picture perfect Veteran’s Day observance.

I did not stay for the whole ceremony as I had told Jane Woodin I would come take her for a walk. It has been two weeks since she had her knee replacement, but the doctor is still not allowing her to drive. Bruce was off having lunch with some of his buddies, so I offered to be today’s transportation. Jane loves Falmouth’s beaches and has been walking the parking lots of the beaches as they as nice and flat. Today we chose Old Silver Beach and put in thirty minutes of slow walking. She is making great progress.

Then I had to hurry home as the Goldstones were coming over for an afternoon of yard work. Jed used his chainsaw to continue to cut up the downed tree from our last storm. Jonah used the lopper to trim up the branches I drug down the hill so that he could throw them into the brush pile for me. Ollie used the leaf blower to clean off my back porch and grill area and then picked up the mess of branches in the backyard. Sam cut grass for the neighbors. Heather raked and I ran around making sure everyone was on task! Then Oliver discovered a new use for all those branches. He started making a fort big enough for all three boys to get into. That did it. I lost my workers to the fort, but all the batteries for the mower, leaf blower, and chain saw had run out of power and had to be charged. Besides, most of the work was done anyway. Sam has to return to finish mowing Shirley’s yard next door. And as Heather pointed out, after tomorrow’s rain and wind, there will be more leaves to clean up.

2021 Life Logs, Day 314: Enjoying a Beautiful Day
Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 61, Low Temp 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Quiet mornings at home can be delightful, but my quiet morning today was a necessity. I was recovering from a mostly sleepless night. The sleepless night was due to a strong reaction to my Covid Moderna booster vaccine yesterday. I was fine until bedtime and then the chills and aches started. I thought maybe it was from the hard work I did yesterday afternoon dragging all of those tree branches down over the hill, but once I went to bed and closed my eyes, the memories of my reaction to my first vaccine came filtering back through my mind. This was the same reaction, just not nearly as bad. I thought it would pass, but at 3:30 am I got up and took Ibuprofen. I had hardly slept up to that point, so it was time to take action. The next time I looked at the clock it was 7:30 am. I had slept like a baby for four hours. I took Shadow out for a morning potty break, and then we went back to bed until 9 am. When I got up, I felt great. Even the soreness in my arm was gone.

In the early afternoon, Shadow and I drove into town to Heather and Jed’s to do a laundry. While the clothes were washing, we went for a walk in Beebee Woods with friend Kate Eldred. We both had 4 pm commitments and had to do things before that, so we limited our walk to 30 minutes. Then we stood by our cars and talked for another 30 minutes. We should have kept walking!

I went back to Heather and Jed’s, put my washer load of clothes in the dryer and then headed home to drop off Shadow. I returned to pick up the laundry on my way to Ollie’s school, Mullen-Hall, for a ‘public’ after school band lesson. The fourth grade band practices after school on Wednesdays, and today the band teacher invited family to come watch an outside practice and performance. She has enlisted some middle and high school band students and a couple of adults to help with the after-school practice. Jonah helps with the trombone players, and then he plays his bass when they ‘perform’. Ollie is one six or seven saxophone players and Sam’s good friend Sebastian helps with that group. Another of Sam’s good friends, Robert, helps with the clarinet players and then plays drums for the group. At the end of the practice, the fourth grade band and their middle and high school and adult helpers performed Ghost Busters in the front of the school. It was great fun to watch. I got home in time to get in on the last few minutes of my Public Policy group Zoom discussion. The topic today was immigration. I hated to miss it, but I real wouldn’t have missed the opportunity of seeing Ollie playing that saxophone for anything. I am going to see Jane Woodin tomorrow. She is a member of the Public Policy group and I’m hoping she can fill me in on what I missed.