2021 Life Logs, Day 263: Happy Birthday to Shadow
Date: Monday, September 20, 2021
Weather: Beautiful Day; High Temp 72, Low Temp 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Tonight we celebrate the full September Harvest Moon AND Sir Shadow’s second birthday. His present form me was a trip to the Pampered Paws ‘dog spa’ to get shampooed and groomed. I dropped him off just after 9 am and headed on across the bridge to the world on the other side. When you live on Cape Cod, crossing one of the two bridges to mainland Massachusetts truly feels to me like entering another reality. I drove an hour north to Newbridge on the Charles in Dedham for a short visit with friends Helaine and Alan Kanegsberg. We spent an hour catching up on life. The biggest revelation for me was that their only grandchild, Torston, is a senior in high school. Torston lives in Reno, Nevada, and I can remember when Alan and Helaine used to call him on Skype to read books together when he was in early elementary school. Time surely does pass quickly.

After visiting for an hour with the Kanegsbergs, I drove to a different part of Dedham to have lunch with my niece Candi. That was the main reason for my trip today. I wanted to visit with Candi and deliver a gift for her upcoming grandchild. Her daughter Amy is due to have a little boy in October. We ate at a place called CAVA that neither of us had ever heard of and it was great. It is a casual fast food chain restaurant serving Mediterranean food. I got a Greek salad with falafels and Candi got the same with chicken. It was so yummy.

I had planned to do some shopping, but just as we were getting up to leave, I got the text saying Shadow was ready to go. So I headed back to the Cape to pick him up and spend some time walking and playing with him. Karen Baranowski came over to deliver some steamers that Peter had bought and wanted to share. Lucky me. And I got Karen to take some birthday photos of me and my Shadow. Then I took more photos while we were playing fetch. He runs so hard and fast that his tongue is always hanging out when he plays. Very cute. Happy birthday to that furry, rambunctious, wild two-year old that I share my life with these days. Don’t know what I’d do without him.

I am listening to the last canner load of marinara sauce jiggling away in the pressure canner. I am going to end up with 57 pints from the 120 pounds of tomatoes. I have one more batch of tomatoes in the garden that are just about ready to pick and process. Then that will be the end of tomato processing for this year. Tomorrow is reserved as gardening day. I have tried to find time to plant arugula and kale for the fall for weeks. Tomorrow is the day!

2021 Life Logs, Day 262: ‘Fun Guys’ Popping Up All Over
Date: Sunday, September 19, 2021
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds; High Temp 70, Low Temp 53 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I love to refer to fungi as ‘fun guys’. The plural of fungus is fungi or funguses ‘Fun guys’ sure sounds better than funguses to me and it is just more fun to say it that way. I suppose due to the recent amount of rainfall, ‘fun guys’ are popping up all over the place in my yard and in the woods and along the road in my neighborhood where I walk with Shadow. It is a bit like watching spring flowers bloom. But are fungi plants? Well, no. Are they animals? Definitely not. They are in a Kingdom all to themselves . . . plants, animals, protists, monera, and fungi. Some of the ‘fun guys’ that have popped up cause me to do a little step around dance while taking Shadow out for a potty break in the woods. Some look like wooden flowers. Some look like pancakes. Others look like little troll hats. Some hide in the leaves and others grow boldly in the open like the little red ones that seem to be everywhere right now. So just as I appreciate the flowers that appear in the woods around the time of the spring equinox, I am learning to appreciate the ‘fun guys’ that are coming with the fall equinox this year.

I am once again writing this log while listening to the jiggling of the pressure regulator on the canner. I finished turning the second 60 pounds of tomatoes into marinara sauce today and am now in the process of canning. I won’t have time to complete canning it all tonight, but the remaining sauce can wait in the refrigerator until tomorrow night.

Tomorrow is a busy one for me. I take Shadow to the groomer which is up by the Bourne Bridge early tomorrow morning. I am then going to continue driving toward Boston. I plan to stop to have tea with the Kanegsberg’s before having lunch with my niece Candi. If time allows, I will do a quick Whole Foods and Costco run before returning to the Cape to pick up Shadow in the afternoon.

Speaking of Shadow, we had our second e-collar class today. These collars used to be called shock collars, but technology and positive training methods have improved and now most people refer to the remotely controlled collars as e-collars. When I attended the first training, I came home and followed the directions for training Shadow. On the first correction, he fell to the floor and yelped. The setting was exactly the same as it had been two hours earlier in the class where he had reacted positively for me and for the trainer. But it was such a strong reaction that I decided to hold off and wait until the second class to try it again. Today in class with Ian, the trainer, he responded beautifully, no falling in the floor and yelping. But when Ian returned him to me, Shadow hung his head and looked totally dejected for the remainder of the class. Ian thinks he is smart enough to be doing these things to ‘train’ me. But Ian also said in his work with Shadow he has come to realize that Shadow is much more emotionally sensitive than most other dogs. I might only need to wear the collar on Shadow and not even turn it on to get the results needed after some initial training. I will work with Ian to continue to learn to use the e-collar to keep Shadow from running into the street and from jumping on people and hope that with enough positive reinforcement I can keep him from dragging his head on the floor to make me feel guilty!

2021 Life Logs, Day 261: Up to My Elbows in Tomatoes
Date: Saturday, September 18, 2021
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds; High Temp 73, Low Temp 63 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

In last night’s log, I set a rather ambitious agenda for getting all 120 pounds of tomatoes processed and canned. I am 10 pounds shy of reaching today’s goal, but even with that that I might have been able to get all the tomatoes turned into marinara sauce and canned by the end of tomorrow except that I forgot that I have a dog training class tomorrow. I did get 27 pints canned today and we’ll just have to see how tomorrow goes.

I did take time to go see part of Jonah’s soccer game today. He and Sam are camping this weekend with their Scout troop, but they are camping close-by so Heather was able to pick him up and take him to the game. And later in the afternoon I took Shadow for his daily walk. Otherwise, I stood in the kitchen all day long. I love seeing all of the pints of marinara sauce coming out of the pressure canner. But doing 120 pounds all at once is tiring. The problem is that you have to take the tomatoes when they ripen and they all seem to ripen at the same time!

2021 Life Logs, Day 260: All Day, All Night . . . Tomatoes
Date: Friday, September 17, 2021
Weather: Early AM Rain, Cloudy Day; High Temp 75, Low Temp 64 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Tomatoes . . . 120 pounds of them is a lot to tackle at one time. This morning I picked up 30 pounds of Opalka paste tomatoes from Carrie at Peach Tree Farm to add to the 80+ pounds of regular tomatoes from Moonlight Rose Farm and the 10 to 12 pounds of San Marzano paste tomatoes from my garden. I started at 8:30 am and am just now shutting down for today. I divided the three different kinds of tomatoes in half and blanched, peeled, and de-seeded 60 pounds today, added the ingredients to turn them into marinara sauce and let the sauce burble for a few hours. I did the regular tomatoes first as they have more water in them than the paste tomatoes. While they were burbling away to make a thicker sauce, I then processed the Opalka’s. then the San Marzano’s and added them to the pot throughout the afternoon. I have an 18-quart pot, but it was not big enough to hold all of the sauce. When it was filled to the top, I realized I didn’t have anything long enough to stir it with, so I had to take time to go to Heather’s to get a long-handled spoon and another pot. Then I had to rearrange the refrigerator in order to get two huge pots in for the night. Tomorrow morning, the sauce will come out of the fridge and go back on the stove to burble for a bit longer. Then I will start canning. While I am canning the first batch, I will blanch and de-seed the second 60 pounds. Since the amount of sauce I have completely filled the 18 quart pot plus some, I think I will get 36 pints. I can only can 7 pints at a time so it will take at least five or six hours for the canning process. The second batch will wait in the refrigerator until Sunday morning when I will put it on to burble and hopefully get the whole batch canned before bedtime on Sunday night. That’s the plan, a little ambitious, so we shall see how it goes.

2021 Life Logs, Day 259: Tomatoes
Date: Thursday, September 16, 2021
Weather: Early AM Torrential Rain, Clearing Late Day; High Temp 7, Low Temp 64 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The morning began with one whopper of a thunderstorm and a period of torrential rain. The heavy rain was short-lived, but there was a little rain off and on until almost noon. When the sun came out, I headed to the Falmouth Farmers Market. It opens at noon on Thursdays, and I was there right at noon to pick up tomatoes from Moonlight Rose Farm. There were four boxes of big, red tomatoes waiting for me. While there I ran into a woman that I got to know at the gym during exercise classes pre-Covid. In fact, we both became disillusioned with schedule of classes that were being offered in the fall of 2019, so I think we both ceased coming to classes that fall and I haven’t seen her since. It was great to re-connect and we made plans to go for a walk together next week.

By the time I got home, played a bit with Shadow, and fixed lunch, it was almost 2 o’clock. I worked for the next two hours blanching tomatoes and then peeling and de-seeding them. It took two hours to do 20 pounds of tomatoes. Only 60 pounds of today’s tomatoes to go and then in the morning at 10 am, I pick up 30 more pounds from Carrie at Peach Tree Farm. Plus I have the 12 pounds from my garden. Lots of tomatoes to process.

I had hoped to get one more box done this evening, but just as I was finishing up the first box, I got a text from Heather asking if there was any way I could come get Jonah and take him to soccer practice between here and Hyannis. They have only one car right now as the van is in the shop having a radiator that was leaking fluid repaired and Heather had just found out that Sam needed to go to the doctor to get a referral for x-rays of his ankle. So I dropped everything and went immediately to get Jonah. Tomatoes will have to wait until tomorrow. I estimated it would take me four days to do all these tomatoes and I think I am still on track with that schedule.

Sam hurt his ankle during the first week of soccer practice. It had gotten better, and he played in his first high school game on Tuesday. I found out from Jonah this evening that Sam made a goal in that game. Sam has always played defense, but evidently on Tuesday the coach had him playing offense. Way to go, Sam. I do hope they can quickly sort out what is really wrong with his ankle and get him on the road to recovery.

As always, life is getting in the way of my plans. The plan was to get back to writing next week, but already my calendar for next week is filling up with other activities. I think writing might not start until October. But I will get there.

2021 Life Logs, Day 258: Beach Day
Date: Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Weather: Warm, Sunny, Windy; High Temp 80, Low Temp 68 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I cannot remember the last time I went to the beach with another adult just to sit and talk, relax, and read. I did that today with friend Jane Woodin and it was delightful. I am usually accompanied at the beach by Sam, Jonah, and Ollie and I love that. But it was nice to have the day with Jane. We went to Quissett and soaked in the beauty as well as the sunshine. At least I soaked in the sunshine. Jane’s dermatologist has given her marching orders to stay out of the sun, so she sat in the shade. I hope we get more chances to do this again this fall.

Tomorrow I pick up about a 100 pounds of tomatoes at the Farmer’s Market and will spend the next four days getting those tomatoes processed into marinara sauce and then canned. I am seeing red already.

2021 Life Logs, Day 257: Happy Birthday to Justin + Book Club and Sunset Cruise
Date: Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Weather: Partly Sunny; High Temp 74, Low Temp 64 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Happy 44th Birthday to Justin.
Jo rented a beach house for the celebration and bought new bikes for the whole family. The celebration started for Justin after work yesterday and continued throughout today. From the photos, it appears the beach house had a pool plus the ocean. I wrote to Jo and said I want to rent this beach house when and if I ever get to fly to Puerto Rico again. It looks like a great place to serve as a home base for a vacation and family visit.

My Newcomers book club met here today. I set up the chairs in Shirley’s yard down by the dock and it provided a beautiful and secluded spot.

As one member wrote to me afterwards, “It was a lovely spot to indulge our love of books, grandchildren, politics, and just being together. What a joyful bunch we are!” None of us really knows each other outside of our book club. We are a truly eclectic group of different political persuasions, but we so enjoy our time together. Initially we chose this group by meeting time. We all wanted a late morning book group and I am so glad I joined.

Then late this afternoon I went on a Newcomers Sunset Cruise on the Island Queen. We started in the Falmouth Harbor, went down the coast to Woods Hole passing Nobska Lighthouse, toured the Great Harbor and saw the Atlantis, a WHOI research vessel, on the dock, went through the ‘Hole” to Buzzards Bay, and then back to Falmouth Harbor. It was wonderful to be out on the water on a lovely evening.

2021 Life Logs, Day 256: Field Trip Planning
Date: Monday, September 13, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High Temp 81, Low Temp 59 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was beautiful and warm, but tonight is a bit chilly . . . a reminder that summer is coming to an end. My only activity today was a Newcomers Field Trip Planning Meeting. I love this group. It was started by teachers who decided it was time for adults to enjoy field trips the same as school children. It was so popular that it has evolved to include everyone, not just retired teachers. We meet once a year to decide what field trips we will do during the next year. Different members volunteer to plan the trips, and away we go to experience new places. This coming year I will be co- planning a trip to the Boston Museum of African American History in March and a trip to the Plimoth-Patuxent Plantation in May or June.

Tomorrow my book club meets here in the late morning and tomorrow evening I am going on a Newcomers Sunset Cruise. Perfect weather for these activities. On Wednesday it gets windy and then rain is forecast for Thursday and Friday. I will busy on those days processing tomatoes, so the rain will not interfere with that.

Tonight I had a wonderful, long phone conversation with my friend Linda Stuart who is no longer biking around the world. She and Mike are living near Denver, Colorado, and providing part-time childcare for their only grandchild. Grant is nine months old and is one lucky little boy to have Linda and Mike as grandparents. He loves to play in the water in the pool at their apartment complex and they take him hiking with them.

2021 Life Logs, Day 255: Typical End of Summer Sunday
Date: Sunday, September 12, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Really Windy (25-30 mph); High Temp 75, Low Temp 68 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

A soccer game in the morning, food shopping in Hyannis, walk and playtime with Shadow, dinner at the Goldstones. That was today and it was fairly typical of a late summer Sunday once school has started. Jonah is playing soccer with two different leagues this fall, a Falmouth travel team and a Steel United team. He had a Falmouth travel team game yesterday in Swansea which is about an hour away on the border between Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Heather went with him to that game.
Then this morning he had a Steel United game at the Cape Cod Academy between here and Hyannis and I decided to go to that one. I needed to do some shopping at Whole Foods in Hyannis, so this worked out great for me. They played a team from Boston today. In just two weeks the team has improved so much, and they won this game. The field was protected from the strong winds blowing this morning and it was warm and beautiful.

When I walked into Whole Foods there was display of beautiful artichokes. I could not resist. I bought six of them and sent a text to Heather saying I would cook them and bring them over to their house for dinner. I know they are working hard on getting boys to bed earlier now that school has started, so it made more sense to eat at their house. I also made salmon cakes and a chocolate decadence cake for dessert.

I have a few activities scheduled for the next couple of weeks and am going to be spending a good deal of time processing tomatoes into marinara sauce to can. So getting back to writing is getting pushed back for now. But slowly I am getting back into ‘normal’ life mode after Camp Oma. Maybe by the end of September I’ll be back in the groove and ready to write. At least that is the goal.

2021 Life Logs, Day 254: Remembering
Date: Saturday, September 11, 2021
Weather: Beautiful Day and Evening; High Temp 74, Low Temp 64 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I saw a sign today that said, “Never forget to remember.” It was in reference to 9/11, but it has haunted me all day. What does that mean? Of course, we always want to remember the loss of loved ones and celebrate their lives. We have fought wars for twenty years to make sure the world knows we won’t forget what happened on 9/11. But in the back of my mind, I wonder if that sign carried with it a bit of vindictiveness. I hope I’m just being cynical, and that it meant just what it said. But whatever, thinking about what happened in this country on 9/11, led me to thinking about what happened on January 6. On 9/11, the entire country united. A foreign adversary had attacked us. On January 6, citizens of our own country attacked our nation’s capital. What’s worse? Being attacked from outside or from within? For me it is the latter and in previous times, I would have assumed that everyone would feel the same way. But after January 6, an already divided nation became even more divided. I’m afraid I don’t see a way to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I finally just had to clear my mind of all the thoughts of 9/11 and January 6 because, for me, September 11 has a more personal remembrance and I only wanted to be thinking happy thoughts. Mark died five years on this day and certainly never a day goes by that I don’t think of him. I could write a book about all the wonderful things that Mark meant to me. I guess, in fact, I am writing a book that includes those things.
But on this day each year, I invite Heather and family to go out to dinner with me in honor of Mark. Tonight, we went to The Chart Room at Kingman Marine. They have greatly expanded their outdoor seating during Covid, and we definitely wanted to eat outside, not inside. But so did what seemed like a couple of hundred other people. I got there around 5:20, but by the time I got a parking place it was a few minutes later. Then I had to walk from the end of the parking lot to the restaurant which took another bit of time. By the time I got our name on the list, the wait list was already long. I was told it would be an hour to an hour and a half wait. I then started walking back to my car to get my mask that I forgot to bring with me, and while doing that I sent a text to Heather explaining the situation. They were almost there and decided that we would go for it and wait. Lucky for us the wait was a lot shorter than we had been told and we got a great table under an outside tent. The service was very good and while waiting for our dinner to arrive, we got to watch a beautiful sunset. Everyone loved their choices for dinner from Sam’s prime rib to Jonah’s best ever grilled cheese to Ollie’s stuffed quahog and clam chowder. Then in honor of Mark, he who LOVED sweets, we just had to have dessert. Ollie was so taken with his mudslide that he looked like he was worshipping it.

As we walked to our cars after dinner, Sam decided we all needed to go to the beach on the way home to get our toes in the sand. I asked what beach and Heather said it had to be Falmouth Heights. Evidently the night after Mark died, they were driving home from my apartment on the harbor and stopped at Falmouth Heights Beach to look at the beautiful almost full moon. Heather shared that when they were looking up, four-year old Ollie said that he knew Granddad was still out there somewhere and that he would never forget us . . . and we would never forget him. So, yes, it did have to be Falmouth Heights Beach tonight. And just as we arrived, someone was shooting off fireworks. Tonight, it was a bright crescent moon that was up there. Not a full moon, but it was still beautiful. And it is always a good idea to end an evening by digging your toes in the sand.