2021 Life Logs, Day 233: Still on Hurricane Watch
Date: Saturday, August 21, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Hot; High Temp 84, Low Temp 73 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

All of the Northeast is watching the progress of Hurricane Henri. Last night it was still a tropical storm but is now a Category One hurricane with 75 mile per hour winds and it’s effects are already being felt in coastal New Jersey and New York. Tonight’s Central Park “We Love New York” comeback (from Covid) concert had to stopped halfway through due to lightening and the seas are churning out on the tip of Long Island. It was a beautiful day and evening here, but that will change overnight. It does look like Henri has decided not to make landfall on Cape Cod, but the tidal surge could be significant. Parts of Massachusetts are bracing for flooding and who knows what will happen with the power grid once trees start falling. Henri has forced me to evaluate my level of storm preparedness and I don’t measure up. I don’t even have a working headlamp in case of a power outage and the two flashlights I have are not good ones. I’ll be fine this time, but I will be making an effort to update my power outage arsenal. I have a Honda generator that I could use to run my refrigerator, but it hasn’t been started since 2016. It is going to the shop for a ‘check-up’ as soon as we can be out and about safely. I’m going to stop writing and head to bed early so I can get up early to watch the weather in the morning.

2021 Life Logs, Day 232: Tropical Storm Henri
Date: Friday, August 20, 2021
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 80, Low Temp 70 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Much of today was spent checking on the progress and direction of tropical storm Henri and preparing for it. Is it going to make landfall as a hurricane? What category? What is the most likely landfall, New York City, Long Island, Cape Cod or somewhere in between? Are high winds going to be the biggest problem or storm surge and flooding afterwards? No one knows the answers yet, but tonight it is looking more and more like the direct hit will be in New York and not here on the Cape. As it follows the Gulf Stream northward tomorrow, we will get a better idea of exactly what it will do. Earlier today, it looked like a Cape Cod landfall. Tonight not so much. But whatever it does, we still have to deal with storm surge and flooding, possible power outages, and on and on. So, the preparation here continues. I made a lot of progress today, but I still have to dot the i’s and cross the t’s tomorrow morning. In talking to Heather tonight, I realized that I have totally forgotten to fill containers with water. That I will do first thing in the morning.

Otherwise, it was a quiet day here until tonight when I managed to talk the evening away on the phone! The first call was with my friend Lynne Kirwin in New Zealand. A few days ago, one case of the Delta variant was discovered and immediately there was a temporary, but mandatory quarantine. I wish we could move that fast in this country. Hopefully the quarantine measure there will stop the spread of the variant and things will get back to normal. I think normal is a word that in this country we might not ever be able to use again. Not much here seems normal these days.

2021 Life Logs, Day 231: Lunch at the Falmouth Senior Center
Date: Thursday, August 19, 2021
Weather: Overcast and Rainy; High Temp 77, Low Temp 70 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Friend Jane Woodin contacted me this morning and invited me to meet her at the Falmouth Senior Center for lunch. The new Center was built during Covid and just had its delayed-due-to-Covid grand opening this summer. It was my first visit, but since I have decided to avoid inside activities with other people as much as possible due to the Delta variant, I didn’t explore the Center. Jane and I ate outside in the courtyard, but then it started pouring rain. Then we did have to go inside to finish lunch. There were not that many people, so it felt safe enough and Jane and I happily talked away a hunk of the afternoon.

In fact, I think I basically talked this whole day away. I talked to my niece in North Carolina this morning, talked to Jane, came home talked to another niece from Tennessee. We talked for another hour about her mother, my sister. Then tonight I talked to my sister in North Carolina for another hour. When I finally got off the phone, I went outside to play with Shadow and a friend came by to drop off something I had left at her house and we talked. Then neighbor Andrew came over to ask what I do to prepare for a hurricane. What hurricane? I obviously haven’t been watching the weather and didn’t know that Tropical Storm Henri is expected to come close to New England on Sunday into Monday. Another neighbor had come to Andrew to tell him that if there is a storm surge it might come into his yard and he might need sand bags. Since this is Andrew’s first summer here, he was a bit wide-eyed. I explained that in the three years that I have lived here, there has only been one time when the water came a few feet into Shirley’s yard, but not his. But I did point out that the past owner kept sand bags by the gate into the walled inner yard. This storm will coincide with a full moon, so we will just have to watch carefully. While we talked, Andrew got the kayaks off the dock for me, so all I’ll have to deal with is outside tables and chairs. But I’ll wait to see what the forecast is on Saturday before doing that.

Today was not a good day for gardening as I had hoped. Maybe I’ll tape my mouth shut and get to that tomorrow!

2021 Life Logs, Day 230: Welcome Home, Heather
Date: Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Weather: Partly Sunny, Warming Up Again ; High Temp 77, Low Temp 71 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Welcome home, Heather! Heather returned home from a family vacation at Jed’s mother’s summer home in Maine today. I prepared dinner to take over and we are together on her deck tonight. She had to return home to get back to work and Jed will follow with the boys on Saturday. She reported that they had a wonderful time, but because it was much warmer than in past summers, activities were different. They usually spend a huge chunk of time walking every day, but Heather said they spent much more time in the water this year just to keep cool.
They also worked on building a tree house and finished getting the platform done yesterday. Jed sent a photo tonight showing how they put up rough hewn corner posts today. He hopes to get a railing up before coming home with the boys. Tomorrow I won’t have to go feed the kitties and guinea pig, so I’ll have to figure out how to spend my extra time.

2021 Life Logs, Day 229: Catching Up with Life
Date: Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Weather: Partly Sunny, Even Cooler; High Temp 76, Low Temp 68 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Camp Oma has been on hold for the past two weeks, but I have managed to keep myself super busy. Watching the Olympics, visiting with local friends, having friends from afar come to visit, spring cleaning in August, going to Heather and Jed’s twice a day for the past ten days to feed Zuzu, Mel, and Leo. These are a few of the things that have filled those two weeks. Soon things will return to normal, so today I tried to take a deep breath and make sure the mundane things in life are happening. I use Bill Pay through my bank to pay bills, but I do still need to go in and add the correct amounts each month. That took some of my day today. Tomorrow will be some of the same and then I will have dinner with Heather tomorrow evening when she gets home from Maine. And maybe I’ll get some gardening done tomorrow. At least that’s the goal.

2021 Life Logs, Day 228: Farewell to Kevin and Claire
Date: Monday, August 16, 2021
Weather: Partly Sunny, Even Cooler; High Temp 76, Low Temp 63 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Kevin and Claire drove their motor home ‘Tarmy’ out of the driveway this morning. That was a earlier than planned, but friends in Philadelphia contacted them late last night saying they could get together tonight but not for the rest of the week. So, they changed their plans and headed on. I was very sad to see them go but will just have to look forward to our next gathering.

I then headed to Heather and Jed’s to feed the kitties and the guinea pig. Heather will be coming home on Wednesday and Jed will head home on Friday or Saturday with the boys and life here will return to normal, whatever ‘normal’ means during this pandemic. Usually ‘normal’ for this time of year means cramming in all those things you wanted to do during the summer but didn’t get around to while getting ready for the beginning of the school year. Because of the Delta variant, what we hoped would be a ‘normal’ school year opening, we now have to just wait and see what is going to happen with that. So many uncertainties.
One thing I know for sure, however, is that the kitties, feisty Leo and aloof Mel, will be so happy to have their family back home. I did a laundry there this morning which gave me time to play with the kitties. We had a fun time.

2021 Life Logs, Day 227: Falmouth Road Race and More Good Vegan Food
Date: Sunday, August 15, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Cooler; High Temp 80, Low Temp 62 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was the 2021 Falmouth Road Race. Due to Covid it was downsized, but there were still 8,000 runners.
Kevin, Claire, and I headed out early to find a place to park and walk about a mile and a half down the bike path to the spot I had chosen for us to watch the race on Surf Drive. We went to cheer on Claire’s friend Megan and her friend Leah. I totally missed a photo of Megan, but got one with a glimpse of Leah behind some runners in yellow shirts. So no real photos to document their run, but we had a great time cheering on all the runners.

After the race, we went to Heather and Jed’s to feed the critters and then we drove to Woods Hole to drive the Road Race course on our way home. Once home, Kevin cooked a fabulous mid-afternoon lunch/dinner. He made a green bean and mushroom creamy casserole using cashews and mushroom broth to make the sauce. I used to make a green bean casserole with mushroom soup, but since I no longer use canned soups in cooking, I had not found a replacement. This casserole is it. I LOVE it.
I made the salad, but Kevin made the dressing, and it was also delicious. I have learned so much about a strictly Vegan diet while they have been here. Thank you, Kevin and Claire!

I was successful in clearing out some old sailing gear from the basement this afternoon to donate to Kevin and Claire’s new sailboat, White Raven. There were tools and charts that needed to find a home and they were successful this afternoon. Then we spent another evening sitting on the dock and watching another day come to an end. Kevin and Claire will be driving back to Princeton, New Jersey, and then on Philadelphia tomorrow evening or Tuesday morning. We have had a wonderful visit and I will be so sad to see them leave . . . but so thankful they took the time to come visit.

2021 Life Logs, Day 226: High Head Beach and Provincetown with Kevin and Claire
Date: Saturday, August 14, 2021
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds, Still Hot and Humid; High Temp 86, Low Temp 66 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

This was a day of exploration. Kevin and Claire wanted to take their motor home to Hyannis to empty the holding tank. I figured if we were going to drive to Hyannis, we might as well drive on out to the Outer Cape to see the seals and maybe a shark. So off we went. We got to the waste management place in Barnstable and successfully emptied the holding tank. And then the adventure began. We had planned to eat breakfast in the motor home after emptying the tank, but I assumed we would drive to some lovely little spot to do that. Instead, we found a ‘lovely spot’ in the waste management facility and ate there. I call that adventure! Then it was on to see the seals.

A couple of years ago, I went to a beach in Truro and saw hundreds of seals so I decided we would go back to that place. I knew the beach had ‘Head’ in the name and last night I got on Google Maps and found Head of the Meadow Beach. I figured that must be it . . . but I figured wrong. The place I had gone to was down a long unpaved road and you had to walk quite a distance through deep sand to get to the dunes that you then had to climb over to get to the beach. When we arrived at Head of the Meadow Beach there was a paved parking lot and a parking attendant to take your money. Could the place have changed that much in just two years? I didn’t think so, but we went in anyway and walked over the dune. What we saw was a mass of mass of humanity sitting under brightly colored umbrellas, lifeguard stands, and no seals. Claire started talking to one of the lifeguards and I told him what I had seen two years ago. He replied saying we needed to head to the next beach to the north, High Head. Should have checked my old logs last night.

We headed back out to the highway just a little north and turned onto High Head Road. Yep. This was the right road . . . a long, unpaved road with lots of pot holes. But we made it and parked Kevin and Claire’s motor home, Tarmy (named after a Ptarmigan). We then began the long walk down a road with deep sand, crossed the high dune, and immediately spotted the seals.
Much better. However, instead of the empty beach that I had encountered two years ago, there were lots of recreational vehicles lining the beach. The first time I had gone it was in September or October and there was no one else there. But even though there were people, there were lots of seals and we thoroughly enjoyed walking down the beach and out a sand spit with a few lone seals on either side of the sand spit and a Merganser duck that decided to skitter across the sand spit in front of us. The sailboat that Kevin and Claire sold last fall after living aboard for many years was named Merganser. Somehow this seemed like a good omen to me. There were not hundreds of seals, but there were enough to satisfy us. We observed, took photos, looked at them through binoculars, and just generally enjoyed a walk on a beach backed with high dunes. It was beautiful.

We walked back to Tarmy where Kevin fixed a huge and wonderful salad for each of us. It was quite a treat to be able to fix and eat our main meal of the day in the motor home. I loved traveling around the world on a sailboat because I always had my home with me. Today in the motor home felt the same way. After we ate, we decided to venture further out the Cape to Provincetown. Finding a place to park a motor home was a bit of a challenge, but Claire was at the wheel and was successful. But it meant walking a bit to the main street and that was going to take longer than we had planned. I had left Shadow at home and if we walked into town, we all felt it was going to take too long. Shadow had never been left for this many hours. So I sent a text to friends Karen and Peter Baranowski to see if they might go to my house and left Shadow out for a little pee break. Karen texted back that she and her granddaughter Ellen would love to do that, so it all worked out. Thank you, thank you, to Karen and Ellen. This gave us the time to walk down to Commercial Street in Provincetown to experience the hustle and bustle of a very popular Cape Cod destination. We didn’t stay long, but we all enjoyed the visit.

Once home, we ended another day by sitting on the dock to watch the last light of day disappear. We have all been amazed that we have had no mosquitos here in the evenings. Kevin and Claire will be here one more day. I’m hoping we can have one more mosquito free evening on the dock. It is a delightful way to end our days.

2021 Life Logs, Day 225: Meeting Up with a Friend of Claire’s
Date: Friday, August 13, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Hot and Humid; High Temp 86, Low Temp 72 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Kevin, Claire, and I had another delightful day doing nothing out of the ordinary. Kevin and I went to town early. I dropped him at the laundromat to do laundry for both of us and then went to Heather and Jed’s to feed the kittens and guinea pig. Just as I was leaving Heather and Jed’s, I got a text from Jed saying, “I just got a message that Kevin is tipped over.” There was more to the text, but this sentence stopped me dead in my tracks. How could Kevin be tipped over? And even if he was, how would Jed get that message? I just couldn’t figure it out, so I continued reading. The ‘Kevin’ Jed was referring to was their Roomba which the boys named Kevin. I searched the house and found him tipped over in the master bedroom. Thankfully when I got back to the laundromat, the other Kevin was just fine.

When we got home, Claire had made a new batch of muesli for breakfast and it was delicious.
While Kevin prepped our lunch/dinner, I mowed a path for Claire so she could walk down to the dock. She is very hesitant to walk on grass for fear of getting another Lyme tick, but she said she would walk down if the grass was short. Both Kevin and Claire had a few work phone calls today, but when those were completed, Kevin served our main meal of the deal which was a Forks Over Knives root vegetable dish with lots of garlic and basil and a salad with a dressing made my Claire. We ate in our elegant driveway eating spot. The food was beautiful to look at and it was all delicious.

Claire got an email today from a student at Princeton who is taking a summer Marine Biological Lab class in Woods Hole. She and another friend wanted to meet up with us where we could have seafood. I knew that the Pier 37 Boathouse has outdoor seating on a huge deck, so we decided to meet there at 4:00. Claire’s friend Megan brought one of her colleagues and we had a great time eating and talking. Megan and her friend are running in the Falmouth Road Race on Sunday and I wish them luck. To get them fueled up for the race, we decided it was necessary to make a trip to Smitty’s for a good luck ice cream treat.

Kevin, Claire, Shadow, and I ended our day by sitting on the dock and enjoying the bird life of the marsh. It was hot and humid today, but there was a wonderful breeze down by the water this evening. It was a great way to end a great day.

2021 Life Logs, Day 224: Free and Easy Day with Kevin and Claire
Date: Thursday, August 12, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Humid with a Breeze; High Temp 82, Low Temp 72 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

When I got up this morning to take Shadow out, Kevin and Claire were already returning from an early morning run. They then brought folding chairs from their motor home and had coffee in the driveway while I headed into town to feed the critters at Heather and Jed’s. When I drove back into my driveway and saw how comfortable they looked, I decided to move one of my small outdoor tables and three chairs out to make a driveway patio where we can eat while they are here. Kevin and Claire are sleeping in their motor home at night and Claire is working there during the day. Since they came here from a big family gathering in New Jersey, they want to minimize the amount of time we spend inside to protect me in case they might have been exposed to the Delta variant, so they both wear masks inside and in the car. Once again, Covid is complicating being together with other people, but I am constantly amazed at how creative we have all become. Dining in the driveway seemed elegant!

While Claire worked, Kevin and I went to the Farmer’s Market and then came home to prepare the one big meal they eat each day. Their new health regime is to eat between 10 am and 6 pm. They have breakfast and then graze on things like fruit and nuts and raw veggies until mid-afternoon when they eat their big meal of the day. Today Kevin fixed marinated veggies on the grill with quinoa and fresh organic corn from the Farmer’s Market. They don’t include any oil in their diet, so I learned that the recipe for marinade that I have made for years with olive oil and that Kevin uses as the basis of his marinade, doesn’t need the oil at all. I am trying to learn as much as I can from them about their plant-based diet and their daily fasting from 6 pm to 10 am the next morning. Tonight our ‘entertainment’ was watching a Zoom Masterclass from one of my health gurus followed by watching a couple of video presentations from their health guru who advocates a strictly Vegan diet. So much to learn!

We also took a late afternoon walk to the Knob in Quissett Harbor with Shadow. It was my second walk there this week, but I never tire of walking there. So beautiful.