2021 Life Logs, Day 103: All About Books . . . and Richard Simmons
Date: Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Still Windy; High 53, Low, 40 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Remember Richard Simmons? Evidently my children do. This afternoon I got very delayed birthday present from Justin and Jo. It was a Richard Simmons Chia Pet Planter. In the mid -1980’s when Heather was 10 or 11 and Justin was 8 or 9, Mark was diagnosed as having high cholesterol. The doctor told him to exercise more. My solution was to buy a couple of Richard Simmons exercise video tapes and get the whole family dancing and exercising. Heather, Justin, and I danced with Richard Simmons every day, but Mark never joined us. But the memory of those daily dance exercise sessions has caused more than a few laughs over the years. Thus, the Richard Simmons Chia Head. It was delivered to Heather’s, so I opened it when I took Ollie home from school. The boys didn’t appreciate the humor, but Heather and Jed both got a bigger laugh than I did. I sent an email to Justin and Jo telling them I have the greatest tacky gift party gift ever!

Now to the books. Last night after I sent my log, I did my every night bedtime reading. I am 487 pages into Barack Obama’s 700-page book, The Promised Land. Last night I was reading Chapter 21 that began like this: “At dinner one night, Malia asked me what I was going to do about tigers. “What do you mean, sweetie?” Malia replied, “Well, you know they’re my favorite animal, right?” And then Malia continued, “I did a report about tigers for school, and they‘re losing their habitat because people are cutting down the forests. And it’s getting worse, ‘cause the planet’s getting warmer from pollution.” She went on, but basically, she thought that because her dad was the President, he should try to save them. This introduction led into a great description about the role of the United States in the fight against climate change as seen through the eyes of the then President of the United States. The chapter ends when Obama returns from ten hours in Copenhagen in 2012 when the Copenhagen Protocol was signed. It extended the 1992 Kyoto Protocol which led to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. But the way the Obama team got the world players to sign on to the 2012 agreement was a fascinating story. When he flew home to Washington and returned home to the White House, it was late at night and the girls were asleep. Michelle just looked at him and said, “Malia’s probably going to ask you at breakfast whether you saved the tigers.” Obama replied, “I’m working on it.”

I had my book club meeting today and after that I continued writing my book. I went from reading a book to talking about a book to writing a book. That was my day.

2021 Life Logs, Day 102: Finished Another Chapter
Date: Monday, April 12, 2021
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Misty Rain Off and On; High 48, Low, 39 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

For me, today was a repeat of yesterday. The north wind is still blowing making it feel colder than the temperature indicates. And like yesterday, there was one brief period when the sun tried to shine through the clouds, but that was quickly beaten back. I spent the day writing and finished another chapter. It was a shorter chapter than others and might have to be combined with another later on, but for now I am writing about each new island group in a separate chapter.

This afternoon, friend Jane Woodin stopped by for a visit and then I went to pick up Ollie. Things are starting to pick up in terms of sports activities, so Ollie had to hurry inside and get ready for his first soccer practice of the season. His knee is much better with the swelling way down. The doctor said he can go to soccer practice but should not participate in the thirty-minute scrimmage at the end. His next appointment is next week and then he has an appointment at Children’s Hospital in Boston for follow-up the first week of May. Jonah has soccer practice with two different teams starting this week, and Sam has soccer practice starting this week and adds rowing in two weeks. Games are on Saturdays, so Heather said Sundays in the next two months will definitely be days of rest.

Tomorrow I start writing about our passage from Rarotonga back north 700 miles to American Samoa. Tonight, I counted the days we were in American Samoa and it was thirty. We spent an entire month there and then twenty more days in the ‘other’ Samoa, sometimes called Western Samoa. Justin and my niece Lynn came to Samoa to visit with us, so it will probably take at least two or three weeks to write about our time in both Samoas. Then it is on to Tonga and finally to New Zealand which will end the first year of the Voyage of Windbird. Only five years to go!

2021 Life Logs, Day 101: More Writing
Date: Sunday, April 11, 2021
Weather: Overcast and Cooler, Winds from the NE; High 50, Low, 42 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It felt like winter on Cape Cod today, not spring. I had to put on my winter coat and hat to do my Morning Mile walk with Shadow. At least I did not have to wear gloves. Other people were out with winter hats but only a sweatshirt. I guess I’m just a wuss. Tomorrow and Tuesday look the same, but there might be some sunshine on Wednesday. So, I am going to continue writing tomorrow and Tuesday and take Wednesday off to do other things. Falmouth students are out of school for spring vacation next week and I figure the Goldpebbles might want to come launch the kayaks. So, I am also planning to take off most of next week. But the writing is going well and I will continue as I can.

I am now writing Chapter 14 about our time in the southern Cook Islands. Before leaving on the Voyage of Windbird, I had never heard of the Cook Islands. I had read about Penrhyn and Surarrow Islands in some books about sailing across the Pacific. They are in the northern Cook Islands, hundreds of miles north of the southern Cooks. But Rarotonga and Aitutaki. I had never heard of them. But our friends Michael and Linda Stuart and their thirteen-year-old son Garrett were flying to Rarotonga to be with us for a couple of weeks. So, we headed the 700 miles from Bora Bora to Rarotonga. The weather in Bora Bora had been horrible and totally unpredictable for the time of year. And the weather only got worse the further south and west. we went.

It is a good thing that I wrote logs each day of Windbird’s trip around the world. Otherwise, the book I am writing about that experience would not be correct. When people ask me if we had rough seas in the Pacific, I always say that we did not. It was in the Atlantic Ocean that we had rough seas. I have always said, and believed, that our travels in the Pacific were peaceful and passive as the name suggests. But now that I am going back and reading my logs, that was just not true. It was not as rough as the North Atlantic, but we had some very rough sailing conditions in parts of the Pacific. I’ll end this log with one instance from a sail from Rarotonga to Aitutaki in the southern Cooks when the Stuarts were with us. They had never been sailing before and, after that sail, they never wanted to sail again!

“We left Aitutaki just before sunrise hoping to get back to Rarotonga before the stationary front/trough/low (the weather forecasters were referring to it as all three) could be pushed east by a strong high to the south of us. That black wall that we went through on our way to Aitutaki was the front/trough/low and it had just been sitting there, waiting for us break back through it. That happened in the early hours of that morning when we definitely broke through something. Garrett and I had been below sleeping on the settees in the main cabin. When I got up, I decided to check to see if we had any weather information coming in as emails before going up to the cockpit. I was sitting at the navigation table down below when, all of a sudden, one of the folding cushions from the cockpit came flying down. I, along with the computer, went flying across the cabin. Garrett woke up with eyes as big as saucers as the boat kept heeling further to starboard. He was looking up into the cockpit and watching Mark being thrown across from port to starboard and onto the cockpit floor. I did not see that because I was looking out the starboard ports. I was not seeing the sky. I was seeing nothing but rushing water. Whoa! I knew we had been hit by a very strong gust, but we had never had such a hard hit before. This was the kind of sudden wind gust that could cause a real knock down. Afterwards, Michael, Linda, and Mark, who were in the cockpit, said they saw a black cloud coming our way, but before they could shorten sail, the gust of wind knocked us down. Somehow, I held onto that computer and did not hurt my already broken leg. I landed on my good foot with the computer, still in my hands, going into the kitchen sink. One food cabinet at floor level flew open and cans of food flew everywhere. Windbird righted herself and we all took a deep breath. We were more than a bit shaken, but thankfully everything was fine.”

2021 Life Logs, Day 100: More Writing
Date: Saturday, April 10, 2021
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 58, Low, 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

What a boring human I must seem like to Shadow right now. I spend most of every day sitting at the dining table at my computer. I take breaks to take him for walks or to play ball. I’m sure he wonders what happened to that person who used to sit on the sofa with him. When I watch television now, I am on my exercise bike. So, I feel a little sorry for Shadow, but I continue to truly enjoy writing about the Voyage of Windbird. I am now writing about the eighteen days we spent in the southern Cook Islands of Rarotonga and Aitutaki. Our friends, Linda and Michael Stuart and their then thirteen-year-old son Garrett visited us while we there. Tomorrow I will write about the crew from the Survivor series who rescued us when we unsuccessfully tried to enter the lagoon on Aitutaki Island. Garrett was so excited that Survivor was rescuing us. He is now married and he and his wife Katie became parents last fall. Wow! Time does move on. And it was while we were in Rarotonga that we got the email telling us we were going to be grandparents for the first time. Now that grandchild is fourteen years old. Such wonderful memories.

Today is Day 100 of 2021. I looked back to see what I was doing on Day 100 of 2020. It was Thursday, April 9, 2020 and I was with the Goldstones packing up the last bits from 60 Vidal Avenue. The next day, Day 101 of 2020, was April 10th and the day Heather and Jed rented a moving van. The big move to 43 Grasmere Drive began. And it was on that day that I leaned over to get a box out of the back of my car when I felt the ‘pop’ in my lower back that ended up to be a herniated disc. Not my favorite memory, but at least it is a memory for now as it healed nicely over the next summer. Hard to believe it has been a full year since the Goldstones have been in their new home. We should plan some sort of celebration for tomorrow.

2021 Life Logs, Day 99: Taxes and a Scavenger Hunt
Date: Friday, April 9, 2021
Weather: Sunny; High 60, Low, 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The day finally came when I had to stop everything and do my taxes for 2020. Somehow by the time I gathered everything and finally hit the complete button on my computer, the morning was gone and a little of the afternoon as well. It was a beautiful day which made me sorry for not doing this sooner. I could have played outside today. But at least that task is done for another year. I also realized in the process of filing my taxes that my driver’s license is expired. So, I spent the next bit of my afternoon filling out the online form to get a new license.
Then it was time to go get Ollie and head to Woods Hole. Yesterday I told him about the Woods Hole Library Spring Scavenger Hunt where you look for specific bells and weathervanes in the village. He loved the idea and wanted to go this afternoon. So away we went. There were six bells and seven weathervanes to find. We found the bells more easily than we thought we would, but the weathervanes were more challenging. The library flyer has photos of the weathervanes and we eventually found six of the seven. Since photos of the weathervanes are in the flyer, we can share the weathervane photos. We will return to find a grasshopper weathervane and take a better photo of one that was camouflaged in the branches of a tree. We found Cricket Lane, but there were no grasshoppers there!

Ollie had great fun taking photos of the finds. He commented that it has been a very long time since we have been out and about due to Covid. And he said he has missed that. He also said he had forgotten how much he loves taking photos with my camera. I really enjoyed the hunt and the fact that I did not need to take the photos. I did take a couple of Ollie with some of the bells, but I can’t share the bell photos until May when the Scavenger Hunt ends. We wouldn’t want to give away the secrets to fellow scavengers. This is a great activity for adults as well as kids. Ollie and I spent an hour and a half of intense searching. The section of Woods Hole included in the hunt is not that big, but it really takes an eagle eye to find the treasures. And the clues for the bells definitely need an adult’s knowledge, as well as some inside Woods Hole in-the-know.

2021 Life Logs, Day 98: Puzzling and Editing
Date: Thursday, April 8, 2021
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 57, Low, 39 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

All winter, and now into the spring, I have kept a jigsaw puzzle on my dining table next to my computer. I write, get up and put in a couple of pieces of a puzzle, write some more, take the dog for a walk, write some more, put a few more pieces of the puzzle in place, and on and on. But today I was close to finishing the puzzle and spent more time puzzling that I should have. I finished Chapter 13 last night and today I have finished doing the first read through of that chapter, making edits as I go. Editing is a slow, tedious process, and this chapter about our time in the Society Islands in French Polynesia was even more tedious because of the spelling of the mixed French and Polynesian words. When I wrote my logs at the time, I did not have Google at my fingertips to check on the various spellings of the places we visited. Now I do, but it takes time. I will do one more read through tomorrow morning and then move on. In number of days, I am three-quarters of the way through Year One of the Voyage of Windbird. Only five and one quarter years to go!!!

2021 Life Logs, Day 97: Happy Birthday, Ziggy
Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Weather: Mostly Sunny AM, Mostly Cloudy PM; High 56, Low, 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Ziggy Milo Handley turned 12 years old today. Oh, my. One more year and he’ll be a teenager. Jonah is hot on his heels as he will turn 12 in June. My grandchildren are growing up way too fast. Ziggy got to take the day off school and the whole family went to a trampoline park. Since other children were in school, they only had to share they whole park with two other families and they had a great time. Coco got Ziggy a stuffed lamb that he loved. Jo says he is obsessed with lambs. And he got a Bob Ross bobble head mini-figure. I had to ask, “Who is Bob Ross?” Evidently he was an American painter who had a wildly popular program on PBS in the 1980’s called The Joy of Painting. I am constantly amazed that my grandchildren have much greater pop culture knowledge of the 1970’s and 1980’s than I do. I sent Ziggy a portable basketball hoop. He is not a kid that is into sports, but Justin is hoping that he can get Ziggy interested in taking breaks from his computer programming and play basketball with him. Evidently Coco made more baskets today than Justin, so maybe she can get Ziggy to play.
While they were setting up the hoop, their pot-bellied pig named Rabbit was the first to check it out. Justin sent me a photo of that—a Puerto Rican basketball playing pot-bellied pig. Made my day! When they called tonight so I could sing Happy Birthday to Ziggy, Jo was cutting the birthday cake. Chocolate on chocolate. It looked delicious. Happy Birthday, Ziggy.

I got up bright and early this morning and put a pot of chicken mineral broth on to burble for the day. Once that was on, I spent the morning finishing up Chapter 13 of The Voyage of Windbird and am now on to Chapter 14 which will take me to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. After I finished, I headed to Hyannis to Home Depot to buy a new faucet for my kitchen sink. Then I rushed home to pick Ollie up after school. Then I drove to Woods Hole to the Woods Hole Library to pick up information on an April Scavenger Hunt and got home five minutes late for a Zoom ‘house party’ question and answer session with Onjale Scott Price, a young woman of color who is running for a position on the Falmouth Select Board. She is most impressive and will definitely get my vote. It was a busy and productive day.

2021 Life Logs, Day 96: Making Money Back
Date: Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Weather: Overcast AM, Partly Sunny PM; High 56, Low, 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was a day of making money ‘back’. It was money I have spent, but today I took the time to assure that I will get it back. First, I sent the necessary paperwork to Honda to assure that I will get back the $1700+ that I spent on replacing both of my front drive shaft assemblies on my Honda Fit. Honda assures me the work I had done makes the vehicle safe and they will foot the bill. Both pieces of good news. Then I went on to Priceline. In January of last year I made a reservation on United Airlines through Priceline to attend a Willie Nelson concert in Lexington, Kentucky in April. As we all know, Covid was raging in April of last year and I cancelled the flight. At the time, I was told by United that I could not be reimbursed the $318 I had paid for the flight. They did say that I could make a new reservation within 15 months of the date I had purchased the ticket. Well, I purchased the ticket on January 3 of 2020 and today I realized that was 15 months ago. I called Priceline anyway. They talked to United and now I have until March 31 of 2022 to make a reservation. Hopefully by that time I will feel safe enough to fly somewhere!

My day started on a more negative note. I had an 11 am dental cleaning appointment, but I realized last night that I did not have the Amoxicillin that I have to take before any dental work due to my knee replacement. I could not even find the prescription bottle. I called CVS, but they had no record of that prescription. I left a message for the dentist. Then this morning, I called the dentist office and found out they could not issue a prescription. It had to come from the orthopedic surgeon. I called that office and left messages. When I didn’t hear back by 9:15 am, I called to reschedule the dental cleaning. At 10:15 am I did get a call from the orthopedic surgeon’s office apologizing for not getting back to me sooner. I accepted their apology but knew it was my own stupidity that caused the problem in the first place. I should have made sure I had the Amoxicillin before 8 pm last night! But all is well that ends well. I have a dental cleaning appointment on Thursday, and I have the Amoxicillin in hand.
The weather has been interesting over the past few days. The high and low temperatures have been the same, but cloudy skies and wind have caused it to feel cooler than the temps would indicate. Finally, this afternoon the sun came out and it felt warm—same temp, just no wind. By the time I picked Ollie up after school, you did not even need a jacket. I took Jonah to the skatepark and Ollie rode along. I then went to fill up my empty gas tank, took Ollie home for his violin lesson, and then went back to the skatepark to wait for Jonah to finish up. Then it was home to play ball outside with Shadow.

By 5:30 pm, I was back to writing and finished up at 7:45 pm. I was oh so close to finishing Chapter 13, but I did not quite make it. That will happen tomorrow. I have had a lot of distractions in the past few days, and I wanted to make sure that what I had written about the time that Mark’s sister Mary Ellen and brother-in-law Lee were with us was just right. This evening when I wrote about taking them to the airport in Bora Bora to fly home, I really felt sad. Mark and I had a wonderful time with them in Tahiti, Moorea, Raiatea, and finally in Bora Bora. I think I finally got it right, so tomorrow on to Chapter 14. But I have to admit, if had the money, I would fly to Tahiti, charter a sailboat, and sail through those islands again.
Or maybe I would just fly to Bora Bora and spent time in one of those little tiki hut hotel rooms out over the water. And speaking of water, the colors of the shallow lagoon in Bora Bora challenged me. I was not sure what color name to use to describe it. I’m attaching a photo for those of you who read this online. If you can name the color, let me know. Bora Bora was a fabulous destination.

2021 Life Logs, Day 95: Back to Normal
Date: Monday, April 5, 2021
Weather: Overcast; High 54, Low, 40 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Weatherwise, today was a repeat of yesterday . . . without the sunshine. There was a tad of brightness in the afternoon, but the cloud cover remained. But today was not a repeat of yesterday for me. It was a ‘back to normal’ day. The holiday weekend was over and my body’s strong response to the second Moderna vaccine was also over. I had a few chills before bedtime last night, so I piled on the blankets and slept through the night. Hurray! I hope that my reaction to the second vaccine is as close as I ever get to the coronavirus symtoms.

I spent today writing and am very close to ending another chapter. Chapter 13 covers the five weeks we spent in the Society Islands in French Polynesia—Tahiti, Moorea, Raiatea, and Bora Bora. For three of those weeks, Mark’s sister Mary Ellen and brother-in-law Lee were with us and I have called them a few times in the last few days to ‘check’ my memory. And as I have noted in prior logs, I think it is fitting that Chapter 13 covers the time when I broke my leg. I am just glad that it did not seem to change anything. We continued doing everything we had been doing. I just had to learn new ways to do those things. By Tuesday, I should be on to Chapter 14 which covers our passage to Rarotonga in in the Cook Islands where my friend Linda Stuart, her husband Mike, and son Garrett came to visit. Fun memories.

2021 Life Logs, Day 94: Happy Anniversary to Justin and Jo on Easter Sunday
Date: Sunday, April 4, 2021
Weather: Sunny, North Winds; High 54, Low, 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Wednesday is my son Justin’s lucky day. He was born on a Wednesday in 1977 and he married Joanne Elizabeth Hunt on Wednesday, April 4, 2007. They had a bit of a rough day today as they had to spend much of it working on fencing on their property. Yesterday their six-month-old puppy, Lenny, got through the fencing and was shot with a pellet gun by a neighbor. Justin spent last night at the vet hospital and today repairing fencing. But still he said they managed to have a fun Easter Sunday and that Lenny should be fine. And I hope they found some time to celebrate their anniversary.

Easter Sunday here was a little quieter than usual. I did not go to Heather and Jed’s for the annual backyard Easter egg hunt. Last night just after I sent my log, I started feeling simply horrible. It became evident that I was not going to be one of those people who has no symptoms after their second coronavirus vaccine. I started chilling and every muscle and bone in my body seemed to hurt. I went to bed immediately, but I could not sleep. It was after 1:00 am before I went to sleep, but then I was up and down all night. I got up at 6:30 am to take Shadow out and I sent a text to Heather telling her I would not be coming for the egg hunt. I decided to take a couple of Ibuprofen even though I knew that any NSAID pain killer can interfere with vaccine effectiveness. At that point, I didn’t care. I just wanted to sleep. It worked and when I got up at 11:00 am I felt so much better. Ten hours of misery is not too much to ask in return for being vaccinated against the coronavirus. But it did give me just a little window into what it might feel like. I cannot imagine feeling like that, and even worse, for days! So glad to have that second vaccination. And so glad I rebounded enough to have the Goldstones over for Easter dinner and an Oma Easter egg hunt. All is well that ends well.