2020 Life Logs, Day 248: Back to Tomatoes
Date: Saturday, September 5, 2020
Weather: Sunny; High 77, Low 59 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

This log didn’t get posted yesterday because my computer took hours to update. I went to write my log at 9 pm, but my computer said it was updating. I know they have to do this from time to time, but it usually happens overnight. I waited patiently until 10 pm, then 11 pm, and finally midnight. It was still updating, so I gave up. It wasn’t a very exciting day anyway. It was a beautiful day, but I spent most of it processing the last half of the 30 pounds of tomatoes I got earlier in the week. I did take an hour out of the afternoon to just sit in the sun. Tomorrow I will can the tomatoes and be done with marinara sauce for this year!

2020 Life Logs, Day 247:  Judy Handley Squared
Date:  Friday, September 4, 2020
Weather:  Sunny and Hot; High 83, Low 59 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Can you believe there are really two of us?  Today I met with another Judy Handley.  Here is what she posted on Facebook:  “Today’s happy meeting between two strangers, now friends. The reason? .. we are both named Judy Handley, and we both live in Falmouth. My namesake is way more interesting than I am, but we got along great, and we look forward to figuring out ways of getting to know each other with COVID restrictions. Maybe I can think of something as exciting about my life as her … among other things…sailing around the world for six years on a 42 foot sailboat.”

And here is what I added:  “Now I must add that the other Judy Handley has done things in her life that I find fascinating. For one, she taught middle school for her entire career. That makes her a saint! And after retiring, she trained and became a guide at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The stories of the people she has met through that connection are so interesting. I must admit that it is a strange feeling to meet someone with your same name. It kind of felt like we were long lost friends. We will definitely continue to meet and get to know one another.”

It did feel surreal to meet another person with the same name, but we hit it off right away.
Judy and her partner Craig met me on Main Street.  Craig went to the French bakery to get coffee for all of us and we sat at a picnic table on the library lawn and talked for two hours.  Judy and I are both retired teachers and both of us lost our husbands to colon cancer.  The other Judy has lived in the same part of Massachusetts all of her life while I have bounced all over the country.  She is a Handley by birth.  I am a Handley through marriage.  She is tall; I am short.  She’s an Aires’ I’m a Pisces.  So, we have some similarities and some differences in the paths our lives have taken.  But I really felt like I was meeting a kindred soul and I look forward to opportunities to get to know each other better.

This evening I went to the Baranowskis for dinner.  We had barbecued ribs, coleslaw, and calico beans.  The food was fabulous, but as always the company was even more awesome.  Bob and Jan Paninski, also Newscomers, were also there and were celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary.  Great evening.  And congratulations to Bob and Jan.

2020 Life Logs, Day 246: A Very Special Group of Friends
Date: Thursday, September 3, 2020
Weather: Overcast Misty Rain, Clearing Late PM; High 75, Low 69 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA


This afternoon at 4 pm, my Newcomers Dining-in Group came here for our September get-together. Karen and Peter Baranowski joined with me in hosting this evening’s affair on the deck of my landlord next door, Shirley Wiedemann, who is also Karen’s aunt. Shirley is currently staying at her sister Doris’ home in Scituate, but she said we could use her deck for our gathering. Shirley’s deck is elevated and overlooks the Eel River. The view is beautiful and I was hoping that by being elevated above ground level we would have fewer insects. But that theory didn’t bear out. No-see-ums evidently don’t care about elevation. At least we didn’t have mosquitoes. So that was a good thing. The misty rain that we had all day was supposed to stop by 2 pm, but it did persist through the first hour of our gathering. Then it cleared. So that was another good thing. I love getting together with this group. The conversations are always lively and over the past three years, we have all become very good friends. Due to Covid, we have met outside this summer, all of us bringing our own food and keeping appropriate social distancing. In anticipation of cooler weather, we will meet in the Baranowski’s two-car garage in October with the doors open. If weather allows, we can pull out chairs out into the driveway. We are going to have to get very creative to think how we might be able to continue to meet in person during the winter. If our creativity fails us, we’ll go back to Zoom meetings. But by whatever means, we will continue our monthly gatherings.

2020 Life Logs, Day 245: Tomato Time . . . Again
Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Weather: Overcast with Rain; High 72, Low 70 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Once again, as I got up this morning I heard the ding on my phone telling me I had just received an email. It was from Carrie at Peach Tree Farm telling me she had 60 or 70 pounds of organic sauce tomatoes. Did I want them? Just yesterday, I delivered the 38 pints of marinara sauce that I canned last week to Heather and Jed’s and I really thought I never wanted to see a tomato again. But I couldn’t resist Carrie’s offer. I did have the good sense, however, to tell her I only half of what she had. Processing 30 pounds is a LOT EASIER than 90! I told Carrie I would pick up the tomatoes at 2 pm. In the meantime, I had a dentist appointment. a chiropractor appointment, and an appointment with Shadow to take a walk. The dentist appointment was to check out a tooth. In June, I was eating blackberries when something felt funny in my mouth. For weeks, I kept having this weird feeling and it felt like I had lost a chunk of one of my lower molars. But I convinced myself that I was imagining this. Who chips a tooth while eating berries? But sometime in August, I realized that I needed to have this checked out. Sure enough, the molar was chipped. I assumed I would have to make an appointment to return to have it fixed. But, no. The dentist was going to do it in the here and now. I had to have a crown put on a tooth sometime in the 1990’s. Other than that, I have not had dental work done since I was pregnant with Heather. That was one filling. And before that, it was when I was a kid. I hate dentists. It scares me to death to think about having a tooth pulled or drilled. When I was in second grade, I kicked a dentist in the groin as he approached me to pull a baby tooth. That just didn’t happen. I had to go to another dentist and be put to sleep to remove that tooth. So, today I really had to conjure up all my strength to tell the dentist to proceed. It wasn’t terrible, but I stilI really, really don’t like the sound of a drill in my mouth.

There is a full moon out there somewhere tonight, but it is so totally overcast here that it can’t be seen. Maybe I’ll get a glimpse tomorrow night as the clouds are supposed to start clearing during the afternoon. I sure hope so as the Baranowskis and I are hosting Dining-in Group tomorrow evening–outside, properly distanced, and with masks when needed. Looking forward to that.

2020 Life Logs, Day 244: Oh, What a Beautiful Morning
Date: Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Weather: Another Mostly Sunny Day; High 73, Low 63 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Oh, what a beautiful mornin’.
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I got a beautiful feelin’
Ev’rything’s goin’ my way.

?

This first morning of September, after a wonderful sail in Buzzards Bay aboard Bruce and Jane Woodin’s sailboat, I found myself humming this song from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma. Bruce, Jane, Sam Patterson and I weren’t riding horseback in the Midwest this morning, but we were gliding smoothly through the water aboard L’Escargot. The wind was perfect and we quickly sailed all the way up to the Cape Cod Canal and back to West Falmouth Harbor. I sailed with Bruce and Jane on their previous sailboat, Pooh, but today was my first time aboard L’Escargot. Sam had a 12:30 pm appointment, so we got back to West Falmouth Harbor after that perfect three-hour sail. And then I got an invitation to join Bruce and Jane for lunch at their house. Thank you to Bruce, Jane, and Sam. “Oh, what a beautiful day.”

Later in the afternoon while I was at Heather and Jed’s feeding the guinea pigs, I went into the garage looking for a ladder that I had used a few weeks ago to set up an irrigation system on the deck. I didn’t find the ladder, but I found an envelope on the garage floor. H & J’s mail is delivered via a slot in the garage door and the mail drops into a big box. Obviously, this envelope just didn’t make it into the box. Then I noticed it was addressed to “Heather or Judy M. Handley.” Hmmm. I opened the envelope and found a card inside saying, “Dear Heather—I’m sure this is the strangest piece of mail you have received in a while, but I am in the process of trying to track down your mother—Judy Handley. My reason for this quest is that I have recently purchased a condo in Falmouth and my name is . . . Judy Handley. The other remarkable coincidence is that my mother’s middle name was Martin – same as the two of you.” All I could think was, “Oh, no. There are two of me!” The other Judy Handley included her phone number in the card, so I called tonight to accept her invitation to meet “masked and distanced for a cup of coffee” on Friday morning. Can’t wait to meet her.

2020 Life Logs, Day 243: Another Day Trip
Date: Monday, August 31, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 73, Low 61 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

I spent this last day of August on the road again. Early this morning, I drove friends from my Newcomers Wine Group, Don Mroz and Susan Lapine, to Newburyport, a coastal town about 35 miles northeast of Boston. They needed a ride there as they were getting aboard their new to them power boat which they will motor from Newburyport to the Cape over the next few days.
I’ve never been in Newburyport before and found it to be a delightful town. It is a historic seaport, located where the Merrimack River enters the Atlantic. Don and Susan’s new boat is a Mainship Pilot Sedan and I think they said it is 32 feet long. The ‘sedan’ part just means it has a hard top. It is a beautiful boat and I was so happy that I could drive them up and drop them off. As you have probably guessed by now, I love nothing more than finding excuses to be on or near the water. And doing so today gave me a chance to do some visiting. On the way home I stopped in Scituate, another beautiful coastal town south of Boston, to visit with the “aunties” from next door. The “aunties” live at Doris’ home in Scituate part of the year and here in Shirley’s home across the driveway from me the other half of the year. Shirley is 95 and Doris will 102 in October. We had a great visit. The only negative thing about today is that I had to leave Shadow alone all day. He was very happy to see me when I got home.

2020 Life Logs, Day 242: Day Trip to New Bedford
Date: Sunday, August 30, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 79, Low 55 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Today was spent driving to New Bedford to meet up with good friends, Detta and Tom Porat. I haven’t seen them since mid-December, so it was definitely time to find a way to see each other. Detta and Tom were in Connecticut for the weekend, so I drove north and west to New Bedford to meet them on their way home to New Hampshire. I picked up lobster rolls for lunch and had planned to meet them at Fort Rodman by the water. But when Shadow and I got there, we discovered that due to Covid-19, only New Bedford residents with a special sticker can park there. So I quickly sent them a text with a change in plans to meet in downtown New Bedford near the Whaling Museum. We didn’t have the ocean as a backdrop, but we were so busy talking that I don’t think any of us noticed. Detta teaches second grade in Bedford, New Hampshire, and has opted to do only online teaching. From her experience this spring, she knows it is much more demanding than teaching little ones in person, but for health reasons, she really doesn’t want to go back to the classroom until there is a successful vaccine. Her first day of school with students was this past Thursday and it was a riot just listening to her describe teaching on Zoom. There are barking dogs, parents doing the dishes in the background, kids screaming that they can’t find their scissors or glue, and not a thing Detta can do about that. Going to school virtually is just not easy for anyone, but it is something we have to make work for this year. I took Shadow with me and he was really a good little doggy. He loves to ride in the car, so on the way home, we took a detour and went to Costco. It was my first Costco visit since Covid. Shadow was in the car, so I went in quickly, got a few things that I can only afford when I get them at Costco, and headed home. Unfortunately, the main reason I went to was to get Shadow a good quality dog bed that I can afford, but the only ones they had were just too big. I can get one at LL Bean, but it costs four times as much. Guess I’ll just have to spring for that. I have to make an appointment for him to be neutered, thus the need for a bed on the floor. Right now he uses the sofas and my bed, but after the surgery, he will not be able to jump up. Or at least I am supposed to try and prevent it. I’m hoping a comfy bed on the floor will do the trick.

Rant. If I hear one more time that most of “Donald Trump’s America” is peaceful, I am going to have a screaming fit like those second graders who can’t find their scissors or glue sticks. Last time I checked, Donald Trump is the President of ALL OF THESE UNITED STATES. This divisiveness has to stop. He says he is asking for proper investigations. That’s a start, but that is not enough. Instead of just spouting rule of law and law and order, I’d like to hear some words of healing. It is true that we need law and order, but we need law and order for ALL. That means doing something tangible to stop police violence as well as doing something to stop violent protests. But we certainly don’t want to stop the peaceful protests until some action is taken. If we didn’t have racially targeted police violence, we wouldn’t have protests. The end.

On the positive side of life, I got a short text message from Heather saying they are really enjoying their time in Maine. Vacation is a wonderful thing!

2020 Life Logs, Day 241: Another Day Off
Date: Saturday, August 29, 2020
Weather: Overcast, Then Rain; High 77, Low 65 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Yesterday was a recovery day and today was another day off. I did almost nothing and enjoyed every minute of it. I started the day taking a walk with Shadow. I then drove into town to feed the guinea pigs at Heather and Jed’s and made a quick stop at the grocery store. The g-pigs needed some greens and I needed to buy a few things for our Newcomers Dining-In Group that will meet here, outside, on Thursday.
And I did get the tomato basil pizza sauce canned. I am still celebrating getting the 90 pounds of sauce tomatoes canned and will deliver them to Heather and Jed’s over the next few days. In between little jobs, I took an afternoon nap and did a lot of reading. It was a rainy afternoon and a good time to lay back and take it easy.

Tomorrow morning I drive to New Bedford to have a picnic lunch with my good friends, Detta and Tom Porat. They are driving home to New Hampshire from Connecticut, so we picked a place along the way to meet. I haven’t seen them for months, so I am really looking forward to our visit.

2020 Life Logs, Day 240: Recovery Day
Date: Friday, August 28, 2020
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds; High 78, Low 68 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

After four nights of watching the Republican National Convention, I needed a recovery day. I’ve seen and heard way too many negative things this week. My goal for today was to experience only positive things. Lucky for me, I live where I am surrounded by beauty. I started my day as I always do, taking Shadow for a walk down by the water. This morning, we just walked down to the dock to soak in the beauty of the marsh. We saw an egret and small green herons flying in and out of the marsh grass. Shadow helped me (just kidding) get the two-man inflatable kayak off the dock and up to the concrete pad where it is normally stored. I have been meaning to do this for weeks, so it felt really good to get that done. I then continued doing only things I wanted to do. Number one on my list was to finish canning the last of the 90 pounds of tomatoes and I got that done. Second on my list was to nap outside in the sunshine for at least 30 minutes, and I did that. The last thing I wanted to do was to experiment with making tomato basil pizza sauce with the six pounds of sauce tomatoes I picked earlier in the week from my garden. I got the sauce made and will get it canned it tomorrow. I picked more tomatoes and beans and then late in the afternoon Midge Frieswyk’s daughter, Alyse, arrived with her friend David. They had asked if they could come over to launch their kayaks for a paddle out to Washburn Island. Shadow and I were outside in the garden when they arrived and Shadow fell in love with both of them. It was great to take a break and talk to them. During the day, I made a couple of trips into town to Heather and Jed’s to feed the guinea pigs and to put in another load of laundry. Today’s load was polar fleece jackets. And that was it for my day. It was totally positive, with just enough sunshine peeking through the clouds to make me very happy. At the end of the day, I have only one question. Where in the world is the lid to the pot I have been using to blanch tomatoes all week? It is not small and my kitchen is not big. But I can’t find it anywhere.

2020 Life Logs, Day 239: RNC, Night 4
Date: Thursday, August 27, 2020
Weather: Overcast with Mid-Day Sunshine; High 72, Low 62 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

If you can’t say something nice, then say nothing at all. So, I will say very little about the last night of the RNC which shamefully used the White House as a backdrop with a crowd of 1500 people not using social distancing and almost no one wearing a mask. And just one more thing. Rudi Giuliani was a disgrace. Thankfully, the conventions are over. Now we can get to work on making sure everyone gets to vote this fall.
Our weather here today was mixed. It was mostly overcast with a bit of rain early and a few more sprinkles in the afternoon. Actually, there was very little much needed rain, just gloom. So, the drought continues here. But things are different further south where they are getting lots of rain. Thankfully for those in Louisiana and Texas, the highest projections for the Hurricane Laura storm surge were not realized. Yet the devastation was massive and the wind and the rain continue moving inland. My heart is with all affected by this storm.

I had invited Jane Woodin over for lunch, but things looked iffy because of the clouds and morning sprinkles. We communicated via text and I voted to go ahead and hope for clearing weather. Magically, just as Jane arrived, the sun came out, allowing us to have lunch down by the dock overlooking the water. I have only seen Jane a couple of times since March, so it was great to have a break in the weather allowing us an hour and a half to visit before the clouds and sprinkles returned.

I headed to Heather and Jed’s when Jane left to feed the guinea pigs and water the plants on the deck. Despite a few sprinkles, they were in desperate need of water. I have done most of the work to get an automatic watering system going and hope to get that completed in the next few days, but in the meantime, watering is necessary. It was late afternoon when I got home and time for me to call my friend Leslie Kole. We had arranged to talk this afternoon and the time had come. Both of us are coming up on the anniversary of losing our beloveds. Leslie lost Rich last September 4th and I lost Mark four years ago on September 11th. We commiserated about living alone without the loves of our lives . . . not the happiest time in our lives. But we also reflected on how lucky we are to both live near children and grandchildren and to be healthy and active. I haven’t seen Leslie for months, so I am hoping to get together with her in the next few weeks. I ended my day by letting the last of the tomato sauce burble down as I watched the RNC spectacle.