2020 Life Logs, Day 228:  Catching Up with Family and Friends
Date:  Sunday, August 16, 2020
Weather:  Overcast, Rain Late; High 69, Low 62 F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Much of my weekend was spent either on the phone or in person talking with family and friends.  In these times when you really can’t visit with friends who live far away, talking on the phone is the way to catch up.  Friday night I talked to Lynne in New Zealand.  Yesterday I had a long telephone conversation with my niece Lynne who was in the hospital.  Then I met up with Susie and Jim from Reveille.  Then this morning I talked to Kevin and Claire, my young friends who live aboard their boat in Philadelphia.  Much to my surprise, they are going to take their motor home across the US and relocate in the Los Angeles area.  Both of their employers are fine with theirve as they have been working from home since March and will continue that way most likely through the next year.  Kevin’s mother is in Pasadena and his sister and her family live in the Los Angeles area.  Claire’s only sibling, her sister, has moved to the LA area as well.  So, they are hoping that relocating in that part of the world will allow them to form a “corona bubble” with family members to ride out the coronavirus.  I don’t think I will get to see them before they leave, but I know we will be together again if and when life returns to normal. I also talked to Justin and family via Skype video today.  Ziggy and Coco are spending time creating music with an online app.  Ziggy’s music is electronic dance music, but Coco’s creations have more of a mystical aire to them.  Great that they are finding creative ways to spend their coronavirus stay-at-home days.  And then I ended my evening by talking with my sister in Tennessee.  I also made clam chowder, finally, with all of those clams we got last Sunday.  TI also made clam chowder, finally, with all of those clams we got last Sunday.  That was it for me for this rainy weekend.  The rain has brought an end to the very hot weather we have been experiencing.  Actually, I’m cold.  I put on a long sleeve shirt, but that didn’t help.  I think I need to close some windows—easier said than done!

2020 Life Logs, Day 227: Visit with Sailing Friends
Date: Saturday, August 15, 2020
Weather: Overcast and Rainy; High 74, Low 65 F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Jim Hammitt and Susie Klein are sailing friends that Mark and I met while we were preparing for our sail around the world. We met Susie at a weekend HAM radio class in 2005, she introduced us to her husband Jim, and the friendship has endured.
Reveille is the name of Jim and Susie’s sailboat and I got a call from Susie last night saying they had just arrived in Quissett Harbor (Reveille with the blue sail cover). We decided to meet in Woods Hole this afternoon to visit. We hoped to get take-out for lunch and find a place to sit and talk. Then this morning I got another call from Susie delaying the time of our get together. She said she could explain the reason for the delay with two words, “head explosion.” On a boat, a toilet is referred to as a head. When you flush, the waste goes into a holding tank if things are working properly. It was really their holding tank that had the explosion and the clean up process is not pretty. Jim had decided to stay onboard and deal with the issue, but Susie would still meet me. At this point, I asked if she would consider riding in my car’s backseat, both of us masked, of course, rather than her walking to Woods Hole to meet me. She agreed and I picked her up at 12:30 pm. Jim came ashore to say hello and then Susie and I headed off. Since she was riding with me, instead of walking, we decided to go into downtown Falmouth and pick up lunch at the French bakery. Jim and Susie just bought an apartment in Toulouse, France, so celebrating with a lunch from the French bakery seemed just the thing to do. Jim is a Professor of Economics and Decision Sciences in Harvard’s School of Public Health and he is the Director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. He collaborates with the Economics Department at the University of Toulouse and Jim and Susie spend enough time there that buying an apartment made sense. They both really enjoy their time in Toulouse, but after buying the apartment in January, Covid 19 took over the world. Unfortunately, they can’t visit their new apartment until Americans are once again allowed in the EU, so Susie really enjoyed our visit to Falmouth’s boulangerie to get a little taste of France. We took our lunch across the street and ate on a library lawn bench in the drizzly rain. We then walked down Main Street which was too crowded with people to be comfortable. But Susie saw a shirt that she loved at a sidewalk sale. We then drove to West Marine where she bought a new pair of deck shoes. She hasn’t’ been shopping since the lockdown in March and she felt like she was on a mini afternoon vacation. We ended with a walk through Spohr Gardens and then back to Quissett. It was a great afternoon reprieve for both of us.

2020 Life Logs, Day 226: Three Pines, Now Two
Date: Friday, August 14, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 82, Low 66 F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

I had hoped to take the boys to Plymouth today to see the Mayflower II at the dock, but when I arrived at the Goldstones, Heather and Jed convinced me that going off Cape on a Friday in August was a really bad idea. Going off is not the problem. It is getting back on. Already, Jed could show me the huge back up of traffic trying to get onto the Cape. So, we scrapped that idea and headed to my house to have lunch and figure out what we would do.
Jed offered to come over later in the afternoon to cut down a leaning pine tree between the cottage and Shirley’s house and the boys were enthusiastic about that. The driveway between our two houses is a cul-de-sac with a planted area in the middle. Three tall pine trees are/were in that area, but one that was leaning over needed to come down. Once Jed arrived, it took only a few minutes to fell the tree. The clean-up, however, took an hour and a half. At one point, Sam started attaching some of the branches to Shadow’s leash and Shadow gladly pulled them to their final resting place. That was fun to watch. It was an afternoon of relaxing, Legos, and tree clean-up. This was good for Jonah as the ugly asphalt burn he got as the result of a fall yesterday needed a day of rest. There is one little divot in the middle of the scrape that was still bleeding a little. Hopefully, he will be fully recovered by Monday and ready for action again.

2020 Life Logs, Day 225: Unexpected Rain
Date: Thursday, August 13, 2020
Weather: Sunny AM, Overcast PM with Rain; High 84, Low 67 F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA

Our plans for spending a glorious sunny afternoon at the beach ended before it began. The morning was beautiful. I packed lunch and snacks for a full afternoon at the beach, but as I drove into town to pick up the boys up at noon, the sky suddenly clouded over. And some of those clouds looked very stormy. We have had almost no rain for weeks now, so I ignored the clouds. I was sure it wouldn’t rain. We arrived at Wood Neck and had no trouble parking. That should have been my first clue. Others obviously knew something I didn’t and had stayed home. The boys headed out to the beach side of Wood Neck to use the skim board on the sand flats. I walked out onto a sand spit to watch them and then walked back to get their boogie boards as they headed further out to dive into the waves. There was still no sign of sunshine, but the water was warm and the boys were having a great time. We headed back to the beach to have lunch and on our way it started sprinkling. The sprinkles turned to light rain, so we decided to take our things back to the car and have lunch in the car while we waited for the rain to pass. By the time we got to the car, it was pouring rain. We got in the car and I gave everyone a Greek yogurt to eat while I made roll-ups. Uh-oh. I had forgotten to pack the tortillas. We thought about just rolling up the cheese and salami/pepperoni and eating it that way, but I suggested we drive to the nearby West Falmouth Market to get tortillas. We agreed that if the rain didn’t stop by the time we finished lunch, we would go get dry clothes, scooters, and skateboards and go to my house to shower and wait for the rain to go away. If things dried out, we could go to the skatepark. When we got to Heather and Jed’s to pick up clothes, we found it hadn’t rained there at all. By the time we got to my house, it was just beginning to sprinkle, but there was no pouring rain. Showers took a bit of time and the rain had stopped, so we decided to drive about 30 minutes to Sandwich to check out their new skatepark. We got there and it looked like fun, but there were just too many people. We stayed long enough to try it out and then headed back to Falmouth to our skatepark. It was dry there, but by this time it was 6 pm. We planned to spend 45 minutes there and then head home for dinner, but after 30 minutes, it started sprinkling. I heard Sam say to Jonah and Ollie that we should leave as it was getting slick. And just as he was saying that, Jonah’s scooter slid and he went flying across the pavement. Ouch. His elbow took the brunt of the skid and was bleeding quite a bit, so we immediately headed home.

He had been practicing a new skill and was doing great. And it wasn’t the jump that got him. It was simply slippery pavement at the beginning of his run. I learned an important lesson at Jonah’s expense. Never, ever, let the boys scooter or skateboard when there are even just a few dibble dopps of rain.

I’m not sure what Jonah will feel like doing tomorrow. I’m thinking maybe we will drive to Plymouth to have a take-out seafood lunch and see the Mayflower at the dock. Friday is not the day to do this as the traffic getting back on the Cape could be ugly. So maybe the boys will come up with some other low-level activity giving Jonah’s elbow time to heal. The weather this weekend and Monday looks iffy, but starting on Tuesday, it looks like sunshine will return. Next week is our last week of August to go to the beach as the Goldstones head to Maine for the last week of August and the first week of September. After that, we’ll just have one more week of Camp Oma Afternoons before school of some sort begins. So, beach days are precious as summer 2020 is winding down.

2020 Life Logs, Day 224: Slow Moving Summer Day Fun
Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Weather: Mix of Clouds and Sunshine; High 86, Low 70 F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

My afternoon with the Goldpebbles was a slow moving summer day of fun. We started out at the skatepark, but all three boys said they were tired and were just not as energetic as usual. I think it was probably the humidity that slowed us all down, but whatever, I was in slow gear as well.

So, sitting in the shade at the skatepark reading my book while watching the boys practicing their skills suited me just fine. We then went to my house for a late lunch and then we headed down to the dock to jump into the water. Well, the boys jumped into the water while Shadow and I sat dockside and watched the action.
The favorite activities this summer are trying to sink a kayak and diving off the dock. Today Sam got down to the dock first and discovered an aluminum fishing boat sitting in the marsh grass. It had a current registration sticker on it and we figured it had broken loose from a dock and followed the tide to our little cove. Sam has been wanting to buy a canoe or fishing boat all summer and was excited that this one might be his. It was pretty beat up, but he is desperate for a boat and would take anything that floats. I had Jonah tie the boat to a buoy off the dock and it wasn’t long until a young man in a kayak came into the cove. No one ever comes in as far as our dock, so it was apparent to me that he was looking for something. When he spotted the boat he said it disappeared from his dock a couple of hours earlier. He knew just where to look as the tide had been coming in all afternoon. Our little cove is the end of the line, so he knew just where to look. I guess Sam is going to have to find another way to procure a fishing boat. But he did convince me that we should buy a Maui Mat. I had no idea what that was, but when he and Jonah explained to me that it is a thick closed cell foam mat that looks like a big yoga mat that floats on the water with a few people on it. Sounds like great fun. And when not in use, it can be rolled up for easy storage. Jonah did some research and found a 9 x 6 foot Rubber Dockie called a Duckling on Amazon and we ordered it.

2020 Life Logs, Day 223: Dinner with Friends
Date: Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Weather: Partly Sunny AM, Sunny PM; High 80, Low 70 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was a skatepark and beach day with the Goldpebbles. I was going to have to balance my time with the boys with fixing a salmon salad to take with me to my dining-in group dinner tonight and with picking up an ice cream cake and transporting that to the dinner. But thanks to an offer from good friends, Karen and Peter Baranowski, I was spared those two jobs and could focus my whole day on the boys. Karen sent a text this morning offering to pick up a lobster roll for me for dinner tonight and that sounded perfect. I wouldn’t have to figure out how to keep a salmon salad cold while I spent time at the beach with the boys. And then she called and offered to pick up the ice cream birthday cake I had ordered for tonight’s dinner and transport that for me. Again, perfect! Thank you, Karen and Peter, for making my day SO MUCH easier.

My Newcomers Dining-In Group has become a very close group of friends. We have managed to get together three times since the beginning of the coronavirus days by meeting outside. Last month we met at Terry and Olivia White’s. They have a huge brick patio that makes social distancing very easy, and they invited us back again this month. We all brought our own dinner and drinks, but Jane Woodin and I went together to order the birthday cake for our summer birthday people—Bruce Woodin and Olivia White. I offered to get the ice cream cake at Smitty’s and it was delicious. Thanks to my grandson Jonah for his recommendation. He thinks Smitty’s ice cream cake, one layer of vanilla ice cream and topped by a layer of chocolate ice cream with a special fudge sauce between the layers and topped with a chips of chocolate and crushed Oreos. Not particularly healthy, but oh so delicious.

I had asked Jane to bring candles for the cake. When she started to light them, it suddenly dawned on me what a terrible idea that was in these coronavirus days. Blowing on food you are going to serve others is just not an option. This is common sense, but it is not our normal way of thinking. So, we didn’t light the candles, but Jane did take the cake around so the two birthday people could see it. Slowly, we are all learning how to make better decisions to stay healthy in these times.

I’m pretty sure I have never shed tears of joy over the choice of a Vice-Presidential candidate. But when I got home tonight and found out Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s pick to be his running mate, I was overjoyed to the point of tears. She was not my first choice. I am, and will always be, an Elizabeth Warren die-hard supporter. But Kamala Harris was my second choice, and once I heard Biden’s decision, it felt so right. Barack Obama said today that Joe Biden nailed this decision, and I agree.

2020 Life Logs, Day 222: Chasing the Mayflower II
Date: Monday, August 10, 2020
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day; High 85, Low 72 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

As we all learned in school, the first Mayflower sailed from England to the shores of New England in the fall of 1620 bringing the Pilgrims to America. This was 400 years ago this fall. In 1956, a replica of the original, the Mayflower II, was launched in England and the next year it sailed across the Atlantic. It was commissioned by the Plimoth Plantation and calls Plymouth, Massachusetts its home. It has been in Mystic, Connecticut for the past three years to be restored. Today it was sailed, with a tow assist, through the Cape Cod Canal and back to Plymouth. I, along with the Goldpebbles, left Falmouth at 8:30 am today to go see the Mayflower make its way through the Canal.
Our plan was to drive to Scusset Beach at the end of the Canal and ride our bikes along the Canal to watch the Mayflower make its way into the Cape Cod Bay. But, unfortunately, a whole lot of other people planned to do the same thing. We sat in traffic trying to get across the Bourne Bridge and we spent over 40 minutes waiting in a line to pay for parking at Scusset Beach. When we finally got to the parking area, Ollie said that he heard a horn announcing the arrival of the Mayflower. We worked as fast as we could to get all the bicycles off the van bike rack and just as we got the last bike down, Ollie announced that he could see the mast approaching. I looked up and saw it as well. I told the boys to ride their bikes as fast as they could out to the bike path along the Canal to try and see the Mayflower before it went out into the Cape Cod Bay. I put the bike rack up, locked the van, and took off behind them. I could see the Mayflower sailing by and hoped the boys were following it. But when I got to the bike path, they were dutifully putting their bikes in a bike rack. I told them I would do the bike lock down and sent them to chase the Mayflower as it made its way out into the Bay. By the time I got the bikes locked and started walking in their directon, the boys were returning. They had seen the Mayflower turn the corner to start its trek north to Plymouth. So, we didn’t get to ride our bikes along bike path following the Mayflower, but we did still ride our bikes back to the Sagamore Bridge. Sam and Ollie went a little further, but Jonah wanted to stop and just sit along the Canal by the bridge. When we got back to the van, the boys changed into bathing suits and we walked out to the beach to get in the water to cool off. And cool off, we did. The water was much colder than we are used to. And the beach was just too crowded. So we played in the water for a short time, ate lunch, and headed home. Scusset is a beautiful sandy beach, but as the boys noted, “This is a tourist beach.” We went to my house to take showers and ended our day at the Skatepark. I don’t know about the Goldpebbles, but I know I will sleep soundly tonight with visions of the Mayflower dancing in my head.

2020 Life Logs, Day 221: Quahogs
Date: Sunday, August 9, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 83, Low 70 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Clamming in the estuaries along the coastline at low tide is a way of life on Cape Cod. On any summer weekend, you see people digging for clams using a clam rake to try and fill a special wire basket/bucket. Peter Baranowski, called Poseidon by my grandkids, offered to take us out this morning to show us how to find clams by snorkeling and then digging them up by hand. Sam and Jonah weren’t interested in doing this, but Heather and Ollie were all in. Ollie is the family clam lover, so it was fitting that he should go. We took our bucket and special permit and Peter brought his bucket and permit and we filled both. That’s about 40 pounds of clams. Of course, the shells are most of the weight, but still we got A LOT of clams. Northern hard-shelled clams are called quahogs in these parts. And depending on the size of the shell, the quahogs have different names. If the shell is 1.5 inches, it is called a little neck. If it is 2.5 inches, it is called a cherry stone. Any shell bigger than 3 inches is called a chowder quahog.

We got lots of chowder quahogs today, but there were also plenty of smaller ones for steaming and eating. Heather is planning to make a big batch of clam chowder and I am going to try to make stuffed clams. Yummy! Thank you, Poseidon.

Tomorrow the Mayflower II, a replica of the original Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to our shores, will be making it way through the Cape Cod Canal on its way back to its home in Plymouth. It has spent the last three years in Connecticut getting restored. I am planning on picking up the Goldpebbles early in the morning and heading up to the Canal to see it. We are taking our bicycles and are hoping to ride the bike path along the canal as the Mayflower makes it way home.

2020 Life Logs, Day 220: Never Enough Time
Date: Saturday, August 8, 2020
Weather: Overcast AM, Then Mostly Sunny; High 80, Low 66 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Saturday is chore day. And as usual, I only got about halfway through my list. There is just never enough time. I did order and then picked up NexGard for Shadow. This is a very expensive pill that you give your dog once a month to keep away fleas and ticks. I have been buying just a couple of pills at a time as the particular pill given depends on the weight of the dog. For puppies 0 to 24 pounds you give one pill. The next level is for dogs weighing 24 to 60 pounds and Shadow has just moved into this level, now weighing 25 pounds. While in town to pick this up, I went to the grocery store. And as long as I was in town, I stopped by the Goldstones to see if they needed the beach gear from the back of my car. Heather and Jed were doing what they do most weekends—working on house projects. And the boys had decided they wanted to go to the skatepark. I decided to skip the rest of my chores and take them. They needed to eat lunch first and I needed to take my groceries home and put them away, so off I went. Before leaving, however, I needed to check with Heather on something and Jed said she was upstairs working in the bathroom. She has been stripping wallpaper in that bathroom for some time now, but today I walked in and the view took my breath away. She had just finished painting the room and it looked fantastic. When you open the door to the upstairs bathroom you see a very big skylight. Heather painted the room with what I call Cape Cod Sky Blue so that the walls and the skylight merge to look like a Cape sky on a clear summer day. Beautiful! Slowly, but surely, progress is being made on renovations to the new house.

When I came home to put the groceries away, I decided to bring Shadow with me for the afternoon. Since he loves to run with Sam on his skateboard, keeping him on the sideline just watching the boys was a bit of a challenge. Considering, he did pretty good. I did take him for a nice, long walk on the track that goes around the soccer fields and eventually I took him to the car. I moved the car into the shade and I stayed in the car with him and read so that he was not alone. Each time I take him, I’ll increase the time that he has to be on his leash watching the action at the skatepark. Maybe one of these days he’ll get to the point where he’ll sit quietly and be happy to just watch the boys. Maybe . . . one of these days.

2020 Life Logs, Day 219: Friday Fun at the Skatepark
Date: Friday, August 7, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 77, Low 66 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It is the end of another week of afternoon fun with the Goldpebbles. When the remnants of Tropical Storm Isaias swept through this area earlier in the week, it took with it the super hot, humid weather. The daytime temp today was 77 F and it almost felt chilly. There was a forecast for a rainy day, but that did not develop. So when I picked up the boys we packed the scooters and Sam’s skateboard in the car and headed out.

We went to try and replicate a great run the boys had down the hill from Falmouth Academy down to the old train depot a couple of weeks ago, but it was not as much fun today. Evidently the Falmouth Academy staff is already back at work, so the packed parking lot made the boys nervous. They felt like they were trespassing and don’t want to do that again. Plus, the restaurant at the depot is open on Fridays, so they couldn’t use the ramp there that was so much fun a couple of weeks ago. So, after one run, we ended that activity and headed to the closest Subway to get lunch to go. We ate on the way to the Skatepark which we have not visited since Jonah’s accident over a week ago. The cut on Jonah’s hand is not totally healed, but today he was feeling like he was ready to re-enter the Skatepark world. He kept his had wrapped and after the first few tricks, he came to report that his hand was fine. The stress of jumping was not on the part of his hand that was injured and he regained his confidence quickly. All three boys were enjoying their time and we were there for almost two and half hours.

We ended the day at my house where the boys took Shadow for a skateboard run. Shadow pulls Sam on his skateboard and Jonah and Ollie follow behind on their scooters. Shadow prefers Ollie and Jonah out front so he can chase them, but we realized this teaches him to chase others. We have changed that by having them follow Sam and Shadow and it didn’t seem to stop Shadow from having a great time pulling Sam along.