2020 Life Logs, Day 198: Free and Easy Friday
Date: Friday, July 17, 2020
Weather: Overcast with Periods of Light Rain; High 71, Low 67 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

As predicted, today was overcast with periods of light rain . . . enough rain to make the pavement wet which curbed the plan to take the Goldstones to the skatepark this morning. Instead, when I arrived to pick them up, we worked on practical things like music practice for Ollie and Sam (Jonah had already practiced) and finishing up writing birthday thank you notes for Jonah.
Ollie went down to the basement first to practice violin and I followed along with my phone so he could use the tuner on my phone to tune up. Once he started playing, I stayed to listen and was able to get a couple of photos of him in action. Delightful. I headed back upstairs and folded laundry while Sam practiced drums, but even with the basement door closed, you can hear the drums upstairs. So, I got to enjoy his playing, and then Jonah’s as he went down to accompany Sam, but I didn’t go back down to get photos. While we doing all of this, a new skateboard was delivered and Sam was so very anxious to try it out. He did take it out on the street for a couple of runs and then we packed it in my car, along with the second skateboard, so we could go to the skatepark later if the weather improved. Somehow, all of this took about two hours and it was way past lunch time when we headed to my house. On the way home, I stopped at Wicked n’ Wood to pick up ribs for lunch. This is a summer-only roadside BBQ place, a trailer with a great wood smoker that is open only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and sometimes Thursday. But today it was closed with the ‘Gone Fishing’ sign. I had promised the boys this take-out treat, but since they were closed, I suggested we go across the street and try the take-out at Le Bon Jour. This is a tiny little take-out place run by some young men from Senegal. Friends have recommended it, but I had never tried it. Much of the menu is Mexican, which seems inconsistent with the French Name, but the Senegal is French and the young men speak French and English. The menu allows a build-your-own burrito, so that is what Sam and Ollie ordered. Jonah decided that he would make his own burrito when we got to my house, so I went along with that idea for myself. The service was fast and efficient, and according to Sam and Ollie, the burritos were delicious. Sam was able to get both steak and braised lamb in his burrito and he was in heaven. I got to taste enough to know that the spicing is delicious, so this place will be added to the Goldstone take-out list. I’ll return to order their gumbo. Just reading about it made me hungry.

After eating lunch, we decided to watch a Harry Potter movie which took the rest of the afternoon. After the movie, Jonah and Sam headed out to the street with the skateboards and Shadow on a leash. It appears that Shadow enjoys skateboarding with Sam and is strong enough to pull him up the gentile hill. I went out to watch the show but unfortunately didn’t have a camera with me to catch the action. I’ll definitely follow along with a camera the next time as it is quite a sight!

2020 Life Logs, Day 197: Skate Park Morning, Wood Neck Afternoon
Date: Thursday, July 16, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Still Cool; High 72, Low 57 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was another morning at the skatepark. Then at noon, Ollie, Jonah, and I dropped Sam at home and we took off for lunch at my house. Sam’s friend Sebastian had a kayaking birthday party this afternoon and Jed was taking Sam to that that. At my house, Ollie and Jonah played with Shadow and just had fun hanging out and doing almost nothing while I fixed lunch.

Then after lunch, we headed to Wood Neck Beach and Little Sippewissett Marsh. Ollie and Jonah always prefer the marsh side, so we set up home base there and they headed into the marsh to collect and observe crabs. I sat at home base and watched . . . and that brought back so many memories. I think the first time I took the boys to Wood Neck was during the summer of 2013 when we attended a Buzzards Bay Coalition kiddie activity there. And since then, we have returned many, many times. Tonight I found a photo of the Goldpebbles with Granddad collecting crabs there in the summer of 2014. The boys are bigger now and the boogie boards that magically become science labs have evolved, but we still have one of the shovels from that summer and used that today. Sam was 7 years old that summer and today Ollie, now 8, reminded me so much of Sam at that age. This afternoon Ollie and Jonah took their crab collecting very seriously and I was invited to see the final collection. Such special times with the grandkids.

2020 Life Logs, Day 196: Beginning or Half Over
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Weather: Cloudy, Clearing Mid-Afternoon, Cooler; High 70, Low 59 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The question is . . . Is summer just beginning or is it half over? When I took the Goldpebbles home at the end of our day together, Heather and I spent some time talking about school options for the fall. Then when I got home, I did some chores and then Justin called to bring me up-to-date on what is happening in their lives in Puerto Rico. We also talked about school options for Ziggy and Coco this fall. By the time I took Shadow on his evening walk, I noticed that the sun is setting earlier in the evening these days. Yikes, yikes, yikes! In my mind, summer is just beginning. But the earlier sunset and the discussions about school in the fall tell me that summer is quickly slipping away. Where has the time gone since that fateful Friday, March 13th, that was the last day of school as we know it? Actually, it was the last day of life as we know it. It is when most of us started to feel the full impact of living in the days of the coronavirus pandemic. April flew by with the Goldstone’s move from Vidal Avenue to Grasmere Drive. During the month of May I started kidnapping the Goldpebbles on some afternoons to bring them to my house to go kayaking. And we even made a few early trips to the beach. June was filled with many beach afternoons and then when school was officially over for the year, Camp Oma Afternoons began on a daily basis. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but July has been the month skateboarding and scootering. The Falmouth Skatepark has become an almost daily stop for the Goldpebbles and myself. It was not planned. It just evolved. And it has been a great activity for the boys. Even today when it was cool with no humidity, an hour of scootering or skateboarding results in sweaty boys getting a full workout. Late yesterday Ollie’s new helmet arrived. It is a Triple Eight Certified Sweatsaver Helmet and even on this cool summer day, the sweatband was soaked after an hour. But it is still much more comfortable than helmets without the sweatband. So this afternoon, we ordered two more–one for Jonah and one for Sam. When you have to wear a helmet and a face mask, you want both to be comfortable.

Our day together started at 10 am this morning. We headed to the skatepark to get more time there before others start arriving in the early afternoon. We did have the whole park all to ourselves for part of the morning and things were going great until Jonah and Ollie started having difficulty steering their scooters. Their Razor A3’s are just a couple of weeks old. They have had a daily workout, but they shouldn’t be giving us trouble already. Jed is taking a look at them tonight and hopefully he can figure out the problem. We headed to my house for lunch, loaded up two of our spare scooters, and then back to the skatepark. There were more people there this afternoon, but it was still easy enough to keep a distance from others. Late in the afternoon, we headed to Highfield Hall to check out this year’s fairy houses. Unfortunately, we weren’t terribly impressed, but we only saw about half of them. We will return on another day to search out the others and hope we are more impressed than we were today. We ended the day with one more skateboarding and scootering activity. There is a nice down hill run from the Falmouth Academy just down from Highfield. So, I dropped the boys and let them ride down the hill. It was so much fun that they did it twice and can’t wait to go back and do it again. So this unplanned love of skateboarding and scootering is helping keep the boys fit and happy during this very different summer.

2020 Life Logs, Day 195: Skatepark and Movie Day
Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Weather: Mix of Clouds, Sun, Light Rain, Thunder; High 78, Low 64 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

My day started with an early chiropractor appointment followed by a Book Club Zoom meeting. Then, optimistic about a possible afternoon at the beach, I headed to the Goldstones at noon wearing my beach attire. The morning had been a mix of sun and clouds with some thunder, but no rain and that just did not help allure the boys to the beach. Instead, all three were interested in going to the skatepark and then to my house for lunch. Afterwards, we would decide about the remainder of the afternoon. The 12:30 to 1:30 pm time period seems to be a time when few others go to the skatepark, so that has become our favorite time. We had a couple of other people today, but it is large area that can safely be shared with a few people.

All three boys worked on different skills. Sam is working on doing a skateboard trick called an ollie. An ollie is a move where the rider and board leap into the air together without the use of hands. As Sam showed me, it is all about the movement of the foot up the board as you jump. Not a trick I will be trying anytime soon! Ollie, the person and not the name of a skateboard trick, was working on perfecting his dropping-in techniques that he tried for the first time yesterday. Jonah was also working on his dropping-in techniques, especially in the new part of the park where he drops into the bowl and leaps out on the other side. It was not as hot today and masks weren’t needed, so the boys could have spent a lot longer at the park. But since they hadn’t eaten lunch, I had to convince them to leave after an hour. We went to my house to have lunch and while doing so, the weather deteriorated. There was more thunder and more clouds mixed with periods of sun shine. But everyone agreed that it was not a beach afternoon. We decided on making it a movie afternoon. Jonah, Ollie, and I watched ‘Star Wars: Return of the Jedi’ while Sam watched ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2’.

At the end of the afternoon, all three boys expressed an interest in spending more time at the skatepark tomorrow. We know that at around 1:30 every afternoon, more people start arriving, so the boys asked if we could go in the morning at 10:00 am to try and beat the crowd and have more action time before lunch. They have music lessons on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday mornings, but that leaves Wednesday and Thursday open. So, at least for tomorrow, Camp Oma Afternoons will begin in the morning.

2020 Life Logs, Day 194: Back to the Skate Park
Date: Monday, July 13, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy Until Mid-Afternoon, Humid; High 81, Low 67 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

When I took Shadow out for his morning walk, I was greeted by a wall of humidity. But it was overcast, so it didn’t feel as hot as it could have. I checked the weather and it looked like it was going to clear in the afternoon, so I prepared for an afternoon at the beach. But when I arrived at the Goldstones, the boys had a different idea. They were not convinced that the sky was really going to clear and they were not interested in going to the beach without sunshine.

So, it was back to the skate park and to Morse Pond School to play frisbee golf. When we go to the skatepark between noon and 1 pm, there are usually only one or two other people there and that was the case today. At one point, we had the whole skate park to ourselves and that is the way we like it. Sam didn’t go with us. He rode his skateboard to Morse Pond and practiced his maneuvers there as he doesn’t use the ramps at the skatepark like Ollie and Jonah do with their scooters. But after an hour or so, Ollie and Jonah were so hot that they were ready for the next activity. I had packed lunch and they ate before we left the skatepark. When we got to Morse Pond to meet up with Sam, he was not there. I figured he had gone home, so I left Ollie and Jonah there with their scooters and went home to pick up Sam and the frisbee golf goal. We returned quickly, set up the goal, played a couple of games of frisbee golf, and then all boys spent time riding their scooters around the basketball court. As I watched from a distance, I felt like I was watching Olympic Short Track Speed Skating races as they went round and round. Then it was back to the skatepark to end our day. Jonah spent time earlier in the day teaching Ollie how to drop-in off the top of the half pipe ramps and Ollie really wanted to go back and practice some more. He was so proud that Jonah had helped him conquer his fear of coming down the ramp from the top. Sam went with us this time. There was only one other guy in the old part of the park, but there were two, then four boys, using the new side which required anyone going down in the bowl on the new side to wear a mask. That was Jonah and Ollie and when we headed home they were truly red-faced hot from wearing helmets and masks. They drink lots of water and don’t seem to mind, but while it is this hot and humid, maybe I can convince them to go the beach tomorrow.

2020 Life Logs, Day 193: Relaxing and ‘Taxing’
Date: Sunday, July 12, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Windy; High 81, Low 70 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Every morning after I take Shadow out for a little walk, I check my email on my phone. One of the emails I receive every day if The New York Times Daily Briefing and this morning it reminded me that the absolute last day to file your tax return for 2019 is on Wednesday of this week. I have put this off for months, so this morning I declared to myself that I would do nothing today until I filed my taxes. That took most of the morning, but I did get it done. I then spent the rest of the day relaxing. I did a little gardening and a lot of reading. I have my Book Club on Tuesday morning and have not finished the book for this month. I made great progress today and hope to be finished by Tuesday. I had hoped to get a lot of cooking done to get ready for the week, but that didn’t happen. Maybe in the morning.

2020 Life Logs, Day 192: Gardening Day
Date: Saturday, July 11, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Hot; High 82, Low 71 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Gardening at my house means gardening in raised beds. Gardening at Heather and Jed’s new home means gardening on the deck. Earlier in the week we hung upside-down tomato plants on their deck and hopefully by the end of this week, deck planters that were ordered the first of May should arrive. In anticipation of the arrival of the deck planters, I spent time this afternoon and into the evening at their house installing drip irrigation. I am not done, but most of the installation on the deck is complete. Now I just need to work on getting the water from the faucet at ground level under the deck up to the roof level above the deck. I’ll work on that tomorrow, but I’m not sure I have all the parts I need. But hopefully I’ll get enough done to know what I need to finish the job.

Here at the cottage, I spent most of the morning taking Shadow for a long walk and then weeding and fertilizing in the raised beds. I have more to do tomorrow morning, so I think tomorrow will be repeat of today. Heather and Jed spent their day working on house projects. Heather continued the sanding and stripping of wallpaper in the second floor bathroom and Jed worked on making shelves for Sam’s bedroom closet. Jed cut and sanded the boards and Sam did the painting. Those jobs will continue tomorrow as well.

2020 Life Logs, Day 191: Happy Birthday to My Sister Patsy
Date: Friday, July 10, 2020
Weather: Overcast Turning Mostly Sunny, Still Humid; High 82, Low 68 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The Camp Oma adventure this afternoon was to go clamming in Bournes Pond, adjacent to Menauhant Beach. It was an overcast day with sprinkles of rain here and there, so putting on a wet suit and snorkeling for clams seemed the perfect activity. We had lunch at my house, put on our wet suits, and headed to Menauhant. The problem was that Oma misjudged the tide and the water ended up to be too deep for Ollie and Jonah to negotiate safely. Sam was fine and he went off on a snorkeling adventure while the rest of us walked along the edge of the pond to get to the clamming destination. Eventually even the edge of the pond got too mucky and we decided to call off the expedition until another day with lower tide. Instead of clamming, we walked back across the road to the beach and spent a little time playing in the water before heading back to my house. Sam reported that on his snorkeling adventure he saw one flounder and some sort of creatures that looked like little purple trees leaning to one side. Not sure what those were, so we need to do a little research. We headed back to my house to shower and dress. I dropped Sam at home and I drove Jonah and Ollie to the skate park with their scooters for their end of the day activity. Sam stayed home and rode his skateboard through the neighborhood and across the street to Morse Pond School for a little practice session. It was a good afternoon, despite the dreary weather.
Then tonight, I had a call from my friend Lynne Kirwin in New Zealand. She had planned to come home for the summer months, but because of the coronavirus, she has decided to stay until next spring. If things are better here, she will come home for the summer. We’ll just have to wait and see about that. I miss seeing her, but she is in a much safer place than here.

My sister Patsy is my only living sibling and today was her birthday. Happy Birthday, Patsy! My parents had their first child in 1924 and he died at birth. The next child was born in 1925 and he died of whooping cough at age three. The next four children were born in 1928, 1931, 1933, and 1935, two boys and two girls that grew up during The Great Depression. Then I came along in 1947. Patsy lives just outside of Nashville, so there was no way to be with her on her birthday in these coronavirus days.
Last July the whole family got together in late July to celebrate the life of Patsy’s husband Joe and that is the last time we were together. We must get together as soon as travel is once again safe and celebrate her 87 years and life in general.

2020 Life Logs, Day 190: Another Skate Park and Beach Day
Date: Thursday, July 9, 2020
Weather: Overcast Turning Mostly Sunny, Still Humid; High 82, Low 68 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was another overcast morning, but the forecast was for sunshine in the afternoon. So, the Goldpebbles decided that it should be another skate park and beach afternoon. I arrived to pick up the boys at noon and once we decided what we were going to do, we packed the gear in my car and headed to the skate park. The sun had broken through the clouds making it a bit of steamy afternoon.

Jonah joked that if he could collect all of the sweat rolling down his back he could fill his water bottle. Thankfully, there was only one other little boy there, so we didn’t have to wear masks. I was concentrating on getting videos of Jonah doing what is called ‘dropping in’ and didn’t notice that Sam had shed his shirt and helmet. When I finished videoing Jonah, I turned around to find that a gentleman was taking photos of all of us and I saw Sam scrambling to get his shirt back on. Sam knew the photographer was from the local paper and realized that he had been caught! Hopefully the lesson learned is never take off your shirt or your helmet at the skate park. But at least Sam is working on foot work techniques that don’t require a lot of movement and no gliding up and down the ramps. He was overjoyed this afternoon when we perfected one of the moves. I am going to have to have a lesson in skate board and scootering vocabulary so I can accurately describe just what they are doing.

After the skate park, e went to my house for lunch and the boys spent time playing with Shadow. Then mid-afternoon we headed to Wood Neck Beach which is about a 20-minute drive. When we got there, there was a ‘Lot Full’ sign and a back-up of cars waiting to get in. I was willing to wait, but the boys wanted to turn around and go back to Menauhant Beach which is close to my house. We lost almost an hour of beach time driving around, but luckily I have a small car and could fit into one of the only parking spaces available at Menauhant. Seems like every wanted to spend the afternoon at the beach, and rightly so. It was hot enough today that Ollie and Jonah wore regular bathing suits instead of their wet suits. The water is still on the cool side, but the air was hot and humid which kept them nice and warm.

Jonah and Sam spent most of their time practicing their gliding into the water like surfers on their boogie boards while Ollie built a waterside fort. At one point this afternoon, while Sam was out snorkeling, he returned to shore with a really big live welk that he enjoyed showing off before returning to the water. I don’t get a lot of reading done while at the beach because I spent a lot of time being a proud Oma just watching the Goldpebbles in action. It is supposed to cloudy with a chance of rain tomorrow afternoon, so we are not planning on a beach afternoon. If it is not too rainy, we might go clamming. And if there is enough wind, Ollie would like to take the kites back to Morse Pond. We’ll see what the weather allows.

2020 Life Logs, Day 189: A Special Group of Friends
Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Humid; High 80, Low 70 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Camp Oma was without Ollie this afternoon. He had another dentist appointment this morning that required numbing so that cavities could be filled and he was just not feeling up to being out and about afterwards. So, I took Sam and Jonah to the skate for a little practice with Jonah on his scooter and Sam on his skate board. Each day their skills improve. After the skate park, we went to my house for a make-your-own-pizza on an English muffin lunch and some play time with Shadow. Then we were off to the beach just as the sun came out. We left the beach a little early today as I had a 5 pm ‘date’ with my Dining-in Group. As I delivered Sam and Jonah home, Jed was leaving with Ollie to go fly kites at the very near-by Morse Pond School playing fields. Thankfully, Ollie was feeling much better.

Normally my Newcomers Dining-in Group meets monthly. We skipped a couple of months because of Covid, but in June we met at the Frieswyk’s on their beautiful, spacious deck. This evening we met on the brick patio at the White House. This White House is the home of Terry and Olivia White and their patio is huge, allowing for plenty of physical distancing. We all brought our own food and drinks, and of course, we wore our masks. Terry and Olivia provided individually packed cups of ice cream for dessert and we all enjoyed our special evening together.
The White House patio is by far the largest patio/deck that any of us in the group has, so we decided to continue to meet there each month as long as the weather permits. Terry and Olivia were more than happy to continue to host us and we will continue to bring our own food and drinks, with different people bringing dessert each month. But it is not really the food and drink that is the most important part of our get togethers. It is the thoughtful conversations that makes this a very special group of friends.