2024 Life Logs, Day 95: Happy 17th Anniversary to Justin and Jo
Date: Thursday, April 4, 2024
Weather: Cloudy, Windy, Misty Rain; High Temp 44, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Justin and Jo have been married 17 years today. Unbelievable. I hope they had a wonderful day. Earlier Jo sent some photos of a cave in the mountains where they camped recently. It reminded me of just how beautiful it is in Puerto Rico.

Justin and Jo have carved out their little piece of paradise on the almost two acres of land they call Finca Maravilla. Ziggy will be 15 this weekend and Coco will be 12 in July. Happy anniversary, Justin and Jo!

I have been freezing all day long. Right now, it is 38 degrees F outside, but Wunderground says it feels like 38. The wind roared all last evening, overnight, and into today. It sure doesn’t feel like spring. But it was a good day for spending the afternoon with friends inside. Two other couples and I have formed an informal group that today we named the Vegan Lunch Bunch. The five of us are interested in exploring becoming vegans. Vegans don’t eat fish or any animal products.  I am just not there yet, but it is interesting to explore. For these lunches, the person who hosts makes the main dish and the others bring a salad and a dessert. Today we met at my house, and we had my newest favorite soup, a mushroom and spinach combination along with spinach and potato pakora made with chickpea flour and fried. This was only our second meeting and somehow both times we have managed to talk away the whole afternoon. Already, we are learning so much from each other while having great conversations about food and life.

2024 Life Logs, Day 94: Heather’s Meet the Candidate Event
Date: Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Weather: Cloudy, Rainy, Windy; High Temp 43, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

On this rainy, stormy night over a hundred people came out for Heather’s Meet the Candidate event.

It was a wonderful mix of young, middle, and older Falmouth voters. Thanks to Bruce Woodin for the panoramic photol.The event was at Aquatic Brewing. I had never been there, but it was a great place for people to mix and mingle. Heather sat on the bar to give a short talk outlining the issues that are central to her campaign. It was definitely one of those proud parent moments. Vote Heather Goldstone for Select Board!

2024 Life Logs, Day 93: April Showers Moving In
Date: Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Weather: Cloudy, Rain Starting Late PM; High Temp 48, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

I had big plans for taking the day off and just reading. But that didn’t happen. I have fallen behind on returning emails and spent most of my day doing that. And I’m still not done. Maybe tomorrow?

Heather has invited me to join them on a trip north on Sunday and Monday to be in a location where we can experience the total solar eclipse. Ollie and Jed are going to Bethel, Maine on Sunday and the Heather, Sam, Jonah, and I would head north for soccer games on Sunday and probably stay in hotel in Portland as Sam’s game is a night game. We will meet up with Jed and Ollie on Monday morning and head about 30 minutes north of Bethel to the ‘path of totality’ for the mid-afternoon eclipse. Then we start the 4 to 5 hour drive home. It will be a very long day, but since there is not another total eclipse that can be seen in the United States until 2044, we are going for it. At least, this is the plan as of now. The boys will miss a day of school, but hopefully this will be memorable educational experience for them.

Tomorrow evening is Heather’s Meet the Candidate night. Unfortunately, it looks like it is going to be raining, but I am hopeful that people will brave the rain to meet her and show their support.

2024 Life Logs, Day 92: Welcome April
Date: Monday, April 1, 2024
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High Temp 53, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Even though almost half of the days in March had some sunshine, most of those sunny days came with wind, wind, and more wind. The other half of the March days were rainy or cloudy, many with gale force winds, leaving me with the overall feeling that the whole month of March was a lion in weather terms. I am hoping for a gentler April.

I had my fourth physical therapy session today and now have a routine of 10 exercises I am supposed to do each day, plus walking a mile each morning and riding my exercise bike for 30 minutes each night. Today after my PT session, I picked up my friend Olga Mitchell and we walked the west Quashnet River Trail. When I dropped Olga back at home, it was almost 1 pm. Shadow and I then headed to Hyannis. I had to pick up new glasses and I did some shopping. By the time I got home, I was hungry and tired. I ate lunch and had a nap. So much for the first day of April.

2024 Life Logs, Day 91: Easter Sunday
Date: Sunday, March 31, 2024
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds; High Temp 53, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

In our family, Easter Sunday always begins with an egg hunt and ends with a family dinner. In between, we usually work on outside spring yard projects, weather permitting. Today we followed our usual pattern. I went over to Heather and Jed’s to watch the always fun Goldstone Easter Egg Hunt. The eggs were hidden in Heather and Jed’s backyard.

I forgot to bring the Easter baskets which are in my basement, so the boys improvised with paper bags—a perfect Easter basket for teenage boys. Jonah wore his on his head and at one point, Heather was wearing extra large Easter Egg halves on her head. They two of them definitely looked like egg heads! The Easter Bunny did a superb job of hiding the eggs this year and it took the boys a bit to find them all. When that fun was over, I headed home to start getting the dinner ready. I invited the Goldstones to my house for dinner this year to give them extra time to work on their deck. Yesterday Ollie used his lawn tractor to do yard clean up, so today the focus was removing the old deck boards and replacing them with new ones. The removal is hard work, so the replacement is going much slower than hoped. But board by board, they will get it done.

I spent my day in the kitchen preparing beef bourguignon for dinner. Grassfed beef needs to be marinated in wine for 24 hours to help tenderize it and then I bake in the oven in a cast iron stew pot for three hours before adding the vegetables. It is a bit of a process that basically took most of my afternoon. But everyone enjoyed the dinner and afterwards there were cookies to decorate for dessert. It was a fun day and whether you observe Easter or not, I hope you had a fun spring Sunday as well.

2024 Life Logs, Day 90: Campaigning and Adding to Ollie’s Aquarium
Date: Saturday, March 30, 2024
Weather: Sunny Day, but Windy; High Temp 49, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Heather survived the overnight with the boys last night. Only four of the five stayed. They had pizza and cake and stayed up until midnight. Then they were up at 6:30 this morning. But by noon today, everyone had gone home and Heather could relax. I got a call from Ollie after his friends left asking if I could take him to Falmouth Pet Center to get some new fish for his aquarium. When we returned, I hung out while we were waiting for the fish to acclimate. Then we put them in the aquarium, went to the hardware store to get a bag of container garden soil for Heather, and work on the lawn tractor a bit. Then I headed to the grocery store and then home to play outside in the sunshine with Shadow. At Heather’s it was warm on the back deck. No jacket needed. But in my yard the wind was blowing, and it was chilly. Their back deck is elevated and somehow, they don’t get the wind that I have at ground level. Heather was gardening in her deck raised beds, but it was too cold and windy at my house for gardening. Still, I enjoyed the sunshine which is a rarity these days.

Jed called and reported that Jonah’s team won their morning game. They also won their game yesterday afternoon. The coaches had made a decision that they would play one more game this afternoon and then end the tournament. No game tomorrow. So, Jed and Jonah got home this evening but I don’t know is Jonah’s team won their afternoon game.

I spent my morning emailing friends to invite them to Heather’s Meet the Candidate event this Wednesday. Her campaign for Select Board is going full speed right now and I suppose it will be like this until election day on May 21. I didn’t get all of my emails sent, so I will continue to work on that tomorrow.

That’s about it for today. Tomorrow I will go to Heather and Jed’s at 10 am for the annual Easter egg hunt. The boys requested that the Easter Bunny not arrive too early so they can sleep in. Tomorrow evening I have invited the Goldstones here for dinner.

2024 Life Logs, Day 89: Ollie’s Trampoline Bday Party and Dining-in
Date: Friday, March 29, 2024
Weather: Rain, Clearing a Bit in the PM; High Temp 49, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Six twelve-year-old boys had a bouncing good time at Nova Trampoline Park in Plymouth this afternoon. This is what Ollie chose for his birthday party activity and all six boys really did seem to have a great time.

The trampolines are at floor level and the areas between each trampoline is so well padded that it would be hard to get hurt unless someone jumped on you. I arrived about ten minutes late and by this time the boys were jumping from one trampoline to the next and then launching their bodies up onto a high wall. Only one of the six could literally jump up and land on his feet. That was a heart stopper.

Heather and I were the chaperones and they kept us busy. We would be watching them on the trampolines, turn our heads for a second, and they were no longer there. They were on to the dodge ball court, and then one would be off to the bouncing basketball court and the others would follow. Then they were on to a zip line where you dropped into a pit of foam blocks and a high climbing apparatus that required a harness and helmet. Once in a while they would all stop for a short break, but then they were right back at it. All of this went on for two hours. Heather thought they would be exhausted, but they found the junk food counter and stocked up on candy and slushies. Two boys did stop about 10 minutes early saying they were “tuckered out.” Now that’s a term I haven’t heard for years. But the rest of them were wired!

Jed was in Marlborough, Massachusetts yesterday with Jonah attending a two-day soccer tournament. That left Heather to head home alone with the wild ones for an overnight. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to know if Heather survived.

2024 Life Logs, Day 88: Newport Mansions Field Trip
Date: Thursday, March 28, 2024
Weather: Rain and More Rain; High Temp 49, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Oh, the weather outside was frightful, but it ended being a great day for touring inside two of Newport’s mansions, Marble House and The Breakers. The Marble House was built between 1888 and 1892 by the younger Vanderbilt brother, William. It was a 39th birthday present for his most interesting wife, Alva. Three years after its completion, the Vanderbilts were divorced and Alva got custody of the children and the summer cottage, Marble House. Marble House is an opulent 50 room mansion of the Gilded Age, certainly not a cottage. But it was built at the time that the wooden summer cottages of Newport were torn down and replaced with mansions used as summer homes by the wealthy. To the Vanderbilt’s, it was their summer cottage.

The Breakers  (phot borrowed from Wikipedia) was rebuilt by the older Vanderbilt brother, Cornelius. The original mansion on the property burned to the ground and was rebuilt to be as fireproof as possible. It is a 70 room mansion built of masonry and steel trusses with no wooden parts in the structure. To give you an idea of size, the front entry way, known as The Great Hall, is the size of a formal ballroom and was used for that purpose. When the rebuild was completed in 1895, The Breakers was the most opulent house in Newport. Unfortunately, Cornelis died four years later at age 55, leaving the mansion to his wife.

The younger Vanderbilt brother, William, and his wife Alva were both forceful personalities. Women’s suffrage was her passion and William loved sailing much more than running the family railroad empire. Marble House had personalities, but The Breakers won my heart with its library and fabulous kitchen and butler’s pantry, plus the Upper Loggia (second floor) overlooking the water. This is a huge stone and tile porch connecting the bedrooms on one side of the mansion with the bedrooms on the other side and was used as an open-air living room. Today the visibility was zero, so I must visit it again on a sunny day to enjoy the view.

Tomorrow is the beginning of a three-day weekend. As there is no school tomorrow, Ollie is having his trampoline birthday party with friends in the afternoon. We are traveling to Plymouth for that. And then tomorrow evening my dining-in group is gathering at Christina and Warren Brodies. Let the parties begin!

2024 Life Logs, Day 87: A Walk in the Cranberry Bogs and Belated Birthday Luncheon
Date: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Weather: Mix of Sun, Clouds, a Little Rain, Warmer; High Temp 52, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Today … morning exercises … a walk with Shadow in the cranberry bogs with friend Olga Mitchell … a delightful belated birthday luncheon with friends … researching what to order for Ziggy for his birthday … final planning for tomorrow’s field trip to tour the Newport mansions. And now time for bed.

2024 Life Logs, Day 86: Pampered Paws
Date: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Weather: Overcast, Some Rain; High Temp 41, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Every seven weeks, I deliver Shadow to Pampered Paws up by the Bourne Bridge and about six hours later I drive the 20 minutes back up to the bridge to pick him up. Pampered Paws is the name of the place where Shadow gets groomed and today was that day. Between transporting the beauty queen, taking Ollie to saxophone lesson, sending out final plans for a field trip on Thursday, and finalizing the agenda for next week’s Encore Board meeting, my day frittered itself away. And I forgot to mention the exercises in the morning, riding the exercise bike in the evening, and walking and playing outside with Shadow, and food preparation. Nothing exciting today, but Shadow sure looks good.