2018 Life Logs, Day 220—44 Years Ago Today
Date: Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Weather: Sunny and Hot; High 87, Low 73 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

In catching up on the news tonight, I was reminded that 44 years ago today Richard Nixon resigned as President. And that led to the memory of what Mark and I were doing on that day. We were setting the ridge pole in place on the log cabin we were building in northern Idaho. We had built up the logs on either end of the cabin and the ridge pole is the main beam that holds the whole thing together. In this case, that beam was 37-feet above ground level and we had no ladder. The only way to get the beam up there was to drive railroad spikes into trees and to use those spikes to climb up. We had no electricity, but even back then we were news junkies and had a battery-operated radio. We had heard that the Nixon was going to resign, so we had the radio sitting at the base of one of threes blasting the resignation speech just as we set the ridge pole. There must be some significance to this, but I am not sure exactly what that is. But I will say that we had quite a celebration that evening. I am inserting a photo, not very clear, of that moment. You probably can’t see it, but Mark is straddling that ridge pole at the far end.

Jonah, Ollie, and I had a great time at the beach this morning. While Jonah had his class, Ollie challenged Dorothy, a very proficient nine-year-old swimmer, to race him to the jetty. The beauty of a six-year-old is that they have no concept that there is anything in the world that they can’t do. So he swam as hard as he could and made it to the jetty and back. Then he and Dorothy spent the next hour doing acrobatics in the water—handstands, back flips, front flips, and something Ollie calls a 180 twist. After his class, Jonah joined them and they all had a great time. Then Jonah and Ollie played in the sand, digging tunnels for another hour. When we got home, we had a water battle using the Water Blasters (like water canons). We didn’t need showers afterwards, as all salt water was washed away. I think we were all exhausted by that time, so we had lunch and the boys spent the afternoon in front of the fan in the living room drawing fancy cars. With Sam’s absence, Jonah and Ollie are spending a lot more time playing together. Nice to watch.

When Heather got home, she headed to the garden to harvest the day’s bounty. She asked me what plans I have for next week when they are in Maine on vacation. I replied that I had no plans, but then I thought about that and realized that I a huge list of things I hope to accomplish. I will also be spending a bit of time reconnecting with friends. I have been out of the loop since the end of June and will take time to join in on a few gatherings during the week.

2018 Life Logs, Day 219—Fun with ‘Bots’
Date: Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Weather: Sunny, Hot, and Windy; High 86, Low 72 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The word ‘bots’ can mean different things, everything from the larvae of the internal parasite called the botfly to the short term for robots. Today, thanks to an heads up from friend Jane Woodin, Ollie, Jonah, and I attended a ‘bot’ workshop at the West Falmouth Library. We built water bots, jiggly bots, and art bots as part of a STEM workshop. In the education world, STEM stands for the disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. And today’s workshop was fantastic. The kids got to build three different kinds of ‘bots’—a water ‘bot’, a jiggly ‘bot’, and an art ‘bot’, sometimes called a scribble ‘bot’. Robots perform repetitive tasks with expertise and the little robots we built today did just that. Using an AA battery pack and a 3 volt motor, the kids built ‘bots’ with a propeller that turns circles in the water, a jiggly ‘bot’ with wooden skewer legs that turns circles on the floor, and an art ‘bot’ with art marker legs that scribbles in circles on a large sheet of paper. This is all so much fun, but the bigger idea is that kids are learning about motors, DC power, electrical engineering, and the basic design of a robot. When we got home, Jonah and Ollie launched into other electrical engineering projects, and when I left at 5:30 this evening, Ollie was in the basement searching for materials to adapt the water ‘bot’. It was definitely a successful venture.

Before the ‘bot’ workshop we went to swim lessons. Actually, we just went for Jonah’s lesson as we had to leave before Ollie’s. But in addition to building sand castles, Ollie challenged himself to swimming the long distance to the jetty. His breast stroke is beautiful to watch and his free-style is strong as long as face is underwater.. He just needs to learn how to turn his head to the side to breathe rather than stopping to breathe and then continuing. We’ll work on that next summer. Jonah still enjoys the beach games before and after swim lessons much more than the swimming, but he is hanging in there and has made wonderful progress. We missed Sam at the beach today and were all glad to find out at day’s end that his bus trip from Boston to Portland went smoothly and that he is now in the capable hands of Grammy Marti for a week’s adventure in Maine. It was a hot day here, so in between ‘bot’ adventures, the boys cooled off by having fun on the Slip ‘n Slide. It was another good summer day.

2018 Life Logs, Day 218—The Joy of Watching Kids Being Kids
Date: Monday, August 6, 2018
Weather: Sunny and Hot; High 87, Low 72 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

This was a special day. Some days there is bickering, some days everyone is grumpy, and some days are joyful. This was one of those days. Sam is eleven and all of a sudden seems so very grown up. Here’s a photo Heather took of Sam with his good friend Sebastian yesterday . . . so handsome and not looking like little boys any more. Today was Sam’s last day of beach swim classes as he heads to Maine tomorrow to spend a week with his Grammy Marti. He has not been taking swim lessons like Jonah and Ollie this summer. Instead, the deal was that he would swim from jetty to jetty every day. He has done that, most of the time without complaining, and he has definitely become a stronger swimmer, as have Jonah and Ollie. So, we celebrated his last beach swim class day by going to Smitty’s to get special treats. Sam wanted a chocolate frappe and Jonah and Ollie wanted watermelon sherbert freezies (like a milkshake). These things are not cheap and there is way more ice cream or sherbert in them than any child needs, but I caved and let them have them and tried to make it clear that this is a really special treat that only happens on very special occasions. Smitty’s is across the street from the Falmouth Public Library and while we were there, Ollie saw his friend Raylan over at the library. On Mondays free lunches are provided for children along with a special performance. Ollie really wanted to go get a lunch and play with Raylan, so Sam and Jonah walked home while I watched Ollie playing with Raylan and Raylan’s cousin Grayson on the hill behind the library. These three had been at the beach together all morning, but you would have thought they hadn’t seen each other for weeks. They were running on the hill as I watched them, and then I looked down to examine a book Ollie had taken from the free pile. All of a sudden it got very quiet and when I looked up to see what they were doing, I saw no little boys. They seemed to have vanished. I walked all around the library and there was no sign of little boys. I went into the library to see if they were there, but they were not. Raylan’s mother went out to help me look for them, and we found them lying in the grass basking in the sun not far from where I had been sitting. They were just quietly soaking in the day, so quietly that I didn’t even see them. Another of those moments of joy. Jonah’s joy today came from throwing a football back and forth in the water with a friend from his swim class and then taking a long walk on the beach with the same friend. It was a low key day that was enjoyed by all. And I feel so blessed to be able to watch the Goldpebbles just enjoying their summer days.

We spent the afternoon at home and the boys played with next door neighbors, Molly and Joey. As I wrote earlier, some days there is bickering and conflict, but today the kids just played with not a single complaint. This was a first! At one point in the afternoon when I was working with Sam to help him gather his clothes to pack, the other kids set up a lemonade stand. I had made lemonade for their picnic lunch, so they used what was left to make a little money. They set it up with no help. In fact, I didn’t even know it until Ollie asked if he could take the pitcher of lemonade to sell.

Tomorrow morning, Heather will take Sam to the bus station in Boston and put him on a bus to Portland, Maine, where Grammy Marti will pick him up. This is a first for Sam and he is so excited. Heather and Jed invited me to stay for dinner tonight to celebrate Sam’s first away from home trip without mommy and daddy. I will have only Jonah and Ollie for the rest of this week and then next week they will head to Maine for week of summer vacation with Heather and Jed.

2018 Life Logs, Day 217—A Little Gardening, A Little Cooking
Date: Sunday, August 5, 2018
Weather: Overcast with Late Afternoon Rain; High 82, Low 69 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I can’t believe it is midnight on a day when I did so little, and yet I am just now getting the time to write this log. I did a little gardening—cleaning out and replanting things like lettuce. I drove to Terry and Olivia’s to pick up a couple of compost bins they were getting rid of. And then I came home and did a little cooking. There were some other tasks that I snuck in here and there, but basically that was my day. The weather was beautiful and I spend a little time down on the dock just watching a pair of egrets and sitting at the dining room table on my computer, I watched bright yellow American Finches darting about in the back yard and bright red little birds, maybe Purple Finches, visiting the zinnias in the front raised garden beds along with Black Swallowtail and Tiger Swallowtail butterflies. Sure glad I planted those zinnias as I am loving the show. The Swallowtails stay right on the flowers even as I stand there and water.

2018 Life Logs, Day 216—Rainy Day
Date: Saturday, August 4, 2018
Weather: Overcast with Late Afternoon Rain; High 77, Low 68 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

To say that we got rain late this afternoon is a bit of an understatement. For about an hour, we got a real downpour that was much needed. Otherwise, today was uneventful. I went to the gym for a one-time Saturday class offering and it felt great to workout. It has been six weeks since I have been to the gym. I’ll get back to my regular exercise routine after school starts. In the meantime, just trying to keep up with three active boys keeps me in shape. I then went to Heather’s to make cucumber soup with the bounty of cucumbers we are getting from our gardens all of a sudden. Heather and Jed are hosting a dinner for the people in Jed’s lab tomorrow afternoon, so I’m hoping everyone likes cucumber soup! Tomorrow will be another quiet day for me. Maybe I can catch up on logs not written and photos not posted.

2018 Life Logs, Day 215—Working Day
Date: Friday, August 3, 2018
Weather: Sunny; High 84, Low 72 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was a working day . . . garden, yard, and house clean-up at the Goldstones. The boys helped out, sometimes enthusiastically and sometimes not so, but together we ticked off a lot of jobs on the list made by Heather and Jed plus some jobs added by Oma. Sam loved using the power washer to clean house trim and Ollie loved using the hand-powered lawn mover to cut grass in the back yard. Neither of those things were on the list. Jonah didn’t find his love until Heather got home. She had him spraying the cleaner on cabinet doors as she wiped them down. He loved doing that so much that he then sprayed the kitchen floor as I mopped. When Heather got home, she got the trim around front door painted. It looks great.

Mid-day we drove into town to get Sam’s hair cut. Heather usually cuts his hair, but he had a coupon from Pro Cuts and wanted to go there. He wanted to be in charge of telling the stylist how much to cut, so I let him do it. I think she cut too much, but then I love the ‘mop top’ Goldpebbles. Sam looked way too ‘groomed’ for me, but he was very happy with the results. He leaves on Tuesday for a week in Maine to spend time with his Grammy Marti. Getting his hair cut was on his list of things to get done before leaving, so we accomplished that. The other thing that got accomplished was getting new brakes for my car. I needed new calipers as well as pads, an oil change, and other maintenance issues. The price tag was higher than I hoped, but my eight year-old Honda Fit has needed very little maintenance until now. Mark and I bought it used in 2014 and I think the first time I have spent money on the car has been this summer. New tires a month ago and now new brakes. Hopefully that will be it for a bit. The people doing the brakes reported that the car is in incredibly good condition other than needing regular maintenance work. Hope they are right about that.

2018 Life Logs, Day 214—A Summer Day of Swimming and Playing
Date: Thursday, August 2, 2018
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High 80, Low 73 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was all about kids spending a summer day swimming and playing with friends. The day was not planned. We just let it evolve. First, we went to swim lessons and found that it was REALLY windy. That means lots of waves, so Jonah, Sam, and Jude, the grandson of my next door neighbors, spent a lot of time riding those waves. It was a bit rough for Ollie, but when he went out with his swim instructor, he had a great time. It is such a joy for me to see kids enjoying their summer days. We left the beach at noon, but through a series of texts, we made arrangements for Sam to spend the afternoon with friends Cole and Leo at their house while Jonah and Ollie came home with me to play with Jude, the nine-year old grandson of my neighbors. Later in the afternoon, Jonah, Ollie, and I went to the Farmer’s Market while Sam stayed home alone to enjoy some quiet time to himself. It was a relaxed summer day enjoyed by all of us. The only negative was that the brakes on my car started making a horrible metal scraping sound. Heather and Jed have loaned me their van for tomorrow and I was able to get an appointment to have the brakes fixed.

“Tucked between two high-rise condominiums, about 50 boats bob lazily at Pier 3 marina on the Delaware River. About 20 of them are also homes to their captains, who head out to work as scientists, professors, salespeople, or students each morning and return to the vessel each night.” This is the intro to an article published today in the Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/real_estate/pier-3-marina-waterfront-delaware-river-morgans-pier-20180802.html?mobi=true
and one of the 20 boats belongs to my dear friends Claire McKellar and Kevin Russell who now live at Pier 3 on their 34-foot 1989 Catalina named Merganser. Mark and I first met Kevin and Claire when they lived aboard Merganser in the Boston Harbor. Claire was a graduate student at Harvard Medical and she and Kevin had been living in Brookline. One day she joked with Kevin that they should do something in their lives that wasn’t just working 18 hours a day. She says she was just kidding, but when she said to Kevin, “We could just give up our apartment and live on a boat,” he loved the idea and they lived aboard in Boston for the next four years. Since 2007, they have been living on land in Virginia and enjoying the boat on weekends. But this spring Claire’s work as a neuroscientist took her to Princeton in New Jersey and they made the decision move Merganser from the Chesapeake Bay to Philadelphia so they could once again live aboard. I can’t wait to go visit with them!

2018 Life Logs, Day 213—It’s August . . . Yikes
Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Warm and Humid; High 80, Low 73 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I love summer, but somehow this one seems to be slipping away too quickly. Part of that is because we really didn’t have spring until June and it didn’t feel like summer until July. And part of it is because there has been no consistency this summer. Every week has been completely different, so it has been impossible to establish routines. But we are having fun and will try to make every day from now until the day school starts a very special day. Our plan for today was to go to swim lessons and then spend the afternoon at home just relaxing. But Sam and Jonah got an invitation to go play at a friend’s home which sounded way more exciting than relaxing to little boys. We’ll try for a quiet afternoon tomorrow, but somehow I’m not convinced that will happen. But whatever happens, it will be fun.

The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy and I have not had the time to post photos. I will go back and post those photos this weekend, but I thought I would share some of the best moments here. A photo opportunity capturing my whole family . . . grandkids kayaking . . . ice cream at Smitty’s . . . the Goldstones at Highfield . . . capturing photos of Jonah and Ziggy who hide from cameras these days . . . photos of Coco’s birthday party in Puerto Rico . . . digging clams with Rex and friend Peter Baranowski . . . visiting with Rex and Diana . . . the Goldpebbles enjoying lunch at Quicks Hole Taqueria . . . Ollie frolicking in the water . . . afternoon at Woodneck with Jeanne Harper and boys . . . making summer memories.

2018 Life Logs, Day 212—Fabulous Beach Day
Date: Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Weather: Gorgeous, Sunny Day; High 81, Low 65 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It has been a busy few days . . . so busy that I am just now posting logs for today and the last two days. I wrote the logs, but just didn’t have time to send them.

Rex and Diana left early this morning. We said our farewells and then I was off for a day of Camp Oma. We went to Jonah’s swim lesson and enjoyed the low tide at Menauhant Beach on the sandbar. We were having such a good time but couldn’t stay as Ollie had an 11:30 am dentist appointment in Woods Hole. We left, promising that tomorrow morning we will spend the entire morning playing at Menauhant. While waiting for Ollie to return from his dental appointment, Sam, Jonah, and I bought lunch for all of us at the Woods Hole Market. Once Ollie was back with us, we took our lunch to the Bell Tower on the far side of Eel Pond and enjoyed a picnic lunch in the lovely Bell Tower gardens. Then it was on to Wood Neck Beach and Little Sippewissett Marsh. Neighbors, Cole and Leo and their mother Jeanne, joined us for the afternoon. The boys were in the water for a full four hours and had a wonderful time. At one point in the afternoon, a team arrived from the Woods Hole Science Aquarium to lead interested kids to join staff member in collecting specimens from the marsh. Jonah and Leo joined them and returned with crabs, eels, pipefish, and a couple of different kinds of small fish. While they did that, Cole and Sam spent time on the beach side of Wood Neck and Ollie spent all of his time practicing his new swimming skills. Heather joined us late in the afternoon which was special treat for the boys. It was an incredibly beautiful day making it perfect for beach time in one of the most beautiful spots on earth.

2018 Life Logs, Day 211—Happy Birthday to Coco
Date: Monday, July 30, 2018
Weather: Mostly Sunny Early, Overcast Late; High 82, Low 64 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Yesterday, my youngest grandchild, Coco Annabelle, celebrated her sixth birthday with friends. But today was her actual birth date and we had a Skype call where her Goldstone cousins and I sang happy birthday to her. Coco is such a happy child who brings so much joy to the world. Happy birthday, Coco!!!

My nephew Rex and his wife Diana are still visiting so I balanced the day between Camp Oma and visiting with Rex and Diana. After swim lessons, the Goldpebbles and I picked them up and headed to Woods Hole to have lunch at Quick’s Hole Taqueria. Rex has a quest to eat lobster as many ways as possible, so today we added lobster tacos and lobster quesadilla. While in Maine he had steamed lobster, lobster bisque, seafood stew with lobster, lobster roll, scallop casserole with lobster, and three other lobster dishes. In one vacation week he has had lobster ten different ways. Go, Rex! While in Woods Hole, we visited Jed’s lab and then headed to Menauhant Beach. Unfortunately, by the time we got there it was overcast, so we didn’t stay long. We ended our day at Heather and Jed’s where we had clam chowder and salad for dinner. I steamed the big clams from our huge Sunday clamming expedition and prepped the other ingredients for Heather who made the chowder. It was absolutely delicious. What a special treat! Thank you, Heather.

Rex and Diana will be heading home to West Virginia in the morning. It has been wonderful to have them here. Time together is always too short, but I cherish whatever time I have with family.