Day 236, Year 11: A Day Without Drama . . . Almost
Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 75 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

Thankfully Mark and I had a much needed day with no drama. However, I think we transferred the drama to Heather. Her day started off on the wrong foot when her alarm didn’t go off. She was supposed go running at 6:30, but that didn’t happen. At 8:15 am, Jed left for California. He drove the car to the bus station and then sent a text saying he was parked where it says, “No Overnight Parking.” Oops. That meant that Heather was going to have to somehow get that car today. I volunteered that Mark and I would do that for her. So far, so good. Things then went smoothly until Heather took the boys to school. She got Sam and Jonah to school and then Sam remembered that he needed to bring a special shirt to school today. So Heather had to come back and take that to him. Then when she dropped Ollie off at school in Woods Hole, he had a meltdown and she had to stay with him for a bit. So she didn’t get to work until after 10 am. Then when she was ready to leave work, her van was blocked in by two cars. Not just her van was blocked in, but a number of other cars. Evidently two engineers from WGBH in Boston arrived at the Woods Hole radio station parking lot and found no parking spots. So they just parked behind other cars blocking them in and then locked their cars and left on the ferry for Martha’s Vineyard without telling anyone. It took more than an hour to figure out who the cars belonged to and when they were called, they explained what they had done with no apologies. So the drama today was frustrating for Heather, but at least there were no trips to the ER for stitches and no one fell down the stairs. Heather went to a PTO Volunteer Dinner tonight, so we had dinner with the boys and put them to bed. That went smoothly, so we’ll call this a good day.

Tomorrow we are off to Boston. We’ll stop at IKEA on the way home to buy a bed frame and then pick the boys up and take them with us to see our new apartment. Yeah!!! The boys will be with a babysitter until we get home as Heather has a late afternoon/evening commitment. She’ll have to wait until Thursday to see the apartment. We are a bit nervous about seeing it since we only saw the apartment once and only for a few minutes. It was love at first sight, but what we fell in love with was the location. We signed the contract, but have not been able to see it again. So we are anxious to see it, get the keys, and start the move. On Thursday we will move in the IKEA bed frame and put it together. On Friday, the mattress set will be delivered by Sears and Comcast is coming to get us connected to the internet and cable TV. Then on Saturday the BIG MOVE happens. It is going to be a busy few days.

Day 235, Year 11: Lucky Fall
Date: Monday, June 13, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 72 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

If any fall can be ‘lucky’, then Mark’s fall all the way down the stairs from the second floor to the first floor, was a lucky one. He is bruised and has scrapes on his arms, but his back, hips, and legs are fine. The bathroom downstairs was in use, so he went up to the second floor to go to the bathroom just before dinner. He didn’t have his indoor Crocs on, only his socks, and that was the problem. He started back down, his feet slipped on the first step, was unable to catch himself and he bounced all the way down on his bottom. Since he has lost so much weight, he has no padding at all. So all I can say is that he obviously has very strong bones and one strong bum! Heather and I were in the kitchen when we heard the thumping on the stairs. It obvious someone was falling down. It was so loud that I thought it must be Jed, but when we ran to the living room, we could see Mark lying at the bottom of the stairs. At first he was just lying there, but then he started getting up. He kept saying he was fine, but I think we were all sure something must be broken. But he kept insisting that he was fine, and indeed, he was. Whew! Last night’s log was entitled “Always Something” and that seems to be the way of things these days. I am just so grateful that Mark is fine. He is bruised, but that fall could have been whole lot worse. Therefore, I’m calling it a ‘lucky’ fall. Sure am glad we persisted in finding an apartment with no stairs. At least we won’t have that worry in our new abode.

After Ollie’s trip to the ER last evening, he decided he wanted to stay home with Oma and Granddad today. At breakfast he came up with the idea of having school at home today and he called it Home School. He got a piece of paper and some markers in order to make a written plan for the day. So we did. We had a fun day together. Actually the whole day and evening went very smoothly until Granddad’s fall. That shook all of us a little. Ollie wouldn’t even come in the house for dinner. He ate under the table on the deck!

Day 234, Year 11: Always Something
Date: Sunday, June 12, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High Temp 82 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

When you have three little boys, there is always something happening. Sometimes it is happy things, sometimes it is busy times, and sometimes there are accidents when someone gets hurt. Today this happened to Ollie. He and Jonah were chasing each other around a bush and ended up running into each other, head on. It was a hard hit and Ollie ended up with a gash just below his right eye that sent him to the Emergency Room to get seven stitches. After the accident, it was obvious that Ollie needed stitches, so Heather and Jed took off immediately for the hospital and Melissa next door took Sam and Jonah to get ice cream at Smitty’s. Ollie was brave at the hospital, but as they started to put in the stitches, Ollie looked at his mom and said, “Momma, please tell them to be very gentle.” That’s the kind of thing that breaks a momma’s (and an Oma’s) heart. But he was a brave little guy and is now fast asleep in Heather’s arms. There will be a little scar, but he will still be beautiful Ollie.

160612 Day 234a Cape Cod, USA–Stitches

And speaking of beautiful Ollie, earlier in the afternoon while everyone was outside, Ollie went up to his room and got all dressed up. For what reason we don’t know, but who questions the logic of a four year-old. I have been staying off my feet as much as possible this weekend because of my knee, so I was sitting on the front porch watching Sam cut the grass with the new electric lawn mower.

160612 Day 234b Cape Cod, USA–Sam Cutting Grass

About that time, Ollie came out and was very proud of being so dressed up. He looked quite dapper, so I took some photos. Here are my absolute favorites.

160612 Day 234c Cape Cod, USA–Dapper Ollie

Day 233, Year 11: Baseball, Soccer Tournament, and Gardening
Date: Saturday, June 11, 2016
Weather: Mostly Cloudy with Afternoon Sprinkles; High Temp 69 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

Today was another grandkid-centered day with Jonah’s baseball game, Sam’s soccer tournament, and babysitting this evening. Jed and Sam headed out for the soccer tournament this morning and then Heather, Mark, Jonah, Ollie, and I went to Jonah’s game.

160611 Day 233 Cape Cod, USA–Jonah's Baseball Game

When we got home Heather and I did some gardening, but eventually we got rained out by the persistent sprinkles. Or at least I got rained out. Heather went back outside and weeded out front while Mark and I held down the fort inside the house. Jonah and Ollie were playing with next door neighbor kids, Molly and Joey. They were rescuing animals in distress and each room of the house became a different part of the world. The living room was the Arctic, the kitchen was Australia, and the playroom became the rain forest. Such imaginations! It was delightful to watch them saving all of those animals. When Sam and Jed returned from the soccer tournament, the kids got to watch a movie to ‘celebrate’ the rainy afternoon. They chose the second in a Star Wars series and that ended just as Heather and Jed were leaving for an evening out with friends. After dinner and reading time, it was early to bed tonight. Ollie and Sam were exhausted and Jonah made no protests. All three boys were fast asleep by 8:15 pm. So it was an easy babysitting night for Oma and Granddad.

Day 232, Year 11: Lots of Activity
Date: Friday, June 10, 2016
Weather: Sunny; High 68 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

Today’s activities were centered around the grandkids. It was field day at East Falmouth Elementary, so Mark and I went over this morning to watch some of the action.

160610 Day 232a Cape Cod, USA–Field Day for Sam and Jonah

We came home and I did a bit of outdoor gardening. I thought my knee was good enough to walk up and down the hill in the backyard to get the supplies I needed for planting some herbs in a hanging planter that I will take with me to the apartment. But I was wrong about my knee. By the time I finished the job, I had to lay down and elevate my knee which I wrapped in a cold pack. Stairs and hills seem to be off limits for a few days. Mark picked Sam and Jonah up from school and then we headed to Woods Hole for Ollie’s end-of-the-year program. They call it graduation as each child gets a certificate for completing the year. But Ollie has one more year at the Co-op before he enters kindergarten. Those years have gone so quickly.

160610 Day 232b Cape Cod, USA–WHDCC Graduation

Tomorrow is another day centered around kid and garden activities. Jonah has a morning baseball game that we will attend and Sam and Jed have a soccer tournament. In the afternoon I hope to be able to do a little puttering in the garden if my knee allows. Heather and Jed are going out tomorrow night, so we’ll be babysitting. Then on Sunday the Goldstones go to a Scout picnic and I head back to the storage unit to do a little more work before next Saturday’s move.

Day 231, Year 11: On a Roll
Date: Thursday, June 9, 2016
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 68 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

I’m going to stick with the “roll” theme for another day. Yesterday I wrote about life being like a roll of toilet paper—the closer to the end, the faster it goes. Today, however, I’ll write about being on a roll. Short story—We bought a mattress set and arranged for delivery, we got recommendations and decided on a new primary care physician, we checked out moving van rentals, we measured the walkway at The Studio to know what size dollies we can use, and Heather has arranged for four college kids to load and unload the moving van on Saturday, July 18. Whew! I said we were on a roll.

Now the longer story . . . I started the day by driving downtown to have coffee with good friend Jane Woodin. We had planned to walk today, but I have lifted too many heavy boxes and am having trouble with my left knee. So I’m trying to stay off it as much as I can for the next couple of days to let the inflammation settle down a bit. With the upcoming move, not being able to lift and carry things will be quite a challenge. So hopefully the knee mends quickly. But anyway, back to being on a roll. After leaving Jane, I picked Mark up and we drove to Sears in Hyannis. We quickly found a couple of mattress of the desired firmness and in the right price range. Just as we went to find a sales person, one came our way and helped us make the final decision. We went with a Simmons BeautyRest set. The mattress and box springs will be delivered to our apartment next Friday free of charge. The set will be put in place, the plastic wrapping taken away, and we will have a new bed! But we will have to stop at IKEA on Wednesday on our way home from Boston to buy the bed frame. Mark will assemble that on Thursday, so we will be ready for the Friday delivery. Looking at mattresses and purchasing took less than 30 minutes and we were on our way home. We then went to a local Budget rental place in Falmouth and inquired about renting a moving van and some flat rolling dollies. The truck will be no problem, but they have only the traditional stand-up dollies for rent. We drove to The Studio apartments to measure the width of the walkway we will have to use to cart things from the parking area to the apartment. Thankfully it is much wider than I remembered. It is four feet wide and that will allow us to use the flat, rolling dollies if we can just find them for rent here in Falmouth. Mark also got the Comcast appointment for installing cable in the apartment changed from the 23rd to the 16th. We did all that, went to pick up Sam and Jonah, stayed at school to use the baseball field to practice pitching and catching, and were home by 4 pm to get dinner started.

160609 Day 231 Cape Cod, USA–Jonah and Sam Playing Catch

While picking up Sam and Jonah, I was able to talk with Melissa Keefe who lives next door. She is a practicing nurse and Heather thought she might have some suggestions for us for a new primary care physician. Our PCP has left the Falmouth Hospital general practice to become more specialized, so we need a new doctor. I have done some computer research and came up with a possibility, but wanted a first-hand recommendation. Melissa concurred that my top pick is an absolutely wonderful doctor. He is taking new patients, so tomorrow we will do the proper application and have one more thing accomplished. Mark and I picked Sam and Jonah up from school and stayed on the adjacent baseball field to practice pitching and catching for bit before returning home. I made pizza dough and brownies and when Jed got home, he made the pizza for dinner. Heather was in Boston this evening and Jed had a meeting at 7 pm, so we put the boys to bed and Jed got home in time to stay with them to make sure they were really asleep. When Heather got home, she had good news for us. She has been able to arrange for four college guys to help us with the move on Saturday, July 18th. A lot was accomplished today, and thankfully so. Tomorrow is field day for Sam and Jonah and the end-of-the-year graduation program and pot luck dinner for Ollie. I won’t bore you with the logistics, but just getting boys to where they need to be at various times, going to watch part of field day, fixing something to take to the pot luck dinner at the Woods Hole Coop, picking Sam and Jonah up from school, and getting to Woods Hole in time for the graduation ceremony is enough of a challenge for me for one day. Heather and Jed are both out straight with work commitments, so we are glad we are here and can help out.

Well, I thought we were on a roll, but just now when I tried to post this log online, I was denied access to the handleysail website. Not sure what the problem might be. The log will be posted as soon as the website if available, but if you are reading this, obviously the problem has been resolved.

Day 230, Year 11: Life is Like a Roll of Toilet Paper . . .
Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Weather: Sunny, but Cooler; High 68 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

Andy Rooney was on CBS’s 60 minutes from 1978 until he died in 2011. Evidently at some point he wrote a list of the most poignant things he had learned in his life. A couple of days ago Falmouth friend, Olivia Masih White, sent an email listing some of his wise learnings. There was everything from having a child fall asleep in your arms being one of the most peaceful things in the world (so true) to being kind is more important than being right. But my favorite was this:

I’ve learned….
That life is like a roll of toilet paper.
The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

How true that is! I hope I’m not too close to the end, but I am surely closer than I was 69 years ago. And with every year that passes, it really does feel like time is going faster. Half of the time I feel like a dog chasing her tail, going faster, faster, and faster. Thank you, Andy Rooney, for putting into words what most of us feel. And thank you, Olivia, for passing on those learnings.

Right now the days are flying by. There are so many things that need to be done before our move next week. Each day we chip away at the list, but there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to get everything done. I’ve decided to focus on just one thing each day. Today was an infusion day and on the way home we stopped at IKEA, one more time, to decide on which bed frame we want to purchase. What I found out today is that all of their beds have a frame in which the mattress sits down inside. That means when you make the bed, you have to fit your hand down inside the two-inch deep frame and lift the mattress up to put on the fitted sheet. The weight of mattresses these days makes that quite a back breaking job. So now I know we need to buy not just a mattress, but also box springs. That way the box springs will sit down inside the frame and the mattress will be on top of that making it much easier to put on the sheets. Tomorrow’s job will be to find a mattress and box spring set that we can afford and that can be delivered to our apartment door late next week. IF we accomplish that tomorrow, I’ll be quite happy.

I really think we are going to love living in the apartment, but moving into it has its difficulties. Because it is a ground-level, waterfront apartment, the only access to the apartment is a paved sidewalk. Mark and I have tried to estimate the distance and we think it is about 150 to 200 feet from the parking lot to the steps leading up to our deck. And then it is almost 50 feet to the front door. I am certainly not going to be carrying a mattress from the parking lot to the apartment door. So we will only buy one after we are promised door to door delivery. The distance from the parking area to the apartment also makes the whole move challenging. Heather is trying to help us locate about four strong college-aged guys that want to make some extra money. If we are successful in locating manpower, we will then rent a moving van that will hold everything and have them load the things from our two storage units and then unload and carry all of it into the apartment. But if we can’t find cheap labor, we are thinking that we will just have to hire professional movers to do the job. Jed is out of town next week and doesn’t return until Father’s Day Sunday, and there is no way that Heather and I can move all of that stuff. So the job on Friday of this week is to either secure the help of college kids and rent the moving van OR hire professional movers. One day at a time.

Tonight was East Falmouth Elementary School’s third and fourth grade band and chorus concert. Sam is in the chorus and we all enjoyed the concert. Mark’s stomach has been ‘off’ all day and he didn’t join us, but Ollie and Jonah used my camera to get video for him to watch. It was 8:15 pm when the concert ended and almost dark. But Jonah was desperate to have someone to throw a few pitches to him on the baseball field adjacent to the school. He had brought along his empty school backpack to wear on his front as a catcher’s chest protector. What an ingenious little character!

160608 Day 230 Cape Cod, USA–Sam's Chorus Concert

Day 229, Year 11: Decisions Can Be Reversed
Date: Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High 78 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

Today was a new day and I went to that overwhelming storage unit early in the day. What I discovered was that there is some hope that we can actually empty that monster by the end of June. So decisions can be reversed. Last night I said it couldn’t be done, but today I worked hard for two hours and things are looking up. I’m not sure just how crowded all of the boxes will make the apartment feel, but that will be incentive to get rid of the stuff quickly. So I’ll just keep chipping away at this day after day and see where we end up. Mark made calls today to get natural gas and electricity hooked up for the apartment and is still working on getting TV and internet set up. We thought we had already done this when we cancelled the subscription in Lowell, but we got a confirmation yesterday showing an installation date a week or so later than we had agreed on earlier. Comcast is not easy to deal with, so we shall see how this goes. Now we just need to go try out mattresses for a new bed. We will use the bed from my niece’s condo in our guest bedroom, but we still need something for us to sleep on. That will be Thursday’s job.

Mark has been having trouble with this right eye for at least a week and a half now. He had the nurse practitioner at Mass General look at it last Wednesday and she prescribed an ointment antibiotic. She thought it should clear things up in two days. Well, on Sunday it was worse, so we went to CVS to get an antihistamine eye drop on Heather’s recommendation. That didn’t help either. So yesterday Mark called the Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston with offices here on the Cape. He saw a doctor there in 2014 and they called back this morning and made an appointment for Mark late this afternoon. We had a bit of a wait, but once we saw the doctor he diagnosed the problem quickly. With the specialized equipment, he could see that two of the bottom eyelashes were growing inwards and had abraded the cornea. Thus, the pain. The doctor removed the offending eyelashes, prescribed an antibiotic eye drop, explained that Mark also has a common eyelid inflammation called blepharitis, and made a follow-up appointment for next week. All of that took about five minutes and tonight Mark’s eye is already so much better. Thankfully he remembered that he had seen a doctor at that office and was able to get in so quickly. One more problem solved! At least, we hope that is the case.

Day 228, Year 11: Back to the Ye Old Storage Unit
Date: Monday, June 6, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High 77 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

I’ve put it off as long as possible, but today I returned to the storage unit we have had for way too many years and started seriously going through things—box by box. I didn’t get very far in two hours and realized that the job will take weeks, not days. And I don’t have weeks right now. I’ll keep chipping away in any time that I do have, but more than likely, we’ll have to keep this storage unit through the summer until life slows down in the fall. Once school is out, I’ll be keeping the Goldpebbles three days a week, going to Boston with Mark one day a week, and spending the other three days doing the food preparation necessary in a cancer-fighting kitchen. Once school starts in the fall, I’ll have more time to sort through things. I was determined to get everything out of that unit next week when we move into the apartment, but all of those boxes are just not going to fit in the new apartment. I think our lives will be much saner if we just shut the storage unit door and return to it in the fall. Decision made.

Day 227, Year 11: Congratulations to Our Daughter
Date: Sunday, June 5, 2016
Weather: Overcast, Windy, Some Rain; High 65 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA

I know Heather has been running for the past couple of years, but I didn’t know she could run in a four-mile race and match her goal of running 9-minute miles. But she did it and we were all most impressed. That’s not something I could ever do. When I was Heather’s age I could slow jog three miles, but it was difficult for me and I didn’t find it enjoyable. Heather seems to really enjoy running. Congratulations, Heather!!! Today’s race was called the June Jog and it is a yearly fundraiser for East Falmouth Elementary. Heather was a PTO volunteer for this event as well as a runner, so she was out of the house by 6:30 am and on her way to pick up food for the event. The race started at 8:30 am and we met Heather at 9:06 as she approached the finish line at the school. Jonah ran the last leg with her and then he ran around the school quarter-mile track two times. So we know there is at least one other runner in the family.

160605 Day 227a Cape Cod, USA–June Jog

Heather’s next race will be the seven-mile Falmouth Road Race in August. Today there were 150 runners. There will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 runners in the Road Race. Hopefully just finishing that race will be Heather’s goal—no speed goals. And then there is family fun event in August called the Main Street Mile. Heather is hoping the whole family will train and join her in that event. Sam’s good friend Ethan ran in today’s race and Heather is hoping Sam might run in the June Jog next year. But today Sam was focused on soccer. Today was the last game of the regular season and Falmouth won 7-1. It has been fun to watch the team improve over the past few weeks and today they really displayed their growth as a team. Ethan, who ran in the race this morning, is also on the soccer team. Running those four miles in the morning didn’t affect his soccer playing one bit. All of the boys were ‘on’ today and it was a great way to end the season.

160605 Day 227b Cape Cod, USA–Sam's Soccer Game

The soccer game this afternoon was north of here, off the Cape in the town of Wareham. After the game we went to a great local playground to let the boys run off a little more steam. And then we headed home without Heather. She drove in a separate car and had to head further north and west to attend a conference where she will be giving the opening speech tomorrow morning. A couple of days ago when I asked her what made her start running she replied that she her life is so busy that the only way she could work in exercise was to run. It is absolutely true that she is busy 24/7. Running is quick and efficient. So thankfully she can do it and it works for her.