2025 Life Logs, Day 96: April Drizzle
Date: Sunday, April 6, 2025
Weather: Drizzly Off and On All Day, Clearing Late PM; High Temp 48, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

It was a very slow Sunday, with April drizzle on and off all day. We seem to be getting our share of April precipitation, so hopefully we will have beautiful May flowers. But in the meantime, it is a bit depressing. After such a full day yesterday, I have very little to report today. Heather left for a work-related few days in Boston late this afternoon. She will return home on Wednesday. Falmouth’s spring Town Meeting is tomorrow night, and Tuesday night if everything does not get done in one night. Jed is a Town Meeting representative, so I will get dinner for Jed and the boys tomorrow evening and probably Tuesday as well. Sam is at a Red Sox game in Boston tonight with his fellow classmates. This is one of their senior trips. Thankfully, Ollie has recovered from his cold, and Jonah is holding his own using just his right arm. All is well here. It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow with no hope of warmer weather until next weekend. But Wednesday is supposed to be sunny. I will look forward to that.

2025 Life Logs, Day 95: Hands Off Protest in Boston and Evening of Jazz in Falmouth
Date: Saturday, April 5, 2025
Weather: Overcast Am, Rainy PM Starting at Noon; High Temp 45, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

What a Day! I left home at 7:45 am to head to Boston with friends Christina and Warren Brodie to attend the Hands Off! protest rally in Boston.

If you read this blog often, you know I wanted to go to DC, but the Boston rally was great. There were thousands of people, all peaceful and joyous, despite our very serious mission. As we walked from the Boston Common to the Boston City Hall, there were cheers of “Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Trump and Musk have got to go.” And that was mixed with a band following along playing a mix of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ with ‘This Land is Your Land’. Shoulder to shoulder, we walked the half mile, albeit VERY slowly with so many people, but with a feeling of solidarity.

I heard from Bruce and Jane Woodin back in Falmouth that there was a great turnout here at home. And when Heather and Ollie were returning from a soccer game in Yarmouth, they sent great video from the rally around the traffic circle in Hyannis. A message at the end of the day from Indivisible said, “Today, millions of Americans flooded the streets (all across the country) to demand an end to Trump’s authoritarian power grab. We expected hundreds of thousands. But at virtually every single event, the crowds eclipsed our estimates.”

Then tonight Jane Woodin accompanied me as my ‘date’ for the Falmouth High School Evening of Jazz at the Coonemessett Inn.

The Falmouth High jazz band is really good. And that is despite the fact that my grandson Jonah could not play his trombone tonight due to his broke arm that is in a sling. But he joined the percussion section tonight keeping beat with various instruments. Great evening.

2025 Life Logs, Day 94: Happy Anniversary to Justin and Jo
Date: Friday, April 4, 2025
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High Temp 64, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

April 4 in 2007 was a Wednesday. It was on that day that Justin and Jo traveled from Venice Beach, where they were living at the time, to stand atop Eagle Rock in the Santa Monica Mountains to be married. Mark and I were New Zealand when Justin wrote and told us he and Jo were going to be married. I think we received that email on April 3. So, we wrote back to tell him how happy we were for him and that if he could let me know the date, we would try to arrange to come home. But then in his return email, he announced that they were married. We didn’t know that when he wrote the first email, he meant they were getting married the next day! Two years later in 2009, Ziggy arrived, and we did travel home from Malaysia to meet him. We had planned to be there for the birth, but Ziggy came a couple of weeks early, so we missed being there on the day of his birth. But we spent a wonderful few weeks in Santa Fe getting to know him. Then three years later, along came Coco. In their eighteen years together, they have added two children, multitudes of dogs and cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, horses, chickens, goats, rabbits, and even a pig. They are now one big happy family living in paradise in Puerto Rico. And they are still madly in love with each other and with life. Happy Anniversary!!!

Then

Now

2025 Life Logs, Day 93: Dining In with Friends
Date: Thursday April 3, 2025
Weather: Overcast and Rainy; High Temp 52, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

We are getting April showers, needed but no fun for a sun lover like me. But rain and cloudy weather is the least of my worries. The whole tariff thing imposed yesterday by Trump makes any bad weather report look like a walk in the park. I wrote to my daughter-in-law’s father that lives in England today that I feel like I am on a roller coaster in a house of horror. And I think much of the world feels the same way.

But tonight, my Dining-In group that has been gathering monthly for eight years now, met and tried our best not to talk about what is happening in this country. We were actually successful until just near the end of the evening. For most of our time together we were successful in focusing on friendship and food. And the food was fabulous. Christina and Warren Brodie hosted tonight and prepared a super spread of toppings to go along with Warren’s Chinese beef brisket. I added Chinese fried rice and Bruce and Jane Woodin brought a fabulous wonton soup. That was preceded by Chinese chicken on a stick brought by Peter and Karen Baranowski as an appetizer. And Midge Frieswyk made fortune cookies from scratch. They were delicious, and I know I have never said that about fortune cookies before. It was a great evening.

2025 Life Logs, Day 92: On the Computer All Day
Date: Wednesday April 2, 2025
Weather: Partly Sunny, Cooler; High Temp 42, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

I’m making great progress on the photo project I have been slowly working on since January, but in doing that project I have found other things that needed to be done. I have more days to go, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But today, I did spend my whole day on this. I took breaks to take Shadow out and to go to the grocery store and to eat, but otherwise I sat at the computer from 10 to 8 today.

I’m still reeling from the powerful 25 hour long ‘speech’ given by Cory Booker on the Senate floor. Just the two hours I watched literally changed my life view of the impact one person can make. I’ve always said those words, but now I am seeing them in action. Republican pollster Frank Luntz said of the event to NewsNation, “I want to emphasize what Cory Booker did over the last 24 hours may have changed the course of political history … He struck the kind of tone that grassroots Democrats are looking for. He gave them a reason to fight. He gave them a reason to stand up and say, this is my country too. Of course, every Republican watching will say, this is nonsense. But he is not speaking just to Republicans, he is speaking to Americans, and what I saw over the last 25 hours absolutely blew me away.” Just reading that blew me away.

And today there was another glimmer of hope. Mallory McMorrow who won a race for the Michigan State Senate and has served in that capacity since 2019. Today she announced that she will run for the US Senate next year. She is 38 years and speaks with a very powerful and practical voice for the people. I hope more McMorrow’s keep popping up all over this country to challenge the Maga Republicans in 2026.

2025 Life Logs, Day 91: Cory Booker
Date: Tuesday April 1, 2025
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 53, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

This afternoon while I was watching Ollie kayaking in Jones Pond, I was scrolling through today’s unread email. A Substack post written by Falmouth friend Jerry Lanson caught my eye. “Courage in the Congress—Senator Cory Booker Has Been on His Feet for 18 Hours Now and Is Still Making Sense.”

When I got home, I read Jerry’s post and it convinced me to get on YouTube to watch live streaming of Cory Booker, who by this time was 23 hours into his marathon speech on the Senate floor. I am paraphrasing here, but what I heard him saying is that what is happening right now in our country is not a matter of left versus right. It is right versus wrong. And he feels it is the greatest moral issue of our time. “This is our moral moment.” Booker was making sense, and I watched, spellbound, until he ended after more than 25 hours, the longest speech ever given on the Senate floor in our country’s history. I literally couldn’t stop watching because I felt I was watching ‘good’ history being made. Hopefully by now, you have seen some of his speech. And if you haven’t, I encourage you to get online and watch some of it. He was truly inspiring.

So, why did he do this? He says his constituents were pushing him to do ‘something’. He said their letters and emails were telling desperate stories of how the cuts DOGE and the Trump regime are making are affecting them. He did this as his ‘something’ and he said he hopes it will encourage others to do their ‘something’. No one has a magic answer, but as Rachel Maddow says, “If you do nothing, nothing will change.” It is up to each of us to pick our ‘something’ and do it. I am so thankful we have deeply thoughtful politicians like Cory Booker representing us. As he said over and over in his 25-hour speech, he was doing this because he wants people to understand that we are experiencing unordinary actions from our President that require extraordinary actions to fight back. Booker said to remember, “The power of the people is more powerful than the people in power.”

By the way, Happy April 1st. The daffodils in my yard bloomed today which I took as a message of hope. And the other message of hope was that Jonah got a positive report from his doctor at Boston Children’s. The X-rays today showed good progress. So thankful.

2025 Life Logs, Day 90: Lost Day or Lost Way
Date: Monday March 31, 2025
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Rain PM; High Temp 56, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

Today was a lost day, or maybe I just lost my way. I had so many things I needed to get done and at the end of the day I think I accomplished only one to two things on my list. But I did a lot of thinking, and that is always dangerous. Last night when I had dinner with friends Jane and Bruce Woodin, I heard myself saying that we are not protesting to save our democracy. I feel Trump and Musk, in just 71 days, have literally put in motion all of the things that crumble democracies, even the most successful democracy in the history of the world. Last night, I was expressing that we are in the fight to take our democracy back. And just saying that shook me to the core.

At this point in writing this log, I stopped to watch The Rachel Maddow Show where I learned that I am not the only one in panic mode. Tonight, Senator Cory Booker is making “some good trouble” on the floor of the Senate tonight by disrupting business as usual. He says he will stand and talk for as long as he can physically do so. He is doing this to bring attention to the crisis we are in. There are too many people who do not understand the seriousness of the situation.

Then Rachel interviewed Pramila Jayapal, a representative from the state of Washington, who has started offering Resistance Labs. The first one was held in person with 500 people. Many more registered, but there was limited space. So, this past weekend they did one online with 1,500 people. I immediately emailed to find out how to sign up for the next one that is planned in two weeks. Then I got an email from Ezra Levin with Indivisible that the number of local events registered for this Saturday has gone from 600 to 1,000 with more sympathetic protests planned across the world. People power has gone into action. That gives me hope.

My daughter-in-law in Puerto Rico has been protesting, almost daily for the past two weeks, to try and prevent their town from starting construction on a concrete bicycle path the city is planning right along the coastline. A bike path is a great idea, just in another location. This one would be in the maritime zone and will take out many native trees. They have been successful in getting a stay until a hearing this week. It seems the need for public activism is in the air. Jo posted the following that I want to share with you.

“Resistance is NOT a one lane highway.
Maybe your lane is protesting.
Maybe your lane is organizing.
Maybe your lane is counseling.
Maybe your lane is art activism.
Maybe your lane is surviving the day.
Do NOT feel guilty for not occupying every lane.
We need all of them.”
Dr. Jordan Fields, Clinical Psychologist

I just want to add that I hope you will find your lane, whatever it may be, and get involved.

2025 Life Logs, Day 89: La Résistance
Date: Sunday March 30, 2025
Weather: Mostly Cloudy and Cool; High Temp 43, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

This afternoon I met friend Jane Woodin at an Upper Cape Indivisible sign making workshop. Jane sent me a text around noon asking if I knew where we could buy signs for the upcoming nationwide protest day. I had already checked online and could not find a sign source that could get a sign here in time, so I told her about the workshop and said I would meet her there. After the hour-long workshop, Jane invited me over for pizza and salad for dinner. This gave us a nice to time catch up after the six weeks the Woodins spent in Mexico. Thank you, Bruce and Jane.

So why are we making signs? As of Thursday of last week, national Indivisible had 600 event sites registered for the April 5 Hands Off! rallies that will be taking place nationwide. There will even be a rally in London. Indivisible, 50501, MoveOn, and a few other organizations are sponsoring these events to make sure our voices are heard loud and clear in every state in this country and beyond. When I first heard about the rally plans, I decided I wanted to attend in Washington, DC. But for various reasons, one of them being that I want to be counted in my home state, I have decided I will be in the Boston Common near the state capital. If you have not made plans to attend a Hands Off! rally on Saturday, make those plans now. Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible at the national level, says to go to DC if you can. And if not, go to your state capital. Or if that doesn’t work for you, go to any rally location close to home. But please take the time to show up somewhere if you possibly can. If you live in Falmouth, you can go to the Hyannis traffic circle or attend the local event at the Falmouth Village Green from noon to 1 pm. I have copied the message from Indivisible that gives you more details about why this day of nationwide protest is being organized.

MESSAGE FROM INDIVISIBLE:

“We know that nothing stops authoritarians in their tracks like organized people power – and next Saturday, April 5, we’re organizing it in communities throughout the country. In the face of an administration that’s hell bent on dismantling our rights and our democracy, it’s up to us to declare that we will not go quietly. This is the moment where we say NO: No more looting, no more stealing, no more billionaires raiding our government while working people struggle to survive.

That’s why we’re hitting the streets on Saturday, April 5, to send a clear message: this country belongs to the people –, not to Trump, Musk or their other cronies. We’re going to show them what real people power looks like.

April 5 isn’t just a protest — it’s a recruitment drive. There are millions of people watching this crisis unfold, waiting for a reason to jump in. We need to show them the resistance is real.
We’re not just showing up for ourselves — we’re showing up for:
? The judges afraid for their safety
? The journalists getting threats
? The federal staffers and university leaders under pressure
? And yes … the Democrats who’ve lost their nerve
We’re proving they won’t be alone if they choose to fight. That courage is contagious — and public, peaceful resistance is how it spreads.”

2025 Life Logs, Day 88: PT, Costco, Job Fair
Date: Saturday March 29, 2025
Weather: Mostly Cloudy and Cool Rain Tonight; High Temp 46, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

My day started with an early physical therapy appointment, the last one for the pain in my neck. The problem is not solved, but it is better. I really didn’t enjoy traveling so far for the appointments, so I am glad the sessions are over. If there is a next time, I am going to make sure I request being referred to the therapy center at Falmouth Hospital.

After the session, I drove further north to Costco to buy a few needed items. By the time I got back to the Cape it was 12:30 pm, so I headed directly to a one-day job fair at Mahoney’s Garden Center. I love living where I am, but the rent is really more than I can afford. So, I thought I would apply for a seasonal job where I would be surrounded by plants that I love. I have no idea if they will hire someone my age, especially since lifting heavy trays of plants and carting them around the huge greenhouse is part of the job. After the initial interview, I was interviewed by the young woman in charge of the indoor greenhouse. After that interview, I was told I would be called by the woman in charge of the perennial plants sold outside. After that interview, a hiring decision will be made. I have not interviewed for a job since 1989. It didn’t seem like a big deal until I walked through the doors. I almost turned around and walked right back out. But in the end, it was a positive experience. We’ll find out in a week or so if the positive experience turns into positive results.

2025 Life Logs, Day 87: Kayaking (Ollie, not me), Sign Making, and a Protest
Date: Friday March 28, 2025
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Windy; High Temp 52, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA

“This is What Democracy Looks Like. We Won’t Give Up!”

“In a Free Land, Legal Views Aren’t Crimes” “Democracy Demands the Freedom to Speak” “Free the Kidnapped Students” “Stop Arresting Peaceful Protesters” “Stop ICE Abductions” “Hands Off! Stop the Kidnapping” “Respect Existence or Expect Resistance” “And Then They Came For … Thee”

Chilling to read these signs, while holding one of them, in the United States of America I know and love. But if making my voice heard in this way might help get my country back, I will stand in every protest until we get the job done.

So, I ended my day standing out on Main Street in protest of the kidnapping of students in our universities. I started my day reading a post by Jerry Lanson on Substack. In between, I tried to live life, ignoring what the Trump regime is doing to tear down our democracy. The highlight of my day was picking Ollie up from school and helping him launch a kayak for the first time this spring. We carried and slid the kayak down the hill between the two houses across the street from 43 Grasmere. The trick was to get it into the water without getting our feet wet. We were successful and Ollie really enjoyed exploring Jones Pond.