2024 Life Logs, Day 49: Too Much Wind
Date: Sunday, February 18, 2024
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, E 25-35 mph; High Temp 36, Low 24 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Watching the weather is something you do religiously when you are sailing and occasional gale force wind warnings were taken very seriously. However, this past week here on land it feels like we are getting gale force winds every other day. Today was just too windy—no fun at all being outside. I knew the winds would get stronger late morning, so Shadow and I did our longer work first thing. Then around noon we headed out for our shorter walk, and I truly felt like I was going to be blown away. We only managed to do three quarters of a mile in total today, but I’m happy with that. I do hope Heather and gang didn’t have the same strong winds in Vermont. If walking was no fun, I can’t imagine trying to snowboard on the side of a mountain in that wind.

The wind today, combined with the cold, was enough to make me just want to stick my head under my pillow and not come out until the winds calmed down. I resisted, but I smiled when I thought about what I read in the NYT’s The Morning on Saturday. It said, “To ‘rot’ is to spend the day under the covers but. . . Recently, the more Seussian-sounding notion of the “hurkle-durkle,” a 19th-century Scottish term for lingering in bed when one should be up and about, has risen in popularity.” The author of the article went on to say that the “lie-down” is a more respectable way of branding an escape to spend some time off your feet resting. It is a form of rest that “manages to borrow the restorative benefits of the nap, and of bed-totting, without the suggestion of sloth.” So, the next time there is cold, cloudy day with gale-force winds, I’ll just have a “lie-down.” (Although, a “hurkle-durkle” actually sounds like more fun!)

What I did today was curl up with my book (actually my book on my tablet) and read interspersed with tackling more of the paperwork organization that has piled up. Today’s task was organizing a few years’ worth of recipes that I have copied off the internet. Many of my favorite recipes were in that messy pile of papers that are now in plastic sleeves and organized by appetizers to soups and salads. I benefited from the organization right away. I wanted to make something with mushrooms and wild rice, so I Googled those ingredients and came up with a Wild Rice and Mushroom Casserole. I was getting ready to print it when it donned on me that it was one of the recipes I had just filed away. I went to my organized piles and found in under ‘entrées’ right away.

2024 Life Logs, Day 48: Another Snowy Day
Date: Saturday, February 17, 2024
Weather: Light Snow AM, Mid-Afternoon, and PM; High Temp 32, Low 23 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

I always think I can do more than I can actually accomplish. But I will still call today a success. I got months of Encore emails and important papers either recycled or in a notebook where they belong. I did not, however, get the accumulation of other paperwork filed away. That is what tomorrow is for! I didn’t walk a mile and half today, but I did walk three-quarters of a mile. It was snowing first thing this morning, so I took Shadow on our quarter of a mile walk around the block, with a promise to do our longer walk when the snow stopped. Around 11 o’clock, we started out with the intention of walking a mile and a quarter, but my right knee thought otherwise. If it is not snowing early in the morning, I’ll try doing the longer walk then and hope my knee holds out. In between filing papers, I read. I’m on page 625 of The Covenant of Water and only have 150 pages to go. It is a long book. I normally only read at bedtime, but recently I read a page or two and then can’t keep my eyes open. It is not because the book is not interesting. I just seem to be exhausted by bedtime. So today I allowed myself to read during the day and that worked much better.

We had a beautiful light snow this morning, probably just half an inch, and then another dusting in the middle of the afternoon and again tonight. We are getting just enough to keep everything looking bright and white. Today was a cold one, but tomorrow looks a tad warmer, hopefully with some sunshine. This snowy black and white landscape is pretty, but I like my sunshine. But sunshine or not, it is going to be windy. That makes it a good day for staying inside and finishing my projects. I have nothing else on my calendar other than going to Heather and Jed’s to feed the cats and the fish. They left just after noon today headed for Middlesex, Vermont, where they are renting an AirBnB for the week. It is about a four-and-a-half-hour drive, but it took them longer as they had to stop to charge their electric car. Jed explained to me last night that the batteries simply do not hold a charge very well in this cold weather. But they made it and will ski/snowboard Stow tomorrow and Monday. Jed said they might do Okemo on Tuesday and on Wednesday they will take the day off as Sam has a full day of visit at Norwich University in nearby Northfield. Heather will go with Sam and Jed, Ollie, and Jonah will look for a one day adventure off the slopes.

2024 Life Logs, Day 48: Artichoke Dinner with the Goldstones
Date: Friday, February 16, 2024
Weather: Sunny Day, AM Winds 20-30 Higher Gusts; High Temp 38, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

It was a day of successes. I walked a mile in the morning and another half mile this afternoon. Woohoo! My back is ‘tired’ tonight and my right knee is giving me fits, but nevertheless, it felt really good to be able to walk that far.

My second success was that I finally got busy filing away papers that have been piling up in the dining room. I’m far from done, but if I stay at it tomorrow, I could have the job done. Again, it felt so good to make progress, in this case, on something I have procrastinated doing since September.

Heather and family leave for Vermont tomorrow for winter school vacation week. Yesterday when I went to Whole Foods in Hyannis, they had the biggest artichokes I have ever seen, and I just had to buy them. I didn’t know when I bought them if the Goldstones had plans for dinner tonight. So, I was relieved when I found out they would welcome artichokes for their vacation send off dinner. Since my big pot that I would normally cook them is being held hostage at Heather’s until my back can once again handle something that heavy, I took the artichokes there.

And now I am off to bed as I can hardly keep my eyes open.

2024 Life Logs, Day 46: Phone Success
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2024
Weather: Sunny Day, A Little Snow Tonight; High Temp 37, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

It is after 10 pm and I just took Shadow outside and found there was a light snow falling. But the temperature is rising tonight by a couple of degrees and the snow is supposed to turn to a mix and then to a bit of rain. We are certainly getting a taste of winter this season but not too extreme. The snow is beautiful, but I am not liking the ice that comes with it because it interferes with my walking. Jed came over this morning to take Shadow for a walk. I was already outside with Shadow as I was going to try walking in the neighborhood. We decided Jed would take him first and report back to me the condition of the road and sidewalks. The report was not good. The sidewalk that runs in front of this property and on down the street is one snowy, icy mess. That meant I could not even do the short loop around the block because of the icy sidewalk. And I can’t walk in the street on Lakeview as it has too much traffic. So, Jed suggested that I stick to the roads and walk where there is very little traffic. He recommended a loop walk through a neighborhood that is not far from here. I did that walk and then drove it to check the mileage. It was almost a mile. Hurray! It was my longest walk since the surgery and my goal. I just reached the goal a week sooner than expected. That same neighborhood has another a little loop that will extend the walk to more than a mile. Until the sidewalks are cleared, I’ll stick to that walk for the next few days.

Next on my agenda was going to T-Mobile in Mashpee. As soon as the young man helping me heard me say that incoming voices on my phone sound garbled, he thought he knew the problem. He asked me some questions about battery life and internet search speed, both of which are fine. He then went into settings and started turning things off. I cannot explain to you want he really did, but whatever, my phone is fine. I think that somehow, probably when I was on a public wifi network, something he was called a free wifi network attached itself to my phone and was constantly monitoring everything I do and then placing marketing ads to match my needs on my phone. Somehow that was overloading my phone and interfering with calls. He turned the setting off that allows these networks in and somehow erased my phone’s memory of that network so it cannot return. If none of this makes sense to you, welcome to the club. I’m sure I got most of this wrong, but at least my phone is working fine. Phone success! And he told me my phone is not “too old”–that actually I probably have two more years before I will have to replace it. And now I know where to go to get help if the same thing happens again.

2024 Life Logs, Day 45: Happy Valentine’s Day
Date: Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Weather: Sunny, Windy, Cold; High Temp 33, Low 21 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Valentine’s Day here on the Cape was a beautiful sunny day, but it was cold and windy. The snow that fell yesterday and clunk to every tree branch making our world a winter wonderland was even more beautiful today as the sun sparkled on the ice crystals. All of the beauty of yesterday was simply frozen in place and enjoyed again today without the falling snow and the added bonus of plowed streets. Of course, the challenge with snow that lingers because the temperature is hovering around freezing is that it melts a little during the day and then freezes solid again at night. Today my driveway was plowed, but because everything froze solid during the night, some of the driveway is now clear, but other parts are almost solid ice. I moved my car as close to the house as I could get it so I won’t have to walk on those icy patches. And I will walk through the snowy yard to get out to the road to walk with Shadow until the driveway is clear. I certainly do not want to fall.

This morning early, I drove over to Heather and Jed’s to deliver my Valentine’s gifts and to take Shadow over so Jed could do double duty—walk Ollie to school and take Shadow along. While I was waiting inside, I was looking out onto their deck and I was very surprised at the amount of snow on their deck compared to mine. We are less than a mile from each other, but their deck had a good two inches more of snow. As I was talking to Heather about that, I mentioned how windy it was yesterday and how it blew much of the snow off the tree branches and maybe off my deck railing. Heather responded that they were surprised that they did not get the wind that was forecast for yesterday. I am not sure why, but even this morning when I got home, it was windy here. But when I was at Heather’s just minutes before it was totally calm. All I can figure is that I live on a major street that runs through town and they live in an enclosed neighborhood that is heavily wooded. Maybe the wind doesn’t get a chance to build speed like it does coming down my street. Bottom line is that they had at least 5½ to 6 inches of snow yesterday to my 3¾ inches.

Part of my afternoon was spent trying to figure out why I have such poor phone reception here even when my phone shows I have a strong signal. I checked with Sam, Heather, and Jed this afternoon after visiting the T-Mobile shop. The consensus is that it is time to buy a new (refurbished) phone, but I am going to make one more stop at the T-Mobile shop in Mashpee before ordering the phone. My friend Midge says that they have very knowledgeable staff that might be able to help. People can hear me just fine, but on my end, everything is garbled and every few minutes my calls drop. Today new things started happening. Incoming calls go directly to my voice mail when I hold the phone up to my ear, where my face touches the screen, the screen senses that touch and starts scrolling though various websites. Part of me wants to continue to troubleshoot to make sure it is not a wifi issue rather than a phone provider issue. But the other part of me just wants to order a new phone and move on. I have had this phone since September of 2019 which doesn’t seem that long ago, but the young man at the T-Mobile shop was like, “Lady, this is an old phone. It doesn’t even have 5G. It’s doing crazy things because it is old. You just need to order a new one.” Yikes. What does that attitude imply for those of us who are getting older?

2024 Life Logs, Day 44: Winter Storm Lorraine Brings a Beautiful Snowy Day
Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Weather: Overcast, Windy with Snow; High Temp 36, Low 28 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

What a beautiful snowy day Winter Storm Lorraine produced here on Cape Cod. The trees are dripping with a heavy snow making for a picture-perfect wintry landscape. It was too much for one of the holly trees in the yard and it is now on the ground. I measured the snow on the deck railing throughout the day. The wintry mix turned to snow around 8 am and one hour later we had a half of an inch of snow. By 10 am there was more than inch. I went out with Shadow and the big snowflakes were making his black coat look polka dotted with white and after just a few minutes outside he was trembling with cold. So, we went back inside and I tried to capture the beauty by taking photos of the falling snow through the windows. At the end of the day my measurement shows a total snow fall of 3¾ inches. As evening falls, the snow has mostly stopped, and beauty is frozen in place as the temperature is dropping quickly. I tried walking with Shadow on the streets that had been plowed, but it was just too icy. I surely don’t want to fall while I am recovering from back surgery, so until the streets are dry, Shadow and I will only walk in the yard.

The kids knew last evening that school was cancelled for today and everyone prepared for the storm. Jonah spent the night with Joey and today Sam spent the day with his friend Robert. That left Ollie at home, so Heather got up extra early to get much of her work done so she could play in the snow with Ollie. Then he got together with Simon, a friend who lives in the neighborhood. Heather sent a great phot of Ollie snowboarding down the hill across the street from their house. Lots of snow fun!

My book club was supposed to meet today, but yesterday we decided to meet on Zoom. There were only five of us, but we had a lively discussion about our book, “Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.” If your want a light read, a murder mystery with great characters and lots of humor mixed in, grab that book.

2024 Life Logs, Day 43: Wine Group
Date: Monday, February 12, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 48, Low 26 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

It was a sunny day and not too cold. The lull before the storm. I took advantage of that to go water plants for friends who are away for a bit. I was supposed to water tomorrow, but with the reports of Winter Storm Lorraine barreling up the coast, I opted to go today. My friend Midge went with me in case I could not do the stairs as some plants are on the second floor. But my right knee hung in there and I made it. But by the time I got home, I grabbed a quick lunch and took a nap to rest my back. Due to the Superbowl late night last night and waking up at 6 am and not able to go back to sleep, I needed that nap. By the time I got up, it was time to get ready to go.

Tonight’s wine group theme was to bring a bottle with a fun label. We started with a prosecco from Spain call True Colours that comes in a showstopping bottle. It is a social product that provides the opportunity to contribute to projects that the producers are passionate about. Highland Imports is very excited to be celebrating the one-year anniversary of the U.S. launch of True Colours. For every bottle sold in the U.S., a donation is made to organizations that help support accelerating the acceptance for the LGBTQ Community.

Each person or couple in our group normally brings an appetizer to go with their wine. But for tonight, with a reduced group due to some of our snowbird members, the hosts provided Dom’s steak tips and salad for dinner. Other members brought the appetizer, rice as a side dish, and I brought dessert. We went from the bubbly to two red wines to go with our steak dinner. We had The Walking Fool, a really good red wine, and then on to Frankenrocker Cotes du Rhone, both with great labels. For the dessert we went back to the sauvignon blanc I brought. I chose it because it was organic wine with a big blue bee on the label.that caught my attention. Melea is also from Spain and also has a social dimension. Anthophora melea are bees that this winery tries to support for the health of the planet. And Melea was the first Spanish wine brand to become a member of a group called ‘1% For The Planet’. 1% of Melea gross sales go to charities that support biodiversity and promote the use of organic farming, avoiding the use of agrochemicals that harm bees and other pollinators.

There were only six of us there tonight. We missed our friends in Florida and in the Turks and Caicos, but we tried our best to have a good time without them. It was a really fun evening with great food. At the end of the evening, I was checking the bottles to see if there was any wine left and I got caught on camera. Honestly, I was not desperate for wine, just checking the bottles. Yeah. Right. No one is going to believe that!

2024 Life Logs, Day 42: Superbowl Sunday
Date: Sunday, February 11, 2024
Weather: Cloudy; High Temp 48, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Superbowl LVIII was way more exciting than I had anticipated. I joined Heather and family for dinner and the game, expecting to come home after halftime. I went wearing my red sweater thinking I would be a Kansas City Chiefs fan, but within ten minutes of watching the game, I switched my allegiance to the San Francisco 49ers. I was drawn in by the composure of the 49ers quarterback, Brock Purdy. I knew nothing about him prior to the game, but Sam and Jonah filled me in on some of his background and they were very persuasive in getting me to be a 49ers fan with them. They just didn’t want the Chiefs to win two Superbowl’s in a row. Plus, they dislike Taylor Swift because they say she is ruining the planet with all of her flying back and forth around the world.

If you watched the game, you know it was a nail biter. The two teams were so well matched. One would score, then the other. Right up to the 19-19 ending that took them into overtime. I was so into the game by halftime that there was no way I was going home. So, we enjoyed the game, the ads, halftime, and the overtime. The boys, Sam in particular, are always critical of the halftime, but the fact that Sam was still humming one of Usher’s songs throughout the second half told me he enjoyed it more than he let on.

I will also note that we all loved the Dunkin’ ad with Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Tom Brady. And we thought the State Farm ad with Arnold Schwarzenegger and his “good neighbaaaah” was a riot. Heather loved the Pfizer ad honoring scientists. And we all enjoyed the Michelob Ultralight ad with soccer great Messi kicking the ball up the beach. There were many more that we found interesting. In fact, I thought there were more interesting ads than usual.

2024 Life Logs, Day 41: House Cleaning and Food Shopping
Date: Saturday, February 10, 2024
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High Temp 45, Low 39 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

It was a very quiet Saturday for me. Shadow and I walked our six tenths of a mile early this morning and then I spent the rest of the morning sweeping floors. It is a painfully slow process, as I can only do one room at a time and then stop to rest my back. I am using my new light weight stick vacuum which is working nicely. And I even Swifter mopped the kitchen. The afternoon was equally quiet. After lunch, I went food shopping. I stopped at Heather and Jed’s to say hello and found out that the boys did go snowboarding this weekend with their Scout troop. The last I had heard they were undecided. They went to Pat’s Peak in New Hampshire and Heather told me the high temp there today was supposed to be in the upper 50’s. It is not supposed to be that warm in New Hampshire in February! She doubted there would be much snowboarding in the afternoon after things warmed up, but I guess we’ll get that report when they return home tomorrow. The temperature here today was in the mid 40’s, but by Tuesday we will be back to winter with gale force winds and maybe some snow. But in the meantime, I am enjoying not needing to wear gloves when I walk and play fetch with Shadow.

2024 Life Logs, Day 40: An Impromptu VOW Presentation
Date: Friday, February 9, 2024
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High Temp 43, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Today was cloudy, but since there was very little wind this morning, it felt much warmer as Shadow and I headed out for our walk. We waited until Anavo arrived to start work on reinforcing the bathroom wall and putting the bathroom towel rack back in place that came down when I took my first shower after my back surgery. It didn’t take him long because he was almost done by the time Shadow and I got home. We added another tenth of a mile to our walk today, getting us to six tenths of a mile. I wore my knee brace and again found it to be more of a detriment than a help. I’m going to try the walk in the morning without the brace and see how my right knee holds up. I limp without the brace, but walking is easier.

I have been amazed by the fact that I can barely walk or climb stairs using my right knee, but I can do a ballet plié or bend if I absolutely need to lower myself down to do something. I don’t look like a ballerina, but I can put my heels together, knees apart, and squat all the way down to the floor keeping my back totally straight. You would think that my right knee would just give way, but it doesn’t seem to bother it. I wish walking was that easy.

I have a President’s notebook for Encore that was very organized in August, but I have taken things out of it and amassed pile of papers to be filed. In other words, I have made a total mess of it. Today my goal was to put it back together. I was off to a good start when the doorbell rang. It was Lynda, the friend I rent from, and her friend Peggy from New Hampshire. Lynda was coming to check out Anavo’s work in the bathroom. I’m not sure how we got from the bathroom to me hooking my computer up to the television and going through my Voyage of Windbird (VOW) presentation with Peggy. But that is where we went for the next couple of hours. It was way more fun than organizing a notebook, but that job still awaits. Maybe tomorrow morning.

When I got to the Madagascar part of the presentation and was showing the baby turtles hatching at the turtle sanctuary on Nosy (island) Iranja, Peggy explained that every Monday morning she walks with author Sy Montgomery and a young man who does turtle illustrations. Sy Montgomery writes about animals and I just want to go home with Peggy to walk with Sy and Matt. How lucky she is to have such friends.

Peter and Karen Baranowski both tested positive for Covid today, so I am sending positive thoughts in their direction. Karen wrote that she feels like hell. Sure hope that turns around quickly.