Day 129, Year 11: A New Home . . . for now
Date: Sunday, February 28, 2016
Weather: Partly Sunny, Temp in the High 50’s—Felt Like Spring
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
We made the move into our new temporary home today. We are now residents in a condominium complex called Evergreen Preserve. It borders on the Massachusetts State Forest, so you have no idea when you are here that you are really in the city of Lowell with a population of 110,000 people. You feel like you are just out in the woods. Lowell is an old mill town on the Merrimack River and is located on the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. My niece Lynn owns this condo but is not living in it right now. Her mother, my sister-in-law Sue in Boynton Beach, thought up the idea of us using the condo as a temporary home and Lynn immediately embraced the idea. We are so very, very grateful. I think we feel like displaced persons as this is certainly not like living on a boat, but it is a lovely place. It is a spacious two-bedroom condo that is fully furnished. All we had to do was move our things in and go to the grocery store. We actually hopped across the border to a Costco in New Hampshire which was a one-stop shop for pillows and food. Tomorrow we will go to a regular supermarket for a few more items. But basically we are all set. Now we just have to get used to living on land.
Before driving from Cape Cod to Lowell, we had a delightful morning with the Goldstones. Heather fixed pancakes for breakfast and then Ollie and Jonah put on a show using the new flashlights we gave them. It is great fun to watch an almost four year-old try to jump into the light of a flashlight that he is holding. ‘Mysteriously’ that circle of light keeps moving. After the light show, the boys went outside to play and immediately started shedding clothing. It was sunny and in the 50’s, and when they found crocus blooming in the front yard, they declared that it is now officially spring. It took some convincing to get them to put long pants and fleece jackets back on for a walk down to the cranberry bogs. It was windy on the bogs and the fleece jackets were much needed. The boys ran, threw sticks and rocks into the water, ran down hills of sand, and watched the mallards and swans on the water. I especially loved watching the swans. They sit so majestically, and then suddenly they emerge their heads in the water which shoots their tails straight up into the air—wrong side up. We all had a great time and then headed home for lunch. Mark and I left right after lunch and arrived in Lowell to meet Lynn and her sister Candi at the condo at 3 pm. They got us settled in and then all of us headed in different directions. This is when we headed to Costco. Tomorrow we have a 3 pm appointment at Mass General and we think we are going to take the train. We’ll spend the morning figuring out exactly how to do this, but we know it is about a 45 minute train ride and then a 10 minute walk from North Station to Mass General. Mark is going to meet with his doctors to sign the paperwork to officially apply to be part of a trial drug study. Hopefully we’ll find out when he will know if he is accepted and when treatment might begin. In the meantime, we’ll explore this new area we call home . . . for now.
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| 160228 Day 129 Cape Cod, USA–A Walk on the Bogs |
