Day 203, Year 11: Boating Friends, Here and There
Date: Thursday, May 12, 2016
Weather: Warm and Sunny
Location: At Home with Alan and Helaine Kanegsberg, Bow, NH
Today was all about boating friends, both here and down south where Windbird resides. Late this afternoon we drove to Concord, New Hampshire, to attend a Concord Yacht Club (CYC) meeting. And the very good news is that Mark had a good day and a great evening. He was basically nausea free all day. Yea!!! Yesterday Dr. Kwak encouraged him to try taking a very small amount (4 mg) of a corticosteroid called dexamethasone (Decadron). She told him to take it early in the day to see what the results might be. It is used for lots of things, but one of those things is to fight nausea. No one seems to know how this really works, but it did work for Mark today. He is still feeling weak and a bit shaky, but he was able to eat all day without being nauseous and tonight he was able to socialize and actual eat a huge salad for dinner. It is like pulling teeth to get him to eat a salad these days, so I was thrilled.
The yacht club meeting tonight was at the home of Sue and Eric Leadbetter on Gould Hill in Hopkinton, NH. Their house sits on land that was settled by the Leadbetters in the 1700’s and it overlooks a huge apple orchard that was started by Eric’s father more than a 100 years ago. But the view is not only of the apple orchard which is in bloom this time of year; it also includes a panoramic view of New Hampshire’s mountain ranges. You can see from Mount Kearsarge in the south to Mount Washington in the north. It is just absolutely stunning. And it is always so nice to socialize with the CYC group. Mark has been attending meetings since 1990. At that time, he was one of the younger members. Those ‘younger’ members in 1990 are still attending and are still young at heart. But age is catching up with all of us. A few younger members have joined over the years, but the majority now are in their 60’s or 70’s. When Mark joined in 1990, some members were in their 80’s and 90’s. So I guess you could say this current group is still young by comparison. But young or old, they are a great group and we always enjoy our time with them. Our good friends Alan and Helaine Kanegsberg invited us to spend the night at their house, so after the meeting we headed here. Tomorrow morning Mark will go to New Hampshire Public Radio to try and do some audio documentation of the history of the station and then we’ll return home. Sure hope that Decadron does the trick for Mark tomorrow as it did today.
This afternoon, our friends Heather and Jon Turgeon, picked up the trailer loaded with about half of our personal belongings from Windbird and headed north. Lynda and Lee meet them at the U-Haul storage place and helped them get hitched up. Earlier in the day, Lee and Lynda returned to Windbird to pack up all of our books and to empty the refrigerator and freezer. We didn’t know they were going to do that, but we are so grateful. They feel like everything that is personal is off the boat now. There is still a ton of boat-related stuff that we are leaving behind and all we can think is that when Windbird finds a new owner, he or she or they are going to be very happy with the bounty. We are still amazed and overwhelmed with the help we have received from friends to get all of our things packed up and brought north. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
