2017 Life Logs, Days 130: Out and About
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High 57 degrees F, Low 43
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Today I was out and about. I left home at 8 am so I could get to Hyannis. I had a 9 am appointment at Hyannis Honda to get a new passenger seat air bag replaced as per a recall. While I was waiting for the work to be done, a young woman came out to the waiting area to tell me that May is the month for my state car inspection and asking if I would like to have that done. Sure. And thankfully there were no problems. By 10:30 am I was headed back to Falmouth and on the way, I did a drive by of a few homes that are for sale that looked of interest in my online search yesterday. By 12:30 pm, I was at the Congregational Church in downtown Falmouth for a presentation on life in India by my good friend Olivia White. Olivia invited Jane Woodin and I to attend this presentation being made to a woman’s group from the church. One of things they had expressed interest in was the saris that Olivia wears. So, the presentation began with a demonstration on how to properly wrap a sari. Olivia shared that saris are 6 yards long and 45 inches wide and then she had a woman from the audience come up so she could show how to turn this long length of material into a beautiful dress. She pointed out that she still has saris from when she was a teenager. No matter what your size, you can always wrap the sari to fit. You can gain weight and lose weight and still wear the same sari. I had the privilege of being called up to be wrapped in Olivia’s mother’s sari. In addition to the fantastic sari demonstration, Olivia shared how she came to this country in 1962, went to seminary school in Texas, and then continued on to get her PhD in science. She taught genetics for 20 years at the University of North Texas (at least I think I have the school right) while continuing to serve the church. And after she retired from teaching, she spent full time serving the church for a few years in voluntary positions before moving to Cape Cod in 2011. Her PowerPoint presentation included photos of Christian churches, Hindu temples, and Muslim mosques in India. I could have listened for the entire afternoon, but there was a time limit on the presentation, and we had to move on. Thankfully, Olivia is my good friend and I can hear more from her at a later time. But her presentation today was wonderful and I am so glad I was invited to attend. And it was great to see Olivia and Jane for the first time in weeks.
At 4 pm I picked Ollie up from preschool, not because I needed to, but because he asked his mom if I would pick him up and take him biking. I was more than happy to do this and we had such a wonderful time. The partly cloudy day became very sunny for the hour or so we were out biking and that made it all the more enjoyable. When I picked Ollie up in Woods Hole, he had Woofster Jr with him. This is a stuffed puppy whose daddy, Woofster Sr, was at home. Ollie explained that Woofster Jr wanted to go biking with him, so off we went. Woofster Jr was a very lucky puppy this afternoon. He got to see osprey, swans with their goslings, flying ducks, Canadian geese, and red-winged blackbirds. Plus, he even got to ride on the bike with Ollie, stuffed into his overalls. We went to the Shining Sea Bike Path where I walked while Ollie rode. He wanted to ride to the bridge across Trunk River. By mistake, I called it the Turkey River and that got a huge chuckle out of Ollie. He just said, “Oma, you are so funny.” Not really. I just forgot the name of the little river leading out into the Vineyard Sound. On the way home, we stopped by my place to drop off the rocks that had been collected on the bike ride. When I delivered Ollie home, I got the bike out of the back of my car, but Ollie said to put it back in because he wants to ride again tomorrow after school. That’s fine by me, so we have another biking date tomorrow at 4 pm.
Windbird Alert. At 9:34 pm I got a Spotify report from Windbird indicating that she was at the inlet at Little River, South Carolina. Sam and Dawn left Fort Pierce on Monday morning, and since tonight is the full moon, I thought maybe they decided they would have enough light to enter the inlet and make it to the marina. But I just got a text saying they are at anchor inside the inlet. They made 411 nautical miles in 60 hours for an average of 6.9 knots average. They said they had an incredible ride in the Gulf Stream with a high speed of 11.3 knots over ground with the chute up. Way to go, Sam and Dawn!