2018 Life Logs, Day 57—Busy Monday
Date: Monday, February 26, 2018
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 50, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
It was a busy day here—exercise at the gym, research into flights to the Dominican Republic and back from Puerto Rico, a trip to Hyannis to get new eye glasses and do some food shopping, a stop at the Cooperative Extension Service to get information on soil testing, listening to episodes from two different online docuseries I am following, texting back and forth with friends on various issues. Yep. That’s how my day went.
Just before I went to Heather’s yesterday, I got an email from Sam on Windbird saying that they are planning to cross from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico on March 8 or as soon after as weather allows. So, if I want to do the passage with them, and I do, I need to arrive on March 7. After I got home from the gym this morning, I researched flights and found that I can make this work. I won’t book my flight until I hear from Justin and Jo that this timing will work for them. But hopefully sometime tomorrow I’ll have this nailed down. I then had an hour long wait on my phone while my bank was trying to figure out how I can make a payment to my bank credit card via transfer. I’ve done this every month for a year and a half. But the bank updated its online site this month and it is obviously not working. I have been getting daily emails apologizing for the problems, but I had not encountered them until today. While I was on hold, I got a call from my “biking around the world” friends Linda and Mike Stuart, but I couldn’t answer it for fear that I would lose connection with the bank after waiting for a full hour to talk to them. And as soon as I got off the phone with the bank, I had to leave for an eye appointment in Hyannis. Linda and Mike flew from Argentina to California, arriving on Friday, for a break in their ‘round the world trip. Their son Garrett is getting married in July, so after reaching the tip of South America and spending some time in Argentina and Uruguay, Linda and Mike decided to fly to California and spend some time just hanging out and biking up and down the coast until the wedding. After that, they will get back to the trip. But now that they are back in the states and have a phone, I can call to talk to them, and even text. Today just didn’t work out, but hopefully we will connect tomorrow. I raced to Hyannis, did some Trader Joe’s shopping, ordered a new pair of glasses to replace the new ones that I think caused the allergic reaction I had, and went to the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension office to get information about soil testing for Heather’s garden. I got the information, headed back to Heather’s to deliver it, and got a text from her tonight that that Sam and Ollie helped her get the garden soil for testing this afternoon. Once it is dry, we can send it to the University of Massachusetts Amherst for evaluation. It is the time of year when you really want to think about summer warmth and gardening. And it is time to make preparations.
I didn’t get home until almost 5 pm and then it was time for me to watch today’s episodes of two different online docuseries I am following. I also listened to Heather’s Monday 9 am radio program that is repeated at 7 pm. Heather interviewed Clifford Johnson, a professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of Southern California, about the new movie, “Black Panther”. The question in my mind was, “Why is she interviewing someone about a movie. Living Lab is a science program.” Well, as it turns out, this movie is not only making headlines as a box office superhero movie starring black actors, it could also be the biggest science movie of the year. Clifford Johnson, the scientist being interviewed, pointed out that the Black Panther, King T’Challa (in the movie), is a scientist himself, “his whole culture is based on accomplished black people doing scientific breakthroughs to make their world work so well.” Sounds like an interesting movie to put on the list of “must sees”.
