2021 Life Logs, Day 273: Happy Birthday, Heather
Date: Thursday, September 30, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Cool; High Temp 62, Low Temp 46 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Happy B-day to my Busy, Beautiful, Brilliant first Born! At the end of a very busy day for all of us, I went over to Heather and Jed’s for a birthday dinner and celebration for Heather. It was almost 7:30 pm when I got there and only Sam was at home. Jed arrived shortly with Jonah, coming from Jonah’s soccer practice at Cape Cod Academy which is about 45 minutes away. Then Heather arrived with Ollie. They had been to a violin lesson after school, then went directly to soccer practice, and from there to a 6:30 to 7:30 pm first elementary school band ‘practice’ where Ollie had his first lesson on his saxophone.
And I had been on a Newcomers field trip to the Cape Cod Museum of Art today. Whew! It really was a busy day for all. So, instead of a fancy dinner, the boys decided that the perfect birthday dinner was take-out from Moto pizza which included fancy donuts from a new place in Mashpee Commons instead of a cake.
It was a fun alternative to the usual fancy birthday dinners we have. After dinner Heather opened her presents. 
She loved the blown glass conch shell the boys picked out for her at the Sandwich Glass Factory this summer. There were many other gifts to open and then Sam challenged his mom to computer karaoke contest. Heather definitely got the highest score. Happy Birthday, Heather,
The Cape Cod Museum of Art is in Dennis here on the Cape. I had never been there, so I was excited to join the Newcomers field trip on this excursion. T
he trip was planned by friend Jane Woodin and it was a wonderful day. The museum is small but the sculpture garden surrounding the building and the exhibits inside were so engaging. We started by watching a film about the history of the museum which was fascinating. We then had a guided tour of the exhibits. If you live on Cape Cod and have not been there for the “cARTography” exhibition, I recommend you put it on your weekend schedule. It ends on this Sunday, October 3, and I am so glad I got to see it. It is a mix of historic maps of Cape Cod dating back as far as the 1600’s. These maps portray the traditional viewpoints represented by European mapping. The accompanying exhibits, however, add the perspectives of history that have been left out of traditional education. Artist and National Seashore cartographer Mark Adams depicts the landscape the native people of this area encountered through “Geologic, Native, and Historical Time.” 
A map on the gallery floor shows the landform and sea levels of about 11,000 years ago. This is paired with a display called “Our Story: 400 Years of Wampanoag History.”
The Wampanoag have lived in southeastern Massachusetts for more than 12,000 years. They are the tribe that first encountered by the Pilgrims who sailed here on the Mayflower. The Wampanoag side of the story is told in this exhibit through short video clips that you can watch at your own pace. The entire display is captivating and very moving. If you haven’t seen it, make time in the next three days to get there. It is well worth it.
