2021 Life Logs, Day 317: Ollie’s Soccer Game, Planting Bulbs, Stormy Evening
Date: Saturday, November 13, 2021
Weather: Sunny Day, Stormy Evening; High Temp 59, Low Temp 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
This day went from beautiful to stormy and scary. I’ll start with the beautiful part. Ollie’s soccer team, the Tidal Waves, had their final game of the fall season first thing this morning. After yesterday rain, this morning was warm and sunny. Some of the kids on Ollie’s team, including Ollie, have been playing soccer together since they were two years old. Back then, they were just kicking a ball around at the Woods Hole Day Care Cooperative. It has been fun to follow them through the years. 
Today they were all psyched. At their age, the league doesn’t keep score. But the kids do. According to Ollie, his team has won or tied all of their games. Today they tied, so Ollie announced to me that they won the league championship. There is no such championship, but the boys on the team felt like champions. One of the parents awarded a little trophy he had made on his home 3-D printer to Coach Rachel at the end of the game. The kids were so excited that you would have thought the team had won the World’s Cup.
Sam went with a friend to try out for a new (new to Sam) soccer league this morning. If he makes the team, he will play with them in the spring. Then later he joined Jed and Jonah at an Eagle Scout project workday. I came home from Ollie’s game to take Shadow for a walk and then I went to Heather’s to help her plant bulbs in her front garden area. It was still absolutely beautiful outside when I got home, so spent longer than normal playing ball with Shadow down by the water. Then I reluctantly came inside to cook dinner and do some work with photos on my computer. Heather sent a text requesting any good photos I have of the boys playing soccer this fall. As I went through the photos, I realized I really need a different camera with a good zoom lens for sports photos. This fall I have been using my phone. It takes great photos, but not at a distance. My old Canon does a better job, but it has seen better days. I have to do some research to figure out what I need going forward.
Around 6 pm I was in the kitchen and heard a pounding noise outside. I walked into the living room and realized it was pouring rain outside. What happened to that beautiful, sunny day? The wind was blowing really hard slamming the raindrops into the front windows. I turned on the television to check the Weather Channel, but I never got that far. Just as I turned on the TV, it went to a Weather Alert saying there was a tornado warning in my area. It was 6:10 pm and the wind was roaring outside. The warning said the tornado warning was in effect in the Mashpee area (about 3 miles from me) beginning at 6:20 pm. It was obviously in effect here right at that moment. I opened the hatch going down to the basement in case Shadow and I needed to make a quick escape. It was dark outside so I couldn’t really see what was happening, but I could tell the wind was blowing way more than 25 miles an hour. Just then, there was an update warning on the television saying to expect winds up to 50 miles an hour. Then electricity went off. It came back on almost immediately, but I must say I am not liking the frequency of these extreme storms. This one took me by surprise and was scary. After things settled down, I took Shadow outside and it looked like all was fine. It is now 10:30 pm and Shadow and I just went outside for his bedtime potty break. The wind feels like it is still blowing a good 25 miles an hour with higher gusts. Hopefully things will settle down by morning, but I wonder how many of the oak leaves will still be on the trees.
They are just now showing their fall colors, so maybe they will hold on a bit longer.
