2021 Life Logs, Day 57: Dinner with the Goldstones
Date: Friday, February 26, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Slightly Cooler; High 41, Low, 31 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
As promised, I made myself take the day off from writing to catch up on real life. I snuck in a bit of editing time and will see what happens tomorrow. We spent eleven days on the southern end of the canal preparing for the passage to the Galapagos, so I will begin there tomorrow. It will be the beginning of next week before I get us to the Galapagos. I’m looking forward to writing about that.
I spent the morning trying to figure out what kind of water heater I can get that will satisfy National Grid, the natural gas provider, so that they can do what is necessary to insulate the cottage. The current water heater does not pass their test as it leaks a tiny amount of fumes when the furnace is not running. It is not really enough to be dangerous, but they cannot do the work to insulate the cottage until that problem is fixed. I worked on this last year and then decided to just leave things as they are. But it is important to make everything in our lives as energy efficient as possible, so I’m giving it another go. I made some contacts and will continue with this next week. Then in the afternoon, Nilson, the contractor that my landlord Shirley has always used, came to do some work in the attic. Once Nilson left, I headed to Heather and Jed’s. I had offered to take the Goldpebbles to the skatepark after a day of remote schooling, so that was next on the agenda. I had been invited to have dinner as well, so I spent the rest of the evening with Heather, Jed, and the boys. I have had a really quiet two weeks, so the activity level in the Goldstone household had my head spinning—but spinning in a good way. While dinner was being prepared and Heather and Jed were giving me a crash course on water heater options, there was a concert going on in the basement. Sam on drums, Jonah on bass, and Ollie singing Iron Man. Then they dispersed and Ollie worked on building a ballista catapult that was given to him by his Grammy Goldstone. Jonah was in the living room working on an art project. And Sam was in his bedroom reading about different weapons used in World War II. Once dinner was ready, we gathered in the dining room and I asked Heather and Jed what they remembered from their Christmas in the Caribbean aboard Windbird.
When they mentioned being in the St. Vincent anchorage of Wallilabou where the set of the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie was still in place, that got the boys’ attention. They have not seen the movie, but know about it. And after tonight’s conversation, I think we all want to watch it. We also talked about nutmeg. When we went for walks on St. Vincent, we saw fruits that look like peaches hanging on nutmeg trees. When we went to a market, we bought nutmeg nuts wrapped in bright red mace. This is the way they grow. Jed had never found out if you can eat the fruit of the nutmeg tree, but tonight when I got home I Googled it. Indeed, you can.
But that Christmas in the Caribbean, we had the fruits in a bowl as our centerpiece, naturally split open revealing the nutmeg nut wrapped in the bright red mace like tentacles. Such a beautiful natural phenomenon. This was a memory we had all forgotten, but Jed brought out a container of dried nutmeg nuts he still has from that time proving that it did happen.
