2022 Life Logs, Day 258: Lunch with Friends, Rowing, and Flosses
Date: Thursday, September 15, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Cooler; High 71, Low 49 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, Falmouth, MA
The women in my dining-in group try to meet for lunch to celebrate birthdays. Olivia had her 85th birthday in late July and each attempt to meet for her birthday lunch was cancelled due to changes in plans and illness. Jane’s 75+ birthday (she stopped counting at 75) birthday is in early October, but she will be gone on a cruise and Midge (a member of the group but not with a current birthday) leaves next week for a month in Paris. So, in desperation, we set today as a celebration for Olivia and Jane.
It was now or never, and we had a lovely lunch at the Chart Room in their outside tented area. It was a bit on the cool side today, but the sun was shining brightly, and we thoroughly enjoyed lunch and conversation. A great birthday celebration for Olivia and Jane.
I came home to do a couple of things and then it was time to take Shadow with me to pick up Sam and drive him to Harwich for rowing. While Sam was rowing, Shadow and I walked and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Sam rowed 5K on the erg on land and then went out with his foursome and rowed from one end of the lake to the other. When he got in the car to drive home, he actually looked a little pale. He was totally exhausted, so instead of doing his math homework on his computer, I told him to rest. He rowed 2K on the erg yesterday and that was tiring, but today was over the top. He’ll be fine, but we’ll do homework on the way to rowing in the future.
When we got back to Heather and Jed’s, Heather came outside to greet us with some good news. Jed no longer has a fever and is feeling much better. All of us are still testing negative, so we are hopeful no one else gets Covid this round. If Jed continues to improve, he can go to the boat show with us on Saturday. He will be masked, of course, but since it is mostly outside, it should be fine. And Heather sent me home with enough Tuscan Stew for my dinner and lunch tomorrow. That was much appreciated as I have had no time to cook this week. I have had beet, feta, and arugula salads for the past two nights, so the Tuscan Stew was a welcome change. Thank you, Heather.
Then later in the evening I got a message from Heather that was the highlight of my day. To appreciate this, you need some background information. When Heather was little, she called all flowers ‘flosses’. The whole family loved the word, so all of us started calling flowers ‘flosses’ and have continued that to this day. I can remember this year in June when the purple Irises in my gardens were in full bloom saying to Ollie and Jonah that the purple ‘flosses’ were so beautiful. So, tonight Heather was working the NYT mini-crossword with Jonah and Ollie. The crossword clue was “a flamboyant purple flower” to which Jonah tried to use the word ‘flos’. Heather had to correct Jonah and told him the word was Iris. Then Heather wrote to me, “Apparently, Jonah and Oliver both thought flosses were a real type of flower. I just disillusioned them. They’ve taken it fairly well, but there were some truly appalled looks!” I literally choked on my beer when I read that and replied, “Oh, but I am sure flosses are a real classification of flower, Flosses americanus. I have some in my gardens!” And then I had to break it to Heather that pumkmans (Justin’s name for pumpkins) are real, too.
