2025 Life Logs, Day 09: Windswept
Date: Thursday, January 9, 2025
Weather: Partly Sunny, Gale Warning in the Sound; Temp 28, Low 25 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
It really has been only four days of daytime temperatures in the 20’s and eight days of non-stop wind. But it feels to me like it has been like this forever. I am feeling windswept and freezing. But I shall not complain. I am just stating the facts, folks. As we are all seeing, from sea to shining sea in this country, people are having much tougher weather challenges that we are here on Cape Cod right now. Still, I’ll be out in the street doing a happy dance when I can once again walk more than a half mile with my Shadow without freezing. Actually, the walk I have been doing every morning during these windswept days is six tenths of a mile, and that is as far as Shadow really wants to go. He walks faster and faster as we get nearer to home, so much so that we are almost running down the driveway to get inside. Our walking speed records are being broken again and again with each passing day.
After getting home from our morning walk, I headed to the Congregational Church for the Newcomers general monthly meeting. Encore members are always invited to attend the Newcomers general meetings, and visa versa. I don’t often do that, but Michael Kasparian, head of the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce, was speaking this morning. I always enjoy hearing his upbeat reports on just how things are going in our town. Today, he did not disappoint.
As soon as I got home, I turned on the television to watch the last bit of Jimmy Carter’s of funeral service at the National Cathedral. President Biden was just beginning his eulogy. Biden’s three words, “Character, character, character” summed up Jimmy Carter’s life perfectly. And I was very moved by the tribute by Andrew Young. I remember him most vividly from his civil rights days in the late 1960’s. His body has not aged as well as his mind as he was not able to stand. But at 92, he is still a wonderful speaker.
The remainder of my day was spent doing a little bit of everything. I felt like I had a severe case of attention deficit. I finished my third batch of granola clusters for the granola cluster taste test, started writing the Presidents’ letter for the February Encore newsletter, wrote emails to people to get information I need to complete that letter, researched information for next week’s Exploring Public Policy meeting, researched information for a field trip in February, read a few summaries of a book I finished reading last night for next Tuesday’s book club, and took all of the ornaments off my Christmas tree. The tree has to be curbside on Saturday night for an early Sunday morning pick-up, but I want to leave the lights on until Saturday morning before ushering the tree out the door. I love the lights of Christmas. And I did all this while half listening and sometimes watching news coverage of Jimmy Carter’s funeral and the fires in the Los Angeles area. What is happening there seems almost surreal.
