Life After Windbird, Day 127: From Nashville Back to Cape Cod
Date: Saturday, December 17, 2016
Weather: Overcast and Warmer; High Temp 45, Low 41 degrees F
Location: Back Home at The Studio, Falmouth, MA
I made it from Nashville back to Cape Cod today with minimal drama. There was a slight delay in take-off from Nashville due to ground problems on the receiving end. But as soon as Southwest got the go ahead, we boarded and headed to Boston. The problem was snow in Boston, but by the time we got there, the runways were plowed and things were running smoothly. The snow had stopped and it looked like about 3-inches of accumulation at the airport. Welcome home! I had to wait quite a while for my bag and then had to sprint to catch the bus to the Cape, but I made it and my car that had been sitting in a Park and Ride area for ten days was just fine. It was almost 5 pm by the time I got to Heather’s, and of course, at this time of year that meant it was already dark. Can’t wait until winter solstice on Tuesday when the days start to lengthen again, albeit just one minute per day at first. But dark or not, I just had to stop to say hello to the Goldstones before heading home. And I ended up staying for dinner.
Things had gone fairly smoothly all day, so I hoped the same would be true when I got home. But unfortunately, my luck changed. I walked into a chilly apartment as I had set the heat on 50 degrees. But when I turned it up, nothing seemed to happen. I was not going to be a happy camper with no heat, but slowly, ever so slowly, I started to feel heat coming out of the vents. Whew! Then I did a quick accounting of Christmas packages that had arrived. Those coming through US mail had been held at the post office and mail and packages were all in a bag waiting for me at the mailbox. There was one rather large box waiting for me on the deck, but I knew there should have been one more. I double checked Amazon tracking and saw that, indeed, Jonah’s Christmas present had been delivered to my front porch, but it was not there. I checked with my neighbor, but she had seen nothing. So I called Amazon. This is the third package in three months that has been delivered but disappeared. Amazon immediately sent me replacements for the first two at no cost to me, but because this package was sent from an outside source, they cannot do that. They can only get me in touch with the source via email and that takes two days. There’s no way a replacement is going to get here that way, so I called the source company, explained the situation, and ordered another 3-in-1 soccer training goal. These things aren’t cheap and I had to pay $25 to get expedited shipping, but Jonah will have a Christmas present. The company could not assure me that I won’t end up paying for both, but I have faith that Amazon will hold true to their policy and refund the money for the one that didn’t arrive. But I no longer trust getting packages here, so I had the replacement sent to Heather’s. Okay, now I had heat and the hope of a Christmas present for Jonah, but in the process I had discovered that I didn’t have internet or TV. I reset the system and got the internet going, but nothing I did worked for the television. Of course, the Christmas tree was blocking access to the mess of wires behind the TV, so I had to move the Christmas tree to gain access. The router for internet was working, but the cable box wouldn’t light up. I talked on the phone with a technician at Comcast, and she determined that the cable box was blown. I am not going to be home tomorrow since I am going with Heather and family to a Revels solstice celebration in Cambridge. And I could only get an appointment tomorrow or Tuesday, so Tuesday it will be unless I can take the cable box in Monday morning and hook it up myself. I’ll give that a try, but I made the appointment for Tuesday just in case. In the meantime, but Christmas tree is displaced, but life will go on. I just need to take a deep breath and carry on.
I talked to my sister Patsy tonight to tell her what a great time I had while visiting. We all enjoyed the Nutcracker performance last weekend and Patsy, Joe, and I really enjoyed our visit to Andrew Jackson’s home, The Hermitage. But even more enjoyable was just being together. Patsy and I had a great time last night designing a couple of JibJab holiday cards. If you are not familiar with JibJab, it is an online service that allows you to insert photos of people’s faces into cartoon characters who sing crazy songs and dance to, in this case, popular Christmas songs. We sent one card to Janet and Monica and another to Patsy and Joe’s lifelong friends in Ohio. But in doing this, we uncovered some gems from the past. There were some cards Mark had evidently done to send to me at some point, but had never sent. There were a couple of really hilarious ones. Mark and I were in the bodies of Sonny and Cher rolling in daisies and singing, “I’ve Got You Babe.” And there was one where Mark was singing Right Said Fred’s, “I’m Too Sexy for My Shirt.” I thought seeing these would make me sad, but they didn’t. They were just too funny. But then today I was hit with a very sad moment that totally surprised me. I was coming down the escalator to Baggage Claim at Boston Logan this afternoon, when a totally unexpected moment of loneliness and sadness hit me. I miss Mark every minute of every day, but this was an almost ‘knock you down’ moment. I suddenly felt so very alone. I took a deep breath, carried on, and thought for just a moment about those silly JibJab cards. That made me smile.
