Day 279, Year 10: Not a Boring Day
Date: Thursday, July 16, 2015
Weather: Sunny, Windy, and 10 Degrees Cooler Than Yesterday
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA
I read the following on my daughter-in-law’s Facebook page, “Boredom—one of the greatest experiences you can give a child. Until faced with empty space they’ll never learn to let their full attention uncoil to its full potential.” And I do think children need time to just do nothing. So my intent this morning was to give them time to do just that—nothing. But even when we plan to be ‘bored’ by doing nothing, it doesn’t seem to happen. It felt like a fall day this morning. The air was crisp and cool and it was windy. So when I arrived at Heather and Jed’s with no plans for the morning, everyone thought that was a great idea UNTIL we realized that the conditions were perfect for flying kites. We went to the elementary school playground and spent our entire morning playing on the playground and flying kites. Sam no longer needs help getting kites into the air, so he spent a long time flying the kites by himself and then he helped Jonah and Ollie. I couldn’t believe how successful little Ollie was, even with the biggest kite. At one point Sam was afraid Ollie was going to go flying, but we managed to keep everyone but the kites on the ground. It was great fun and definitely the perfect day to do it. Maybe we can do nothing tomorrow morning . . . but Ollie has been asking to come to Windbird and that might win out—especially since Windbird might be coming out of the water for a few weeks a little sooner than expected.
Mark went his own way today, checking out possibilities for getting Windbird’s bottom repaired after our rocky grounding over three weeks ago. He had already found one possibility in the Falmouth Harbor, but the work can’t be done until September. The insurance company would like to settle things more quickly than that, so Mark checked out a couple of other possibilities today. One possibility was Fiddlers Cove Marina in North Falmouth where we have spent two of the past four winters and that is looking like the best bet. Their fiberglass man goes on vacation in two weeks, and they are estimating two weeks to get the work done. If we take the boat there this Saturday so they can start the drying-out process on Monday and we might have a chance of getting the work done in the two week period. But if not, their fiberglass man is only on vacation for one week, and we’ll just have to live aboard on land for an extra week or so. It won’t be great fun, but we’ll make it work. It is also looking like we are going to have to get a new dinghy motor. The Boat Guy thinks he can get it running, but it will never be the same, reliable motor we have enjoyed. And living aboard requires a reliable dinghy motor.
Mark returned from his travels just in time to go with us to take Sam to his School of Science class. Ollie fell asleep on the way, which was perfect timing. But then we needed to wait an hour and a half for Sam to get out of class as we were going to another event late in the afternoon. The plan was for all of us to drive to the park in Woods Hole and sit and read, but Jonah really wanted to go to the Wood Hole Exhibit Center. I reminded him that he went there with Grammie Goldstone a few weeks ago, but he retorted saying that was in June and it is now July and he hasn’t been there this month. I didn’t want to fight with his logic, so I went with Jonah to the Exhibit Center and Mark sat in the car in the park with a sleeping Ollie. Jonah really does love the Exhibit Center. He loves to sit in the original Alvin capsule and pretend that he going to the bottom of the ocean. And he loves the film they show of all the deep sea life. We had a great time and then once we picked up Sam, we traveled to Mashpee to go to a library presentation there. We have never been there before and weren’t sure about the quality of their children’s programs. But from what we saw today, I can highly recommend them. Today’s presentation was a professional, exotic animal handler showing the children a wide variety of small animals and letting them touch each one—a chinchilla, a guinea pig, a flying squirrel, a tortoise, a rather large tree frog from Africa, a bearded dragon, three different varieties of snakes, and a small alligator. All the Goldpebbles loved the little flying squirrel, so I would say it was the favorite.
After the presentation, we returned to Falmouth and met Heather on the Falmouth Library lawn. We were going to have pizza while listening to the Brian Boru bagpipe band practice, but they didn’t show up. So Heather suggested we pick up the pizzas and go to Marina Park in Falmouth Harbor to eat. When we got there, we saw that they were setting up for a Thursday night ‘Concert in the Park’ presented by the Falmouth Town Band. The boys wanted to stay for this, so I pulled out a blanket for them to sit on, a chair for Heather, four beach towels to wrap up in to keep warm, and sweatshirts I had brought for them in case it got cold on the library lawn (our original destination). Mark and I didn’t stay because Mark was losing energy quickly, but I sure hope Heather had a great time with the boys. Jed is out of town and he is the one who has been wanting to do this. So if it was a positive experience, hopefully they’ll make a return visit.
This definitely was not a boring day. Maybe tomorrow.
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| 150716 Day 279 Cape Cod, USA–Kite Flying, Exotic Animals, Concert in Marina Park |
