Day 157, Year 7: Shop ’til You Drop
Date: Friday, April 13, 2012
Weather: Same, Same–Partly Sunny Day, Temps in the 50’s
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, MA
When there is no store close to home where you can buy clothes for little
ones, clothes shopping becomes a bit of a chore. Heather has always just
bought clothes for Sam and Jonah online, but they are both at a point where
she really wasn’t sure what size to buy. Sam has moved right through 2T,
3T, 4T, and 5T, but there is no 6T and 5T is too small. What’s the next
size? That was Heather’s dilemma. She needed to try things on him to
figure this out. And with Jonah, some 2T things are too small, but 3T’s are
too big. So again, trying things on was helpful. In addition, she needed
to take them to Stride Rite to have them fitted for shoes. She will buy
online now that she knows what size they are currently. Jed also needed
some new pants and he really needed to try those on. In order to do all
this “trying on” we had to drive to Hyannis. That in itself is a feat with
three children, but all three boys were really very good. Oliver did the
E-P-S thing (eat-poop-sleep) all day, and mostly slept and didn’t make a
peep. I was able to keep Jonah occupied while Sam tried on clothes. And
when we went to the Mall to try on shoes, I was able to occupy Sam and Jonah
long enough for Heather and Jed to look at refrigerators. They are having a
very difficult time finding anything that meets all of their requirements,
so now they are having to rethink and decide which requirements must stay and
which can go. They still havent resolved that dilemma, but I think we can
call the shopping day a success.
After Mark got off work at West Marine at 6 pm, I picked him up and took him
back to Heather and Jed’s for dinner and to use our new Dremel saw to cut
off the bottom half of the kitchen cabinet above Heather and Jed’s current
refrigerator. No matter what new one they get, it will be much taller than
the old one. So the cabinet had to go to prepare for whatever choice is
made. By the time we got back to Windbird it was time to go to bed so we
can start again in the morning. Mark works tomorrow and Sunday, has a chemo
treatment on Monday, and then works Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday. This is more than usual as a woman he works with is out of work
for the next couple of weeks. Both her father and brother died last week.
If Mark is not feeling good after his chemo treatment, he can always opt
out, but he wants to pitch in and help if at all possible. And besides, he
really enjoys working at West Marine. Here’s one example of why he likes it
so much. Next Wednesday a team of people from Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution (WHOI) will be flying to Greenland and then will be helicoptered
into a glacier where they will spend a week or two doing research. They
will be using an underwater vehicle that they certainly don’t want to lose.
So they need 600 feet of rope to attach to it and a way to pull it back up
out of the water. They also need solar or wind power and light weight
equipment since they go in by helicopter. They do much of their shopping at
West Marine and Mark gets to help them figure out just what equipment they
will need to do the research. He loves the problem solving for this type of
expedition as well as problem solving with a boater who just needs to figure
out which paint he or she needs to use. Our problem solving issue is
figuring out how to get the deck work done on Windbird before we have to
leave here and return to Woods Hole for the summer. As I mentioned in a log
a couple of nights ago, I think I am going to have to learn to do the work
on Windbird so Mark can continue working at West Marine.
