Day 18, Year 7: Beginning to Think About the Holidays
Date: Saturday, November 26, 2011
Weather: Another Sunny Day, Daytime Temp in Mid-50’s
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, Massachusetts
It was another beautiful day today with the temperature being much warmer than normal. I love it. And tomorrow should be more of the same. Unfortunately Mark has to work, but we are hoping to get up early and put up our Christmas lights. When we lived aboard in Boston, we wrapped lights from the top of the mast down the forestay and down the backstay, and that is what we plan on doing tomorrow morning. Since we are the only people living aboard here, the lights are not for show. They are just for us to enjoy. Heather suggested we put them on a timer so they are on when we come home each day and then go off unless we are expecting evening company. It seems an extravagant use of precious natural resources, but I do love twinkling Christmas lights and am willing to pay the price, even though it is a higher price than most of you pay. According to an article in the Cape Cod times, the average cost of electricity is higher on Cape Cod than it is in any other state in the continental US. Only the people of Hawaii pay more.
In keeping with the holiday spirit, I spent my afternoon shopping after dropping Mark off at work. As I’ve pointed out previously, shopping for anything other than food requires that you travel off the Cape or go to Hyannis. This afternoon, I drove north to Wareham. Actually I was continuing my search for a simple pair of gray wool slacks for myself and just snuck in a bit of holiday shopping at the same time. I was much more successful at the Christmas shopping than I was in finding a pair of slacks. So that hunt will have to continue. I was also looking for some clothing items for Justin and Ziggy. Justin has asked that we try to avoid buying anything made in China and I found it a real eye-opener that almost everything I looked at was made in China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Egypt, or Guatemala. The Made in the USA label is hard to find. Justin’s request for avoiding Made in China was specifically relating to toys as he’s trying to avoid being a contributor to the slave labor of children in other countries. But unfortunately if you want to wear affordable clothing, you can’t avoid it. Just as with plastic toys, the best alternative is to buy things used so that at least you are not the first-hand contributor.
My last off-Cape shopping stop for the day was at Home Depot to pick up some 1 x 3’s in 6 foot lengths. These are for making a door for our winter enclosure. I then returned to Falmouth and picked up Mark. We went to the local hardware store to look at snow sleds as a possible Christmas gift for Sam and Jonah. I was hoping to buy locally, but they only had a long sled intended for three or four adults. So my shopping continued online after I got home. And it will probably continue again tomorrow after I take Mark to work.
