Day 298, Year 8: Shopping and Dinner with Friends
Date: Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Weather: Partly Cloudy Day, Foggy Night
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
The pace of life today was a little slower than usual. Mark and I spent the early morning doing boat chores and then we went to Heather’s around noon. Heather had to take Ollie to the doctor to check out his ears and lungs. Thankfully they are clear but he has a killer cold. All the doctor said was “five days in, five days out” meaning that the cold builds for five days and then starts getting better. Today is day five for Ollie, so hopefully things will start getting better tomorrow. We all had lunch at Heather’s and then Heather and I took off with all three boys on a Back to School shopping trip. The focus of the trip was to buy shoes for the boys with a little shopping for Heather thrown in on the side. We had to drive more than hour north to the Wrentham Village Outlet Mall to get to a Stride Rite Outlet. But Heather thinks the drive was worth it as the base cost of the shoes was at least $10 less than retail, and then you got 50 per cent off a second pair of shoes. So both Sam and Jonah got two pair of shoes so they should be set for a bit. Heather didn’t get much time to shop for herself, but she did find a couple of things, so we’ll call that a successful shopping outing.
By the time we got back to the Cape, it was time for Mark and I to be at dinner at Bruce and Jane Woodin’s. Olivia and Terry White were also there and we had a fun evening catching up on summer activities. Unfortunately Olivia has been very sick from the tick-borne disease Babesiosis. This is a disease where microscopic parasites infect red blood cells. Mark and I had never heard of this, but now we have and we promise to be on more careful lookout for ticks. Olivia was at a conference in Los Angeles when this happened and she was in the hospital for eight days, and in ICU part of that time. She had to have a total blood transfusion which in itself is quite scary. But she is doing much better now and it was great to get together with friends.
Tomorrow Mark and I will have all three boys again as Ollie still has a fever and can’t go to daycare. It is officially the last day of Camp Oma so we are going to have to be creative to figure a way to include all three boys. At some point in the day Granddad is going to have to take Sam and Jonah with him to Woods Hole to drive our dinghy out into Great Harbor and then around to the fishing pier where there is concrete ramp going down into the water. There they will meet EJ, the dinghy repair man. EJ also works at West Marine and he is going to bring a dinghy and motor to loan us while he takes ours away for repairs. We don’t have a clue what happened, but we did something in Tarpaulin Cove this weekend that is causing the front tube to deflate fairly quickly. Later in the day Mark will also have to leave us to be on Windbird when a diver comes to clean the prop. So tomorrow is going to be a busy day.
