TheCapeBlog

Over the last two days, I made two kinds of soup and other vegetable dishes.

Ron drove us to Falmouth for errands yesterday. He wanted to buy CD sleeves and to make a deposit to his credit union account, and I’d hoped to find glass “jewels” at Michael’s to repair a wall ornament that I’d knocked over at Geri’s. Made a stop at the Dollar store for cumin but finding none, picked up birthday cards and nuts anyway.

Started cleanup of the oldest vegetable bed.

I also washed the bathroom floor yesterday. Had knocked over the mouthwash in the dark the night before. Did a white wash of the towels and we changed out the shower curtain.

Slept for 10 hours last night.

Picked kale, turnips and carrots at the farm on Tuesday morning.

Rented “Antebellum”.

Yesterday, I did a fine walk with BLT at the Danforth Conservation Area. Went to Captain Scott’s for lunch with Geri and Free, then to Stop & Shop.

The Cape Republican delegation lost two seats, including Will Crocker’s.

Disappointed that Mashpee voted down a 2% property surcharge for water infrastructure investments by only 4 votes.

In Florida, Trump was successful among LatinX voters because of fake fear-mongering that the Democrats want a socialist government and a belief that Biden was more invested in stopping COVID19 than in encouraging business growth.

Trump supporters want the US to remain White and misogynist. When asked why Trump, they will offer two excuses, abortion and their 401(k)s, as “cover” for their racism and sexism.

In a way, Trump has done us all a favor by blasting to smithereens the American myth that success comes from hard work and playing by the rules. It all comes down to luck: being born good-looking and to a favored social and ethnic group.

Andrew Yang’s proposal for a minimum guaranteed income makes the most sense of any policy thrown out in this entire campaign.

I found Ron’s iPhone, plugged in to a powerless power strip in his “shop”, and the saw stand accessories, in a metal cookie box.

Picked up a prescription for Ron that he thought was expired (one refill left), then he remembered he needed to refill another, which he picked up later.

The registers were down at Stop & Shop, a 4-day old problem which Verizon failed to fix. Nightmare for the cashiers.

Made a big lasagna with zucchini and homemade sauce.

Dropped off a check for property taxes at Town Hall, which is still closed to the public.

Drove Robert to and from work, and he was nice enough to treat me to lunch from the barbeque next to his branch. Did a short stint at the farm.

Spent the afternoon with Em! We had lunch and tea with Robert and Ron, then candy shopped at Nancy’s in Dennis and toured a few Halloween decorated houses in Harwich.

We had a handful of trick or treaters at our place. Watched Rocky Horror, which I still think, even with the superb Tim Curry, Charles Gray and Richard O’Brien, is not an especially good spoof of Grade B horror and scifi films, but who am I to judge?

What a fine visit with James last evening. We didn’t get to bed until 11. He’s a fascinating conversationalist: brilliant, urbane, knowledgeable.

Where did this person come from and do we get any credit for his existence?

The layered casserole was good: homemade sauce, black beans, corn, cheddar.

To my joy, grandperson #2 is back!

Raining again today, thank goodness. It’s predicted to get cold, and glad the hibiscus and olive tree are indoors. Sprayed them today.

Ron panicked twice today, once because the “cold water isn’t working” in the washing machine (the dial was set to “hot”) and his computer’s “alarm was going off” (it was his phone).

We’re working on laundry. I stopped by Cumby for gas.

Shaw’s customer support graciously credited my account with $7 to make up for the specials I’d missed by not preloading them. I also got $1 off at Walgreen’s.

I volunteered yesterday at the Farm and picked carrots and turnips, and bagged 40+ bags of potatoes.

Brought home a pile of carrots that either looked weird or had no tops (easily broken when harvesting), our produce box and some bittersweet.

I did a big shop at Shaw’s.

Washed and peeled about 90% of yesterday’s carrots. Made carrot cake and carrot soup. Also made a tomato/onion/garlic/pepper sauce for tonight’s Mexican dinner with James.

It’s been raining all day. I ran out to Andy’s for walnuts for the carrot cake and clipped some more bittersweet that we spotted yesterday in our walk around the neighborhood.

There’s a Libertarian on Winslow Drive. Their yard has a Jorgensen/Cohen sign and a Pine Tree flag.

Typical Sunday morning, then Corey installed the NEST thermostat, replaced the basement/workout area ceiling fixture and installed an outlet in the attic.

I repotted the hibiscus and brought it downstairs. Hacked up its root system; hope I didn’t kill it.

I hope the water on the floor is due to my dousing the kousa on the side of the house.

I didn’t want to do anything today, but disabled some startup programs and removed others, wheeled Ron’s filing cabinet to my den, cleaned the top of the frig, washed the damp basement floor, switched out the electrical multi-outlet on top of the frig, set up the grow light, repacked the hanging lamp and vacuumed. As Ron kibbitzed.

This afternoon, I brought cardboard and yard clippings to the transfer station and did a shop on the way home. Lots of used produce.

Changed the furnace filter.

I mowed front and back yesterday and did a little garden cleanup. Late afternoon, we visited Geri and Free.

Updated my insurance information on the Quest Diagnostics website this morning.

Baked potatoes, roasted butternut squash, made pie.

Nice afternoon walk at Four Ponds in Pocasset with Ron, Stephanie and Abe. Ron picked up corn on the way at a farmstand in North Falmouth.

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Yesterday we did some shopping at Home Depot, Job Lot, Target and Whole Foods.

I got the wrong Roku streaming device and need to return it, it’s not compatible with the big TV, no matter how I set it up.

I was able to donate blood, though, very pleased to have exceeded the hemoglobin requirement. The North Falmouth location is the nicest by far in this area, comparable to the doctors’ recruitment center in Hyannis. Will keep an eye out for the next one.

We got a different light fixture for the basement, batteries, another big towel and on-sale frozen pizza. Good run.

I put the back of the treadmill on 2×4’s this morning. There’s no other way to adjust the incline. It works pretty well, although not recommended by Sunny.

I was antsy yesterday morning and collected another 23 pounds of trash on Ashumet Road from parking lot entrance to parking lot entrance.

Ron donated blood yesterday. My count was too low (12.2). Brought the road trash to the transfer station, picked up beer and groceries. The lights were out at the Commons, traffic was a mess.

Disgusted with having wasted the afternoon doing nothing, I finally spread mulch around the hydrangeas and Montauks.

We skipped Town Meeting after hearing a warning on NPR about Covid transmission at “city meetings” from Michael T. Osterholm, epidemiologist, regents professor, and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.