We woke up to a coating of snow Sunday morning. Nathaniel wanted to make a snowball. Funny he should come up with that because no one mentioned snowballs and it has been 5 months since he’s seen snow. More snow coming–3-7 inches expected after midnight and tomorrow. Also hard to get used to sunset at 4:09 pm. Yesterday it was gloomy and seemed like even earlier than that.
The results from Truro are in:
Funny to think one of those Libertarian votes is mine. I am pretty sure another one is Maggie’s. Whose are the other 8? .7% of the vote. Hey, at least we beat those Greens, by 2 to 1! And Provincetown only had 9 Lib. votes. Provincetown went 87% Kerry, no surprise there. I couldn’t find any nearby towns that went for Bush, although rich-y Chatham was close with 50.5% Kerry, 48.8 Bush.
Seems like there’s always something stirring up the pot… This morning the very kind and friendly neighbors called to say they may have their house available for a family to house-sit on the off-season, just pay utilities and get out of the house if they visit, and she knew there are 3 families living here. Only thing is, there’s another couple (with two children) who did it last year who would be coming over in a few hours to discuss it. The other couple was fine, but they thought of giving us preference.
So we spent a few edgy hours hashing and re-hashing what-ifs, and who might go over there, and what kind of upheaval it would cause. In the end, they gave the house to the couple because they were counting on it more than the homeowners realized.
Sometimes it’s easier not to have too many choices. Maybe next year.
Liz just got a new job with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in Yarmouth Port, MA (MAP). They even agreed to a part-time/ flexible schedule when Liz proposed it. This way she can be around to take kids to CCD and soccer practice and other activities in the afternoons.
My cable modem went kaput this morning. At least that’s what Comcast rep. and I determined after an hour on the phone. Very helpful though. Then they scheduled a tech to fix it that same day. It was 9:30 and they had an 11-2 slot open, and the guy showed up at 10:50! Knowledgeable about networks, too, which isn’t always the case. He was ex-military since 1995, and had actually been “in the Sinai” where Mark is going to be. His main comment was, “Great scuba diving! He’s got to do it. The water is clear all the way down to 70, 80 feet deep.”
Anyway, got a new modem, set up Andrzej on my wireless network so he can stop paying for a separate cable modem, and the guy even added extra cable TV capacity while he was here. I guess the Comcast commercials about reps who say “Yes” all the time are true.
Check out the new Nathaniel photos, including first birthday… 
Why didn’t I know this before? Edward Gorey lived in Yarmouthport, Cape Cod for 25 years. The Edward Gorey House, where he lived, has exhibitions of his work. A book called The Elephant House (not sure why) has photos of the house taken just after he passed away and gives insight into how he lived. So now I have a non-beach attraction for everyone who comes to visit!
The workers have started painting the walls, so it’s time I shared the plan and some pictures. Basement photos
So a few weeks ago we all made the final decision to go ahead with remodeling the basement into a playroom, bathroom and multi-purpose room that will have closets, a couch or two, exercise equipment, and my office.
I set up a temporary office with the minimum I need to work upstairs in the back bedroom. I’m testing to see how little I actually need to work. When the project is complete, I’ll be able to leave unneeded books and files in storage and have a reduced-clutter office.
Here’s a picture of where I’ll be spending the next six weeks. It’s nice to be up high and have more of a view.
Last night we had a blackout from 6:30 to 7:30. It’s been a while since I’ve been in one, so it was a strange feeling. It was about dinner time so thankfully the carrots were mostly cooked and Andrzej was cooking the salmon on the grill. We managed fine: found the candles, had a non-electric phone, ate the asparagus when we could cook it later. It’s strange to call the power company to report an outage and not reach a human being–just report your outage by pressing the right keys– not reassuring. At about 7 we found out there was a fire in the power plant in Sandwich by calling local police.
And today we had our first real snow! Not quite a whiteout. Just a couple of flurries. Unfortunately it’s the one day when Maggie could not postpone going in to work.
View out my office window, featuring 2 new trees
