Island Update Ending October 5, 2003

Correction from last week: I gave the wrong stress test. This is going to be what was called a Nuclear Scan Stress Test in 1995 (an IV so they can inject a radioactive compound followed by x-rays of the heart followed by the tread mill followed by more x-rays of the heart). When I had the same test in 2001 it was called a Thallium Stress Test. Now it is called a Sestamibi Test or Cardiolite Stress Test. Is this progress or what?

This has been a busy/interesting week. On Monday Aunt Jeanne & Uncle Dick arrived on the 0930 boat so Mom could hem some pants Aunt Jeanne bought. That pretty much used up the day, but we did have lunch on the porch (probably the last time this year) and it was delightful. Tuesday Mom was tangled up with laundry, curtains and washing windows while I spent the day scraping, repairing and painting windows, both ours and the 5th Maine's. How's that for excitement.

By Wednesday the weather had turned a bit chilly and overcast. We had 2 cruise ships, one being the Golden Princess, the second largest cruise ship afloat carrying some 2600 passengers. It, by the way, is too broad to fit through the Panama Canal. That is not my idea of a fun ship. It was supposed to go to Halifax, but the hurricane did Halifax in. We really didn't accomplish much today.

Thursday we were off to town on the 0815 to run errands, back on the 1630. We did quite well in accomplishing what we set out to do, in fact we had too much stuff for the one cart and bag we took with us. We watched the clouds build up as we headed back and wouldn't you know it, it rained from just before we got to the parking lot until we got on the boat. It didn't rain hard, but enough to get us wet. We were thinking we should have taken the 1735 boat, but then we would have arrived on the island in the hail, rain, wind and thunder. Unusual for October, Our weather station recorded a gust of 64MPH!

The weather is changing and here we are on a cold and windy Friday which included an extra blanket on the bet last night. Rather cool all day long, but eventually the house warmed up with the effort of the sun and furnace. We just puttered around the house all day. Saturday we were up and at it early. We were going to catch the 0815 boat, but it turned out Dong was going to bring Mom a surprise so I told her we had to catch the 1000. He showed up on the 0745 from Portland with a big bowl of Pad Tie (sp), a pot of mums and a card he picked up a week ago all for Mom's birthday. We ate and he visited until it was time to go catch the boat. We went up to see Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Dick at their cottage at the lake where we had a late lunch or a not too early dinner. It poured off and on all afternoon and into the evening. We did manage to visit the Gooseberry Barn though. The drive back in the rain and dark was terrible until we finally got to the Maine Turnpike. We were trying to catch the 1930 boat until Mom looked it up and discovered it was a 1915 boat. At the time it was 1914 so we took a detour for groceries and caught the 2015 in the rain with a cart load of stuff. We did have the golf cart at the ferry so that was a help.

Now we are at Sunday which is HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MOM DAY. We had a snack before 1000 Mass followed by goodies at the Rectory after Mass followed by our usual Sunday morning breakfast for lunch. Mom cleaned and I went to be Docent at the 5th from 1400-1700. I was going to take Mom out to dinner, but we decided we had betting eat the Pad Tai for supper. Yes, it was delicious. His "sister" has really provided us with some good meals. We did sort of watch the Red Skins loose, but the Patriots won as did the Red Socks. We don't know who the missing third winner is.

That is about it for this week. The highlights for the coming week are that the Hardwicks and Dowds arrive on Tuesday. Hopefully we will have good weather for the week including a warming vice this weeks cooling trend.

Love, Mom and Dad