1. People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. That Maya Angelou quote is what comes to mind when I think about my Nana Serpa. She was my stepfather’s mother, and she passed away this week after a long bout of failing health. The thing is, I could try to spin it and say ‘at least she’s no longer suffering,’ but that won’t make anyone truly feel better. When a loved one, whether blood or not, dies, they immediately leave a vacuum where all of these unfiltered emotions get sucked into. There is no longer a chance to say things, at least not to them. Nana Serpa was always sweet and kind, and made me feel like family even though we didn’t share a drop of blood. I am heartbroken for my stepfather as he has now lost both of his parents. The one thing I don’t like about being an empath is that when you feel an emotion, it can be a signal to open the floodgates of similar ones. It brings forth in me all of the unprocessed grief I have for several family members and friends who have died in recent years. I then feel bad about feeling bad about others who have long since passed, but it is not something done maliciously. It feels at times like I have a closet packed to the gills with grief. Then when a new batch comes, I try to gently crack open the door and stuff the new grief in without everything spilling out. It never happens. So my sadness over Nana Serpa has invariably led to the sadness returning over my Nina and Grampa, Uncle Eric, Brenda, Matt, and Pete. I guess it is better to feel too much than nothing at all. It shows these people really mattered to you. Rest in peace, Nana Serpa.
2. On most work days, it is pretty straightforward. I come in, train some people, do some paperwork, probably have a few laughs, and go home. It’s not too often that odd things happen. This week we had one such day. I was sitting doing some paperwork after my last client left. To my right, inside the gym, the lights flickered. That happens all the time. There is something faulty with the wiring for the lights in the gym. But then the lights in the therapy room flickered. Within seconds, all the power went out. In the past, the power might have dipped out for a few seconds and quickly come back on. This time it went out and stayed out. The problem was that I had a series of clients all in a row, all on their way. There was no way to let them know, and also no way to know how long the power would stay out. It turned out that a tree had come down on the wires, knocking out power to the surrounding neighborhood. I ended up training three different clients in a dark gym. There was barely any light from windows, but somehow we made it work with nobody getting hurt. I actually found it a fun challenge to do my job with little light and almost total silence. We could actually hear the people who work upstairs talking; it was so quiet. In all, the power was out for just over 2 ½ hours. As fun as the challenge was, I do not wish for any more long power outages at work anytime soon.
3. Sometimes you have to scratch and claw to get opportunities. Sometimes they just fall out of the sky. This week I was lucky enough to have an event get dropped into my lap. The Cape Cod Maritime Museum in Hyannis has biweekly lectures, and one coming up next week saw both of their speakers pull out. As they looked for a suitable replacement, I was recommended to them. I am very humbled and flattered that I was seen as the one to potentially save the day, for lack of a better term. Of course I said yes. The program needed to be in some way connected to the Roaring Twenties on Cape Cod. Lucky for me, I created a video a few years ago about what it would be like to summer vacation on Cape Cod a century ago. Revamping it for 1926 instead of 1923 wasn’t too difficult. The hard part was creating from scratch a new presentation. This meant finding all of the images I needed and creating a few dozen slides to make the presentation worthwhile. I am excited about the possibilities of a totally unexpected event. Maybe I’ll sell some books? Maybe I’ll get booked for more events? Stepping up like this can only do good for my reputation. We’ll see the results next week. This is the video I am basing the presentation on.
4. The latest show that I binged on Netflix was the seven-episode Midnight Mass. This ended up jumping up near the top of my favorites so far. It is a neat mix of two different shows mashed into one in the best way. On a small island located 30 miles offshore, two people arrive on the same day. A man fresh out of jail after serving time for a DUI fatality, and an intriguing priest both arrive and set the tone for the show. It is one part religious beliefs and miracles. Then suddenly you get smacked with supernatural elements that throw you off. It’s really well shot and acted. It’s heartwarming, thought-provoking, and also has its fair share of blood and gore. I highly recommend it. Oh, Netflix, you always seem to suggest things I’ll like.
5. In a true example of what’s old is new again, the rumor going around is that Myspace may be getting set to make a big comeback soon. The owners of the site are possibly working on bringing the original social media giant back to give us what social media used to be. No more algorithm junk. I remember only joining Facebook in 2007 because Myspace was changing in ways that made it less fun. If the owners can bring it back like it used to be, I’d probably turn Facebook into a dead mall. Maybe I’d visit every now and then to see what stores were still there, but my main shopping would be at Myspace. Bring on the Top 8, songs that start playing when you click a profile, and a site not dominated by the algorithm and scummy tech bro billionaires. I’m ready to party like it’s 2005 again.
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6. Nothing is done until it is done. That is the lesson I have learned many times. Nothing tends to surprise me anymore. When getting the exhaust work done on my car this week, I was told a certain amount of time was needed. My plan was to go walk the nearby Cape Cod Rail Trail until I was called and told my car was ready. Well, once two hours of walking turned to three, and my phone’s battery was nearly dead, I figured I might want to go back to the mechanic and just check in. In reality, I had walked over 10 miles, and my body was just not going to do anymore. It quit. I spotted my car still on the lift and ended up sitting near the mechanic’s in the shade for a while, hoping it would soon be done. Nope. Now this wasn’t them being lazy; they just found more that was wrong, which I was told could have been possible. It turns out my exhaust is worse than anticipated, but luckily my mechanic is highly reputable and trustworthy. They have built up credibility over the years with me and countless others, which is why they are always busy. I ended up standing in the lobby for an hour chatting with the service tech, who is a super nice guy. I didn’t want to sit since I had been soaked in sweat and didn’t want to ruin their chairs and make the lobby smell like a locker room. In the end, it was nearly six hours until I left with my car. The best part is I need to bring it back next week to have the job finished. The actual best part is the mechanic is going to do some magic to save me hundreds of dollars, so I don’t mind the wait. Tune in next week for Part 3 of my car exhaust repair saga.
7. It was a sweltering, soupy mess of a walk while waiting for my car. I had anticipated 7-8 miles in total. I ended up with just over 10, more than 1,300 calories burned, and clothes that felt like I had showered in them. This was the first time I had done over 10 miles since January 2024. Not ironically, this was the last time I had major work done on my car at the same mechanic. I was smart and packed PowerAde and sunscreen in my backpack so I didn’t worry that much about sunburns or dehydration. Still, more than 10 miles on a day with the heat index over 100 degrees will sap your energy fast. By the time I decided I couldn’t walk anymore, I wished I could call an Uber to bring me to the mechanic. Unfortunately, my phone’s battery was a whopping 5%. The walk overall was fun, all things considered. I had a small lunch due to the time I got my car back. This led to me having over 3,600 calories allotted for my dinner after inputting things into MyFitnessPal. I could have had a medium 3-topping pizza and still been 1,000 calories under my daily goal. Yay, thanks to the long walk and horrible heat!
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| Looking through a tunnel on the Rail Trail |
8. An unexpected occurrence on my walk was the appearance of a high school class on a trip. No, it wasn’t any Cape Cod school, but students from the Providence Day School. I felt bad that the kids came down to ride the bike trail on a super hot and humid day, but what are you gonna do? I was walking around a rotary on the trail, about 3 miles in, when I noticed arrow signs. They said ‘PDS route to Coast Guard Beach.’ At first I thought they misspelled PMC for Pan-Mass Challenge. Then they started passing me. Dozens and dozens of high school kids on bikes. They were all well-behaved; some said ‘on your left’ as they passed. A few even waved. Here I was expecting a drink to be thrown on me or to get shoved or slapped. I guess that’s what I would have thought if I was a kid again. In the end, there had to have been over one hundred kids that rode by on the way to Coast Guard Beach in Eastham. I don’t know where they started from. I think they parked in Harwich at Brooks Park; sorry to those not from Cape Cod for a lot of specific Cape places. Shoutout to those kids and their teachers at Providence Day School. They were very respectful on their trip, and I hope they had a great time seeing the scenery on Cape Cod.
9. There is a section of the Cape Cod Rail Trail in Harwich that is a haven for turtle crossings. It is about 2.5 miles in from the trailhead on Rt. 134 in Dennis for those curious. I don’t always see them, but the odds are higher there than just about anywhere else on the bike trail. There is a spot where the Herring River goes under the trail and empties into the West Reservoir of Bell’s Neck Conservation area. I don’t know if the waterway under the trail is too small, but turtles end up climbing up the embankment, crossing the trail, and going down the other side into the water. I was nearing 10 miles into my walk when I was going past that spot again. There it was. A juvenile box turtle was attempting to cross the trail. It was maybe 3 inches across at the shell. Not needing an excuse to stop walking, I guided it across the trail, basically shielding it from oncoming bikes. Then I got my video. The turtle crawled to the edge of the stone embankment. I had no sooner made the joke that it was going to jump when there it went, diving over the side. I scrambled to find it. Granted, it was only 3 feet down to the ground from the top of the stone wall, but for a tiny turtle that’s pretty far. I got video of it continuing down the steep hill. It fell and rolled at times, which made it feel more like a Three Stooges episode. Obviously the video will show things better. Don’t worry, it was ok, so you can laugh.
10. Sometimes things just come up Milhouse. That’s a Simpsons reference that some of you might not get. What it’s referring to is a particularly lucky event this week. After having to spend much of one day waiting for my car to get fixed, I had to push some other errands off. This included doing laundry. I wasn’t looking forward to driving on a hot summer weekend to the laundromat. The first bit of luck was realizing that I could throw my laundry in and, while it was going, head across the street to the library and get some work done. It was some abstract multitasking. I got to sit in the a/c and relative quiet and start working on a project. One of the librarians came up to where I was sitting and asked me if I had received the check for my event there last month. I had not even thought about it. In fact, I just assumed that I had done the event for free, except for the books I sold. This was the peak of the luck. Not only was I multitasking while my laundry was going, but now I was essentially getting paid to do work in the library. Sadly, I know if I go to write at any other libraries locally, they won’t be handing me checks, but I can always dream, right?
11. We have reached the halfway point of summer. No, summer doesn’t end Labor Day Weekend, sorry. It ends on September 21st. As of this writing, we are in another hot stretch on Cape Cod and the Northeastern United States in general. Don’t get me wrong, I am lucky and blessed to have access to air conditioning so as not to slowly cook myself in August. That being said, this is also the time of year that I start counting down the days to my favorite time of year. Fall is my favorite season. In fact, as some of you might already know, my favorite time of year is Labor Day through New Year’s. The weather is still good through most of October. There are several birthdays of loved ones, including my own. There are also several amazing holidays to celebrate. Sure, we could get a freak snowstorm before Thanksgiving, but that’s a fair trade for the good vibes I feel during the last third of the year. I don’t hate summer, but it is my third favorite season behind fall and spring. Once the sweltering, humid days break, which is typically later in August, then summer becomes alright. That just happens to coincide with Labor Day, so lucky me.
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