We took Peter and James to lunch at NYAJ in Hyannis.
Ron finished mowing the lawn and I raked out the furrow around the herb garden. Also cleaned most of the paint tray.
One Out Of Four; Forty Percent; Liberation Theology
One out of four people who live in Barnstable County are of Irish origin.
Forty percent of the people who live in Barnstable County are Catholic.
They grew up believing this, which explains almost everything that’s wrong with this place:
I knew from my catechism book that following the wishes of authority figures was a way of “showing God how much we love him. We show this especially when we obey in something we do not feel like doing.”
This reader’s comment pretty much covers the rest:
The Catholicism at home, which was based on social justice, was different from that at school, where we were taught obedience through fear and an unearned sense of superiority (as long as we followed the rules).
I agree with this reader’s comment:
Anyone who stays now, after all the truth that has been revealed is an ENABLER and complicit in the catholic church’s crimes against humanity.
Father Drinan and the Berrigan brothers must be spinning in their graves so fast it’ll throw the Earth off its axis: “We confront the Catholic Church, other Christian bodies and the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face of our country’s crimes.”
There must have been a cataclysmic fold in space/time on November 8, 2016 that brought us back to the fifties.
66!
Did more weeding and loaded up the truck again.
Finished drying out the last paint can and brought all of it to the transfer station. Ron organized household trash. Picked up the rest at Edgewater.
Did laundry, changed sheets.
Ron hurt my arm and shoulder at the transfer station. I was trying to lift the tailgate, and he was holding it down. It was a damned stupid move on his part.
He did make pancakes and cleaned a couple of window sills. Showed me a slick way to cook corn, too: microwave in the hulls and peel afterwards.
We had a light supper of hummus and seeds.
To 40B or not to 40B
Opinion
To 40B or not to 40B: That is the question
After reading your front-page July 12 article “Route 6A housing project gets support,” I found myself asking this question: Why is there such strong opposition to the pending affordable housing proposal in Dennis Village? After all, who doesn’t want affordable housing to be available to moderate-income families in our community?
The truth about Chapter 40B should concern us all, including those of us who believe strongly that ensuring access to affordable housing is an important goal on Cape Cod, but who also treasure the unique character of our community.
Little-known is that Chapter 40B developers are able to circumvent a community’s regulations and guidelines for development in the name of “affordable housing.” This is true despite the fact that in the 28-unit Chapter 40B development proposed for Dennis, 21 units will be “unaffordable,” expected to be offered at prices in excess of half a million dollars. Equally troubling, of the limited number of “affordable” units being built, only a percentage will be designated for town residents in need of affordable homes. The rest will be made available to families throughout the state based on a lottery system.
Further, a 40B builder is allowed to ignore local zoning ordinances and historic commission review – regulations and guidelines that a community spends decades writing and refining and that all other builders must abide by. No required setbacks, no density guidelines, no Old King’s Highway Historic Commission oversight, and no Cape Cod Commission review or input – yielding results in this Dennis project that feel more appropriate to Cape May, New Jersey, than to Cape Cod.
Perhaps most disturbing: If a community raises too many concerns or requests too many adjustments in a 40B proposal such that the adjustments eat into the builder’s profit margin, the builder can threaten to bypass the town and go directly to the state for approval, leaving local officials shut out of a process they have little input into anyway.
The Chapter 40B process is broken. Builders should not be allowed to control virtually all decisions about the construction of a housing development in our community, even if that development includes a small number of affordable units sprinkled into a subdivision of expensive houses. The goals of the Comprehensive Permit Act, which establishes the Chapter 40B process, should be supported. But the time has come for the law to be revised and updated to give local jurisdictions much more control over the builder and to require towns in the commonwealth to allow for waivers of local ordinances for the building of affordable homes – homes that are of high quality and fit into the character of the community.
There is no reason affordability and character cannot go hand in hand.
Linda DeRuvo-Keegan lives in East Dennis.
Standouts; Hazardous Waste Collection; Transfer Station; Shredding
We got through hazardous waste collection and shredding pretty fast today at Mashpee HS. Very well organized crew.
I participated in the MTR standouts in Falmouth and Sandwich. Sandwich is full of haters and I lost it. Will not be back.
On the way to Sandwich, stopped at the transfer station to unload a pile of recyclables and leavings from yesterday’s furrowing. Quick stop at South Sandwich Stop & Shop on the way back; people were nice there.
Picked up scotch and vodka at Liberty; good prices! Ron mixed two drinks for me. I certainly needed them. Paul phoned and we had a good conversation.
Pasta with mushrooms and pesto, with salad, for supper. Gorged on candy afterwards. Hard day. I hate Cape Codders.
More Loathesome Chores: 95
Weeds have started to flower and even seed, so I rented a cultivator from Taylor Rental late yesterday. Unfortunately, it didn’t work – it kept stalling, and Ron noticed that some of the tines were broken – so Ron exchanged it for a killer machine with two sets of tines and a better motor: a Mantis.
He plowed deep furrows around four gardens. I started raking out the grass and weeds and gave up after a while, but Ron worked three and a half to four hours straight until almost 4:30 in 95 degree heat.
He found another problem with the second machine. The person at Taylor Rental was great, told Ron he appreciated the feedback.
Meanwhile, we installed the lamp harp, which arrived today. Had to take the lamp apart and rewire it, but everything seems to be working.
After dropping off the cultivator, we stopped in North Falmouth for ice cream. I bought a finial at North Falmouth Hardware. Ron treated us to ice cream next door at Holy Cow.
I’m glad we got all that done. Big day tomorrow: hazardous waste collection and standout/standouts for MTR.
Loathsome Chores; 95
Loathsome chore: drying out latex paint cans with cat litter. I was able to toss most of them, but there are a few holdouts still drying in the yard.
Loathsome chore: weeding. On the way back from getting the truck at Falmouth Toyota, I picked up a cultivator at Taylor Rental. Ron, of course, was dubious and insistently rude even when I threatened to slug him. He did show me how to start it, though.
Ron got the front mowed. Hope to work on the back tomorrow. Got him a bag of bulls eyes from the Country Store.
Ron took two of the cabinet doors off so I could scrub them with Murphy’s Oil Soap.
Dropped off cherry tomatoes and blueberry soda to Robert. Listened for a while to a pop music band at the Commons.
350 newspapers around the country published “we are not your enemy” editorials today. Good for the Globe for getting this going.
Truck; Paint Disposal
Saw signs that toxic waste disposal is happening at the high school this weekend, so we put old acrylic paint cans in the small shed and latex paint for drying in the big shed.
Dropped off the truck early for its appointment. Am gobsmacked by Falmouth Toyota! Far superior to Hyannis Toyota. What a setup. Mentioned that vH referred me.
Turns out it needs a fairly minor repair, under $300. Asked them to add a stopper to the driver side seatbelt and check out the foldout window on the passenger side. They say the fluids are fine: big relief.
We did a shop at Market Basket, needed cat litter for the paint disposal project and ended up buying coffee, cereal, broccoli/cheese soup, custard pie on sale, swiss cheese, yogurt, no-salt pasta sauce and vegetable broth that have become difficult to find, and one or two other things. Dropped off a strawberry rhubarb pie on sale for Peter.
Soup and egg salad sandwiches for lunch. Really hit the spot. Rotini with pesto-enhanced tomato sauce and salad for supper. Custard pie for dessert.
CSA; Pesto
CSA day, which means extra work for me.
So, of course, I decided it was a good time to make pesto.
The 3 big basil plants have flowers. I cut the top off one per a suggestion online to cut off half a basil plant once it flowered to encourage more leaves.
The leaves were in good shape for pesto, and I put the flowers in two arrangements, one with Sunflowers from the Farm.
Watered the corner garden. Divvied up the CSA share and managed to get all of our produce in the frig.
Ron brought carrots, green peppers and a Yerba Mate to Robert.
He came back with a 1/4 cup package of pine nuts. He ground up the basil (2 cups), pine nuts, 3 gloves of garlic and 1/2 cup of olive oil.
Superb!
Can’t wait until tomorrow, when it’ll be even better.
Put an invoice together for Jim with dates, times, hours and tasks. Two months for RovingGM.
Sauteed carrots, onion, tomatoes, red and green peppers and zucchini. Floated 4 beaten eggs on top, covered and cooked for about 3-4 minutes. Next time, really need seasoning; it was good, but bland.
Turns out, the insignia for the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum looks a lot like Phyllis’ “X”s!
Weeding
I’d dug up about a 1/4 barrel full of soil to plant the Rudbeckia and decided I could make room in one of the gardens if I weeded. Wanted to get that done today in the event of rain.
I didn’t finish the weeding but did have enough cleared for the soil.
Ron was nice enough to shovel it out for me and load the weeds in the truck. We put away the tools.
More weeding to do, but I’m worn out, and anyway, hoping to get a recommendation from the people at Soares for a weeding tool before continuing. What we have – shovel, hoes, “claw” – really don’t work that while, especially on crabgrass.
Emailed Jim for help with Warranty:evo data mapping. Hope to hear from him later today.
Set up the Android phone recharger in the den.