Friend back, passports, easy storm

Our friend Dan is back from Nova Scotia. He was in Boston briefly a month ago when his husband Paul had a stroke and died three days later. Dan has many health problems but Paul seemed fit. He played tennis or pickleball three or four times a week, sailed, was politically active in the local Democratic Party. Just like that, he was gone. It was a big shock. I’m closer to Dan and Woody was closer to Paul, but we got together often, all four of us, had dinners, parties, Dan and I shared our poetry and we laughed a lot. Woody went sailing with Paul.It’s very hard on Dan coming to the house with the two dogs who had been with him in Nova Scotia where he also has a house. It all happened so suddenly that everything was as it was that evening. There’s so much work for Dan to do getting everything in order. Plus he enjoys being a grandfather and Paul’s son and his wife just had a baby. This is the second time Dan has been widowed. It’s an ongoing nightmare. Dan and Paul were a very well matched couple and lots of fun of be around. It’s bad enough to go through the loss of a partner once but to go through it twice is not something anyone should have to endure.The weather forecasters all predicted snow, somewhere between 3 and 8 inches of snow. Fortunatey, we got some rain but no snow at all. It was windy but nothing like they predicted and nothing like the huge tree bending bough breaking winds we experience with the second of the four nor’easters since the beginning of March. There’s still a bit of snow here and there and in a ridge along the roads from plowing, but it’s a minor nuisance. Even the main garden has only a rim of snow at the very end.I started main crop tomatoes, ten of them, bulbous fennel, Brussels sprouts and both Rouge vif d’estempes and New England Pie pumpkins. Most of these haven’t sprouted yet except for 8 of the main crop tomatoes. I suspect the remainder of the tomatoes will have sprouted by tomorrow morning. It’s such a late spring, we haven’t been able to plant anything yet. Also I’m string everything about ten days later than usual because we were out of town for a reading and then we experienced a three day power outage. I’m really tired of winter. I don’t dislike it the way all the snowbirds in town do. I’m not fond of warm humid weather. I generally get a lot down in the winter.I’m slowly learning the new PC. It’s hooked up to the printer and the internet. I still use the old MAC for some things I don’t yet understand how to do on the new PC. It’s slowed down my writing. Stopped in the middle of revising a chapter of THE HOUSE AT HOPE’S END and have only written one new poem since the new PC was installed.Thursday, I had a reading at Preservation Hall here in Wellfleet. The winners and those who placed in this year’s regional WOMR Jose Gouveia poetry contest. There’s also a national contest, but we don’t expect those winners to fly here. I read at the end, always a few new poems. Tuesday, a day we don’t usually go out, we had dinner with new friends in South Wellfleet. Very enjoyable but then a bit difficult to get up on time the next morning. I really prefer to go out weekends when we can sleep a little later. I’m beginning to get ready for the seder on Erev Pesach, Friday, followed by my birthday, Saturday. Our new friends are flying to Prague. That’s my favorite European city . I’ve spent time there twice and written about it in HE, SHE AND IT.It’l still cold but not quite as wintry. The last nor’easter was, happily for us, a dud. Not even much rain. No snow. Never froze that time. Big waves still battered the coast. The backside [what real Cape people call the ocean side of our narrow land] took a real beating this winter. Nobody knows what it’s going to be like at any of the beaches this summer. A beach restaurant in Eastham that has been there for about 50 years was destroyed.We’re hoping to get outside today to get back to clearing the perennial beds. I must start begonias inside. More and more of the seedlings are going out to the greenhouse, where they have sun when it’s sunny and we turn on the heating pads under them at night. The snow has finally melted from my upper vegetable garden and Woody’s main garden. They’re divided that way since I can’t kneel because of my knee replacements and my garden is all raised beds. The main garden has none. The lower garden has mostly raised beds that I can plant. I have two raised bed flower gardens. Then I use pots. Woody has no interest in tending or planting flower beds, so the many other beds are on their own. The rose garden is basically down to the hardiest roses since I can’t keep it up any longer.