July 22, 2026

Happy Birthday, Skyler.

Clara and I had lunch together and then we went down to the Connecticut River and took the riverboat cruise.  There were 5 passengers, 2 crew members and a dog.  It was a perfect afternoon on the river.  Absolutely perfect.  It improved my view on life 100 percent.  

We learned a little about the history of the river and the area.  The French King Bridge was built in a year in 1932.  Erving builders started on their side and Gill builders on their's and when the met in the middle they were only 5 inches off.  I sort of thought that wasv a lot for a bridge, but apparently the Gill folks just stuck cement on their end.  LOL

Massachusetts has a program that supports people who get food stamps to use cultural activities/events for free, so I sailed for free today.  It only costs 15 dollars, but Card for Culture paid my way.   At the end of the ride the captain told me I could come and ride any time.  I said I'd love to just come and write on the boat and he said come.  

It'd be fun to rent a house on the river for a week during the summer and just be able to get up and go sit on a dock, watch eagles soar.  It's so gentle and I felt cleansed by the water and the wind today.

Afterwards I went to the canal and wrote for a while.  Today there were 9 heron in the canal.   We saw an egret in the river and several eagles.  We saw one heron flying, but in the canal they were like ghosts standing erect between the moon and the water waiting for dinner.  

I saw two very large butterflies.  One was a monarch and the other was primarily black.  I thought it was a bird at first. 

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I think I'm going to do that a couple more times this summer. I really am ending today in my better spirits than I have in a week.

I do have my CT scan scheduled for next week.  Apparently they had scheduled it but didn't inform me.