Pictured above are the Thacher Island Twin Lights (aka the Cape Ann Light Station) located near Rockport. These are the first lighthouses built in the US to warn of danger rather than to demarcate the entrance to a port. More than 500 shipwrecks lie below the waters of Cape Ann. Thacher Island is also where the witness protection program got its start when notorious Boston hitman Joe “the Animal” Barboza, who agreed to testify against the New England mob in 1967, became the first participant along with his family. A movie entitled “Thacher Island” telling his story is being readied for release. Today, Jeanine and I took a road trip to the Cape Ann peninsula where we lunched on the patio of the Beauport Hotel before meeting up with one of our friends whose mother owns a spectacular home in the area. We also visited the Paper House and the Ten Pound Island Lighthouse.

The Rockport Paper House’s walls, doors, and furniture are made of varnished newspapers—roughly 100,000 of them. 215 layers of paper were stuck together with a homemade glue of flour, water, and apple peels to make 1-inch-thick panels for the walls.

All the furniture, including a clock, desk, and chair, is functional and made entirely of paper. The only exceptions are the piano, which is only covered in paper, and the fireplace. The house has stood intact for over 80 years, with no more upkeep than the occasional varnishing. What’s more, the walls and furniture are still readable, displaying headlines such as “LINDBERGH HOPS OFF FOR OCEAN FLIGHT TO PARIS.”

My mother appears to be on the road to recovery thanks in no small part to the lovingly prepared food my brother has been making for her now that she can eat again. She is scheduled for an additional surgery tomorrow to remove a tangerine sized abscess. With any luck that will be the last procedure and we can look forward to her full recovery.

I gained access to an initial set of photos from last weekend’s Tough Mudder. These memories will last for a lifetime. The pain of my cracked rib should abate in a couple of months.

Ordered on September 18 of last year, I picked up my new Audi e-tron after work today. Thus far it has met my expectations and should help make my 2+ hours of commuting each day a little more tolerable (think front seats with built in massage function).

My very first car, a Triumph Spitfire, was also blue although that would be hard to figure out from the black and white photos which remain. With every new car purchase I pause to reflect on my former cars and their significance to me. Here is the list in chronological order.

• Triumph Spitfire (blue) ; first love
• Triumph GT6 (yellow) ; second love
• Alpha Romeo Spyder (white) ; first true love
• Alpha Romeo GTV (red) ; spare parts for above
• Porsche 944 (red) ; first properly engineered car
• Porsche 944 (black) ; more of a good thing
• Nissan 300 ZX Turbo (red) ; the summer fling
• Lexus SC 300 (gray) ; first grown up car, hated it
• Mercedes SL 500 (green) ; passion reignited
• Mercedes ML 320 (silver) ; first family car
• Audi A3 (silver) ; my second true love
• Audi Q5 (silver) ; my off road darling
• SmartCar (blue) ; first attempt at social responsibility
• BMW i3 (orange) ; my electric mistress, forever a convert
• Audi e-tron (blue) ; TBD

For the second season in a row my soccer team, Concord United, won the Division 1 Championship for our age group besting the other 27 teams. Regulation play resulted in a 0-0 tie. The ensuing penalty kick shoot out ended with a score of 4-3 in our favor. I played despite a cracked rib and sore muscles from yesterday’s Tough Mudder and finally managed a good photo of the whole team. The winning PK by our stopper is shown below.

In other soccer news, Nicolai worked with the New England Revolution MLS team to have an amputee soccer demonstration (3v3 no goalies) during half time over their game this evening. The American Amputee Soccer Association flew in a couple of players for the event and they all stayed at our house last night. Here is an Instagram recording of the demo including a goal and subsequent forward flip by Nicolai.

Today I participated in the 2019 Boston Tough Mudder Classic. Billed as a 10 mile course with 25 obstacles it was closer to 8 miles for which I have no complaints. Pictured here is the 3-story cargo net Mudderhorn, the last and one of the easier obstacles with the Tough Mudder Village in the background. Organizers emphasize that this is not a race but rather a challenge. The goal is to complete the course and as many obstacles as you can with an emphasis on using teamwork to get everyone through. I successfully completed 24 of the 25 obstacles and helped teammates on the team oriented ones. I was unable to get all the way across the Funky Monkey inclined horizontal ladder which required more upper body strength than I could muster. The consequence is falling into a deep pool of water which at this point in the course is a welcome way to wash off all the caked on mud that you have accumulated. Below is a video from the Los Angeles version of this event which shows most of the same obstacles. The Gauntlet was by far the hardest one for me and the most satisfying to complete. I finished in a little over 3.5 hours and was completely spent by the end. My arms were so fatigued that lifting a can of Coke was a challenge. I have several cuts and scrapes and a broken or cracked rib. Am I glad I did it. Hell yes! Would I do another one. Not likely!

Pictured below are two of the easier but muddier obstacles. I went back after a shower and change of clothes with my camera to grab a couple of pictures. Crawling under the barbed wire is not that difficult but your knees take a beating on the embedded gravel and rocks. This trick is to lift your body up on your toes. Easier said than done. The net which is staked to the ground is very heavy. Ten steps in and you are exhausted. The trick is to work with teammates and to walk backwards. Doing so allows the netting to ride up more easily and once it is elevated teammates can pass under it with less effort.

I was able to visit my mom one more time this morning before my flight back to Boston. She is making slow but steady progress every day. Because she is unable to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time (general discomfort from being connected to so many tubes and nurses doing blood draws or other checks throughout the day and night, she now show signs of ICU delirium. She has wild and vivid hallucinations which can be very disconcerting. We are told this is not uncommon and that they should abate once she is able to get more sleep.

While In Minnesota I am staying with my brother Mark and his darling wife, Marie. This is my first time to see their new home. It is located within walking distance of the kids school and is quite spectacular. I helped my brother with some shop projects in between visits to the hospital where my mother is making slow steady progress. It is clear that her road to recovery is going to take some time. So far it has been two steps forward and one step back.

I flew to Minneapolis this morning to visit my mother in the hospital. She is recovering from surgery, which appears thus far to have been successful. She is expected to remain in the hospital until early next week and her prognosis at this time is guardedly optimistic. My mother is as energetic a 90 year old as you will ever meet which made it especially difficult to see her so fragile after her ordeal. She is already very skinny so the loss of several more pounds has been less than ideal. She cannot have any food or liquids until her digestion resumes which is not expected for another few days. She was aggressively treated for a dramatic drop in blood pressure this morning which had stabilized by the time I visited in the afternoon. She is connected to more tubes than I could keep straight and this has made it difficult for her to rest. She was alert and coherent during my visit and I left the hospital with a sense of relief.

Pictured here at her 90th birthday party last year, my mother underwent emergency surgery early this morning for an obstructed bowel. She is visiting my brother and his family in Minneapolis which is fortunate because they were quick to seek medical attention when she fell ill and there she has access to a world class health system and excellent doctors. Surgeons removed a section of her upper intestine and feel she will make a full, if lengthy recovery. I will leave tomorrow to visit with her and try and lend a hand to Mark and Marie who have had to handle this difficult situation alone.

While at Fenway yesterday, we learned a bit of Green Monster trivia. The ladder pictured to the left above was used to access the roof for maintenance before it was replaced with additional seating. No longer needed it was left in place and has figured prominently in two major plays in which a fly ball took an unexpected carom off the ladder. A close-up of the American League standings reveals Morse Code embedded messages in the vertical white stripes. It will be left as an exercise for the reader to determine their meaning.

The family treated Maya to a baseball game outing at Fenway Park to belatedly celebrated her twentieth birthday. Kyle managed to get us great tickets at the last minute (see out view of the field below). Unfortunately, the Red Sox did little to make the game memorable as they lost to the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1. Later we dined at the Yard House while watching the tail end of the France – Brazil World Cup match.

Also in attendance but seated in a different area were my cousins who received complimentary tickets from an inside connection as well as a nice welcome on one of the giant screens in the outfield.

Earlier in the day my soccer team won our semi-final championship match by a well earned margin of 3-1. Next Sunday we play in the finals for all the marbles. I will be competing in a 10-mile, 25 obstacle Tough Mudder on Saturday so it remains to be seen how much I will be able to contribute to that effort.

After Nicolai cooked breakfast for everyone, Jeanine and I joined my cousins, the Sanchez family, for a paddle down the Sudbury and Concord Rivers to the Old North Bridge. There we went ashore for a tour of the grounds and brief history lesson.

Later in the afternoon, we visited Kimball Farm for mini golf and ice cream. Please note that we all enjoyed small portions compared to the banana split I could not resist photographing even though it was ordered by someone else.

Tony, Nick and Dom are the children of my cousin Gina’s son Rob and his wife Jennifer. I believe this makes them my cousins twice removed. The entire family is staying with us this weekend having travelled here from Chicago. Each summer they take a vacation to visit a different baseball stadium (Fenway in this case). This year they are also using the trip to visit colleges. Below is a picture of the older two with our kids and more cousins from Rob’s brother, Vincent.