Us, January 19, 2020: John, Leo, Shadow, Roy, Ondine
Us, January 19, 2020: John, Leo, Shadow, Roy, Ondine
Hawks and hummingbirds! Did you see the photos of our hawk and hummingbird in the last journal? If you missed it, they're hanging on our virtual refrigerator door!
Coronavirus update: The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker shows that COVID-19 has been confirmed in over 2.5 million people worldwide, and has claimed over 177,200 lives. That's an increase of over 200,000 cases and 19,200 lives lost in the past four days. The U.S. has over 824,100 confirmed cases with 45,000 deaths. That's up over 98,100 cases and 7,100 deaths in the past four days alone. And in San Diego, the numbers rose to 2,325 cases with 72 deaths.
Yet, protests are being staged all over the country, urged on by president Trump, resisting the continuation of state stay at home orders on the grounds of personal liberty and economic necessity. One such protest happened in downtown San Diego, but they seem to be growing in numbers and strength nationwide.
See, this is why the United State is leading the world in bringing back measles. Sigh.
Neighborhood grocery stores are still not back to normal, at least as far as toilet paper is concerned, although John caught his limit of one pack of our usual Charmin at Albertson's when he went shopping the other day. A lucky score! Most product categories are on the shelves, in smaller quantities and with less selection than before. The latest news, though, is that several major food processors are having to shut down because of coronavirus cases among workers, so some experts are warning that that could affect supplies of meat and produce.
Meanwhile, at home with the bears, John had to run an escrow service for peeps and chocolate eggs as Roy and Leo wheel and deal with each other trading their dwindling stock of Easter candy.
We subscribed to a free seven-day trial of Disney Plus, so we could finally watch Frozen and Frozen 2, which we did over the last two evenings. We also low key want to binge-watch the Star Wars films, at least Episodes 1-6 plus Rogue One. And the kids have been getting a kick out of watching Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares on Amazon Prime.
Over the weekend we went next door for kaffeetrinken and to celebrate Barbara's birthday. Back in the old days, we'd go out to Marieta's or something, but this year we can't. So, we got in some really yummy cheeses and lay on a nice spread of cheese, crackers, tortilla chips, fresh guacamole, blackberries, and, to top it all off, a lemon cheesecake! Yum! While we were there, Leo set up Barbara's AppleTV system so she could stream movies from her Netflix account on her TV intead of having to watch on her laptop.
Leo is pretty much just hanging out at home, although he's tackled some bigger chores like weedwhacking the front yard. He has little incentive to do any schoolwork, so this is just an extended vacation for him. There won't be any ceremonies or festivities for his graduation anyways; Class of 2020 really has an anticlimactic end to 12 years of school.
Big news, though, regarding Leo's next step: his application to UPstART Creative Living was just approved, so he has a place to stay in Los Angeles when he starts at Point Blank this September! He still has to select an UPstART house, and some are much closer than others to the Mack Sennett Studio where his classes will be. Plus, some have bunk beds in shared rooms and others have private but tiny "pods." Anyways, he's in the midst of figuring out bus routes around Silverlake.
Roy is in online classes several days a week. Between online sessions he's either working on school projects or personal projects. His friend Malcolm dropped by over the weekend and they had a nice conversation from a safe distance.
Roy is hoping to return to school in Colorado in September, but if it happens it'll definitely look a lot different from what it has been so far. Not only will his housing and dining change because he'll be a junior (dorms and meal plans are for freshmen and sophomores only), but the entire way education happens is undergoing a rapid change.
Ondine is thankfully still working from home, reaching out to patients by phone and video. And, she's still writing and posting a haiku a day on her Instagram feed.
John continues to enjoy a life of online theatre. His forensic archaeology class is turning out to be less Time Team and more CSI, but it's still fascinating. He also responded to an inquiry about a consulting gig, we'll see how that goes. Ethical marketers are far and few between, but he wants to keep his hand in if and when they come up.
Taxes and money stuff. We filed our tax return last week as did Roy. Ooo, ooo, and we received our coronavirus economic stimulus payment of $2,900 (up to $1,200 per qualifying individual, plus a payment of $500 per qualifying dependent child under 17). We also learned that Roy will get his own coronavirus economic stimulus payment when he files his 2020 tax return.
We've allocated the stimulus windfall mostly to saving for the kids' college educations. Not in their 529s though because we can't use 529 funds to pay for housing. We'll also put some into our IRA.
HAPPY BIRTHDAYS this week to Barbara and Ondine! Ondine is taking her birthday off to celebrate. We're still under stay at home orders in California, but we plan to get some take-out Himalayan food for ourselves and watch Coco on Disney Plus. Later this evening she'll go to a social distancing happy hour at Lucy's house, where she'll get to hear about Lucy's new job and also see Laura and Deanna. Exciting!
Neighborhood gas prices dropped a dime to $2.89 per gallon on news of a glut of oil. On Monday, crude oil futures hit a record low benchmark price of negative $37.63, an historic event and economic oddity for the books. Producers would have actually had to pay buyers to take oil off their hands. The price of a barrel of oil fell from over $18 Friday to about $9 today. This is due in large part to drastically reduced travel due to coronavirus, plus storage space is finite. The stock market is currently hanging around 23,018.
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