Us, January 19, 2020: John, Leo, Shadow, Roy, Ondine
Us, January 19, 2020: John, Leo, Shadow, Roy, Ondine
The weather has officially turned, and it's well into the 90s now, hot and sunny. It seemed like it was a warm winter too, although apparently wetter than usual. John never switched to his winter wardrobe, so his closet is good to go. Even implementing our summer routine of opening and shutting certain windows and blinds at certain times, it gets hot in the house with four people 24/7, four computers running all day, a dog, and no air conditioning.
Coronavirus update: The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker shows that COVID-19 has been confirmed in over 2.8 million people worldwide, and has claimed over 200,000 lives. That's an increase of over 300,000 cases and 23,500 lives lost in the past four days. The U.S. has over 924,500 confirmed cases with over 52,100 deaths. That's up over 100,000 cases and another 7,100 deaths in the past four days. And in San Diego, the numbers rose to 2,826 cases with 102 deaths.
Meanwhile, unemployment claims have soared to over 26.5 million, adding over 4 million Americans out of work every week for the past five weeks. The national unemployment rate stands at over 20%, and that number doesn't count people like John, who as a freelancer and sole proprietor still doesn't qualify to claim unemployment. Economic projections call for the unemployment rate to remain in the low to mid teens for the next couple years.
Perhaps because people are unemployed/underemployed, the call to reopen and lift restrictions continues even as cases rise and the risk of a resurgence increases. In San Diego, parks are opening for walking and running, but not group activities, so no classes, league games, or social gatherings. The beaches and ocean access are opening with restrictions, although in many places beach parking lots will remain closed. And, as of May 1 2020, anyone outside their home must wear a face mask. Good thing Ondine just bought us some! It's like John predicted: suddenly niqabs are cool.
In our safe haven, we've all but decided to subscribe to Disney Plus. We're working our way through The Mandalorian series, but there are a lot of good movies too. We may give up Acorn and keep Amazon Prime and Britbox, we're not sure. Or, maybe we'll just suck it up and have four streaming services to get us through these times.
Last night, we'd had tickets to see Company at Lamplighters Theatre, but of course the theatres are shut down. When we took our walk last night, even though it was 9 pm we saw at least a dozen people out and about, which is probably more than we've seen, ever.
Ondine had her birthday this week. We ordered take-out Himalayan food and later she had an evening out with friends, all keeping a distance of course.
She continues to do her job from home, in an office in our bedroom that she has to set up every morning and dismantle every evening. She's using her issued laptop on John's rolling laptop tray, with two TV trays giving her paperwork space on either side. Her chair is an exercise ball. She hung a colorful scarf on the closet door behind her as a backdrop for video visits. John's stash of business equipment also included a good pair of on-ear headphones with a noise-canceling microphone, plus a backup set of earbuds with a microphone, so she's well equipped. As the weather gets warmer, she'll close down the window, forgoing her view of the hawks and hummingbird nest, and pull in one of the extra fans.
Speaking of the hawks, they're still there. And the hummingbird nest now has two baby hummingbirds peeking out of it!
Roy is doing classes online and connecting with friends through social media and gaming. Danielle came by the other day and they sat out in the front yard building a Lego set.
Leo seems to be doing very little schoolwork, and mostly watches videos, plays games, and connects with friends online.
John is doing his FutureLearn course on forensic archaeology, and trying to clean up his office. And, he's trying to watch every scrap of online theatre he can.
Shadow was working on a project digging a big hole under the fence, but we had Roy fill it in. So now he's casting about for something else to get his snout into.
We've continued playing charades before dinner, a fun little activity.
Neighborhood gas prices are about $2.89 per gallon. The stock market closed Friday at 23,775.
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