Us, January 19, 2020: John, Leo, Shadow, Roy, Ondine
Us, January 19, 2020: John, Leo, Shadow, Roy, Ondine
Our new blender arrived, and for us that's exciting! It's an Amazon Basics model, with twice the power of our old Black and Decker (which we bought in January 2016 and killed in March 2020). It has a single rotary control for speed instead of a mass of individual buttons with incomprehensible labels like "beat" and "liquify" and "melee." The new blender also has buttons for pulse, crushing ice, and smoothies.
Within minutes of unboxing and washing our new blender, John threw in apple chunks, orange segments, bananas, yogurt, milk, and ice, and whipped it all totally smooth in seconds. That blender is niiiiice! And just in time for smoothies because it's getting hot, the forecast calls for temps well into the 90s all week.
Speaking of new acquisitions, Ondine ordered a rowing machine! And our various face masks have arrived, with more arriving, including ones with floral patterns, a Captain America theme, and plain blue. John chose especially colorful ones for himself.
Coronavirus update: The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker shows that COVID-19 has been confirmed in over 3.6 million people worldwide, and has claimed over 254,000 lives. That's an increase of over 200,000 cases and 12,000 lives lost in the past four days. The U.S. has over 1,193,000 confirmed cases with over 70,000 deaths, up over 66,000 cases and another 4,000 deaths in the past four days. In San Diego, our local toll rose to 4,020 cases with 144 deaths.
In addition, a virus mutation seems to have emerged that is more contagious and less affected by the treatments currently under research. A second wave of infections looks increasingly likely, if not already happening, even as calls to lift restrictions on the grounds of personal freedom and economic necessity increase.
Meanwhile, in San Diego, the beaches and parks are open for exercising, but not socializing. So it's OK to run or walk or swim or surf, but not OK to have a picnic or party or just hang out. So far, San Diegans have been largely following social distancing guidelines.
Leo still plans to attend Point Blank Music School Los Angeles, in Silverlake, this fall. He's enrolled in the Music Production and Sound Design master certification course, a 12-month program. Right now it looks like there will be on-site classes, in contrast to the CSU and UC systems which announced they will be online-only for the fall semester. He's been in touch with the housing consortium, which is not affiliated with the school, called UpstART to let them know his housing preferences. So, things are moving along.
Roy is winding down his sophomore year at UCCS with online classes. He's still considering doing a business management certificate course over the summer. He'll be a junior this fall, so he'll be shifting to housing for upperclassmen. He's submitted his preference for a shared unit on-campus. Right now, UCCS says they'll be open for students on-campus when school starts in August. Meanwhile, when his job at the Ent Center ends this month with the end of the school year, he plans to apply for California unemployment, following the lead of most of his friends who have already signed on and are receiving money.
Ondine did a lot of clearing in the back yard over the weekend, nearly filling the greenery can. Monday evening after dinner she went for a walk with Deanna and they saw and heard the owls!
John is close to the end of the MOOC he's taking on forensic archaeology, and he's thinking about looking into community college classes in the summer and fall. He's also been working on clearing out his office, a little at a time. He gave himself a haircut (he's always cut his own hair, even before the pandemic). And, he's been really enjoying all the online theatre that's been going on. He just watched Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch in the National Theatre's production of Frankenstein.
Neighborhood gas prices are about $2.79 per gallon. The stock market is hanging around 24,056 around noon.
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