Us, January 19, 2020: John, Leo, Shadow, Roy, Ondine
Us, January 19, 2020: John, Leo, Shadow, Roy, Ondine
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to the moms (especially ours)!
Summerish weather is here, but so far it hasn't gotten unbearably hot. It's mostly in the high 80s to low 90s so far. Sometimes there's a bit of a breeze, which helps. Leo has taken to sitting and reading on the back patio. John now does most of his cooking on the grill outside. And we've all enjoyed frosty smoothies from our new Amazon Basics blender.
At the beaches, there was a beautiful bioluminescent tide a week or so back, which has now turned into a fetid-smelling red tide of blooming algae. Sometimes it's nice to live inland! With no human traffic in Mission Trails Park, the wildlife is also blooming. We don't remember ever hearing owls quite so often, and the coyotes seem more active too.
Our back yard hawks are still there, but the hummingbird babies have successfully flown the nest! That's two more hummingbirds in the world!
Coronavirus update: The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker shows that COVID-19 has been confirmed in over 3.9 million people worldwide, and has claimed over 276,800 lives. That's an increase of over 300,000 cases and 22,800 lives lost in the past four days. The U.S. has over 1,298,000 confirmed cases with over 78,000 deaths, up over 105,000 cases and another 8,000 deaths in the past four days. In San Diego, our toll rose to 4,662 cases with 169 deaths. So, in the U.S., the spread of COVID-19 may be accelerating, even as people rush to open up.
The pandemic's economic toll also continues to grow. Last week alone, 3.2 million more Americans claimed unemployment benefits, reflecting the scores of employers who have cut back or shut down. That's a lot lower than the weekly peak of 6.9 million in March, but still a huge human cost. Unemployment claims over the past seven weeks total 33.5 million people, representing 14.7% of the workforce by official government figures, a level not seen since the Great Depression, and those figures don't count freelancers and sole proprietorships like John, or recently furloughed workers. Many economists peg the actual unemployment rate at over 20%.
To put that in historical perspective, official estimated American unemployment rates peaked in 1933, during the Great Depression, at 24.9%.
Some major companies have shut down permanently. For example, the buffet restaurant chain Souplantation, which got its start in San Diego, announced that it will not reopen. The Chinese buffets that were part of so many of our family celebrations are probably gone forever.
Local campgrounds are set to reopen, with restrictions. And so far the social distancing guidelines at our parks and beaches have been largely followed, so those remain open with the possibility of further easing restrictions. Mission Trails Regional Park and Cowles Mountain remain closed, though. Living right at the base of it, we're kind of dreading the first weekend it reopens!
Grocery stores now have one-way traffic through the aisles, which is really nice when everyone follows the arrows. One side effect is that we tend to buy more because we must either wind our way through every aisle, past every product, or skip three aisles over to come up the right way.
We now cruise the toilet paper aisle first, a behavioral adaptation that occasionally nets rewards. Toilet paper, when available, remains limited to one pack per purchase. Meat, too, is now limited.
We've also consolidated most of our shopping at Albertsons and Sprouts, with occasional forays to Keil's. John was not an Albertsons shopper, but it consistently has more in stock than Smart & Final. The kints have taken to determinedly playing the Vons/Albertsons Monopoly sweepstakes game, in which little paper game pieces are collected and stuck onto a paper game board. Collect all the pieces associated with a particular prize, and you win it. Roy for some reason is determined to win a yacht. Meanwhile, we've gotten a few instant winner game pieces that have scored us free rolls of fresh-baked bread, which we all love.
Roy had his last class of the semester this week, and now just has finals left. Friday he went to lunch at Sonic with Danielle, and today her family has invited him over for a visit. He's our young libertarian COVID vector, isn't he? Ha!
Ondine will be working from home indefinitely; we said that before, but it's been reconfirmed. In this economic climate we're very grateful she has a good job. And, she was just officially recognized for her work! Yay! In other news, she recently offered to make a grocery run for a neighbor, and now that's her weekly task, ha!
John continues to clean his office bit by bit, learn Latin and forensic archaeology, and watch online theatre. With more colleges offering online programs, he's starting to think again about taking steps towards a master's. His first obstacle: the GRE.
It's getting close to decision time on our summer trip to Boston. It's been over a year in planning, but we're not sure it's a good idea to commit to traveling.
Neighborhood gas prices rose to $2.99 per gallon. The stock market closed Friday at 24,331.32.
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