Us, August 22, 2020: Leo, John, Ondine, Roy, Shadow
Us, August 22, 2020: Leo, John, Ondine, Roy, Shadow
OK, so it's been a while. We've been busy.
We had a weekend getaway in early October, and it's always hectic to come back from a vacation even if it's just a weekend. Our return coincided with John's starting another class, on California Indians, which is a 16-week course compressed into 8 weeks, and the first midterm of his Archaeology class. So he hasn't had a lot of bandwidth for journaling.
Anyways, we went to Coronado, courtesy Barbara's timeshare at the Coronado Beach Resort! It's right across the street from the Hotel Del Coronado, a short walk from the beach and the marina. We brought food from home for breakfast, but dined like royalty for lunch!
We left Friday after work and packing up, pausing at Panera to pick up dinner because it had gotten late. We had room 307, which looks out onto the back side of the Hotel Del on Orange Avenue. There was lots of construction work going on at the Del. It was sooo nice to have a space to ourselves, and so luxurious to wake up to a bathroom you don't have to wipe down.
Saturday, our big decision/discussion topic was where to eat lunch. We've been wanting to try Bluewater Grill. In the historic boathouse building. We'd walk past it frequently when we'd go to plays at the Coronado Playhouse (back in the days of going to the theatre). It's a lovely place right over the water. For Sunday's lunch, we chose Il Fornaio, an Italian place also on the water, but on the other side of Coronado.
Then we took a long, leisurely walk down to the marina and along the bay to the Coronado Playhouse, just enjoying the fine weather. We lingered over the exhibit about Tent City in the 1900s-1920s. Then, we strolled back to the boathouse that houses Bluewater Grill, where we shared a Caesar salad and each had a cup of clam chowder, possibly the best we've had. Ondine had grilled scallops on a bed of grits with asparagus, corn, and a pesto drizzle; John, on the recommendation of the maitre'd, had the BLTA, a BLT with avocado and crab salad with house-made chips. Everything was superb; it's definitely a place we'll return to!
Then we walked back to our suite via the beach, and enjoyed some solid quiet reading time. Ahhhh! John finished Stamboul Train by Graham Greene, did some reading in one of his California Indians textbooks, then turned to the bones of the shoulder girdle.
Meanwhile, at home by himself with the dog, Leo took a moment to text us "I do good," so he was fine.
Sunday we walked along the beach in the other direction, discovering a beachfront taco stand that looked pretty good. We also stopped for a long while at Bay Books, ultimately treating ourselves to a couple books, a blank journal, and a tote bag. (Ondine: The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George. John: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder.) Then we drove to the other end of Coronado, parking on a side street near Il Fornaio and walking through the small shops near the marina. A live band was playing R&B, so we sat and listened for a while. We also bought some omiyage: some shell windchimes that make a peaceful, oceanic tinkle.
Lunch at Il Fornaio was also excellent. Ondine had a pasta dish with seafood, which she loved, and John had lasagne, which was meh. But the tiramisu was spectacular, as was the view over the water. A small drama unfolded with a mystery boat that had pulled up and anchored a few yards offshore, and it was pitching and rolling wildly with the winds and the wakes of passing craft. A stealthed-out military looking craft came to investigate, sharked around through the entire course of our meal, then loped off when it spotted a Harbor Police boat. They conferred, drifting slowly in a circle as traffic veered around them, until the military boat hared off and the police boat nosed closer, docked, and disgorged two police officers. We're not sure how the whole thing ended, because no one seemed to know who or where the boat's owners were.
Here are a few photos from the weekend!
Roy is doing well at UCCS. He had one set of midterms, all online. He doesn't like online because of the audiovisual proctoring that flags eye
movement off the screen and other movements. But the already knows he got As on all of them! Last month, we sent Roy a colossal bag of Halloween candy to
help keep his spirits up through midterms. He sent us this photo of himself with it, from his dorm at UCCS.
Now, of course, he's home for the Thanksgiving holiday! And, since UCCS has gone all on-line for the remainder of the semester, he decided to stay at home
after break and save the school housing money, not to mention airfare back and forth and back again. He's already requested his classes for the spring
semester. We picked him up from the airport around midnight, which is a cool time to be at the airport. Then, here we all are at Barbara's house last weekend!
Leo had appointments with the orthodontist to get scanned for new Invisalign trays and then a bit later to pick them up. He is still planning to attend Point Blank Music School in January.
Ondine went paddleboarding at Dana Point with her cousin Anita, and had a few socially distanced get-togethers with Lucy, Deanna, and Laura. She
returned to Twitter and Instagram, this time with purpose, and she's been working on her blog. For the latest on her journey,
follow her on Insta. And, she received her five-year award from Kaiser!
John is full bore into his classes, using the Thanksgiving break to write some papers and plan his registrations for intersession and spring semester. If you want to keep up with his journey, probably best to follow him on Insta. He just got a new Logitech G610 keyboard, a backlit keyboard with mechanical Cherry Red key switches. He likes it a lot more than his Monoprice, which had clones of Cherry Blues (they weren't real Cherry Blues, which is why he kept having missed keystrokes and jammed keys).
Barbara sold her Honda Pilot, seeing as she's not driving any more.
Frances is still doing well, despite a fall a few weeks ago that fractured her ankle. It doesn't seem to be slowing her down much.
In Old News, the Padres lost the playoffs to the Dodgers, who went on to win the World Series.
In other news, there was a general election! We voted mail-in for the first time. In a split result, the Republicans held onto the Senate but lost the White House to Joe Biden and (California's own) Kamala Harris. Harris is the first woman elected vice president of the United States, and Biden is the first presidential candidate to receive over 80 million votes, both historic milestones. However, as of today, three weeks after the election, Donald Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell have refused to concede and continue to claim voter fraud and conspiracy, allegations the Republican party seems happy to support. McConnell has already gone on record vowing to fight all of Biden's cabinet picks. Several investigations have turned up no evidence of widespread or systemic voter fraud, and Trump's lawsuits getting thrown out of court, often by the very same conservative judges he appointed. At any rate, we're still in for an interesting several years, as Trump has vowed to continue trying to reverse the election outcome to the bitter end.
The stock market is storming full speed ahead, hitting 30,000 recently, a far cry from the predicted recession. However, it still remains that only a few are benefiting from the rise in stock market values; the vast majority of working people have seen their incomes drop, both in real terms and in relative values.
In coronavirus news, the virus is surging worldwide, with the U.S. leading the way. Every week, a new weekly or daily record is shattered. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker shows that COVID-19 has been confirmed in over 60,186,300 people worldwide, and has claimed over 1,417,300 lives. That's over 24,199,600 more cases and over 365,100 more deaths since the last journal, on October 7. The U.S. now has over 12,727,400 confirmed cases and over 261,600 deaths, up over 5,188,900 cases and another 50,100 deaths since the last journal.
In San Diego, our local toll rose to 74,361 cases with 984 deaths. San Diego is again in the "purple tier," which means that indoor dining is prohibited. Hospitalizations in San Diego reached their pandemic record levels. And, statewide, California has mandated mask wearing, along with several other states, in an effort to curb the spread.
Good news, though: there are now at least three, and possibly four vaccines on their way to approval! Pfizer was the first, followed by Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca, and it looks like the Pfizer vaccine may be shipping very soon to vulnerable populations.
The weather has turned cool at last, even a bit chilly at night! But still not yet cold enough for the flannel sheets. We even had our first winter rainstorm a few weeks back!
It'll be a kind of odd Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year's holiday, what with all the get-togethers now canceled. So we won't be traveling to L.A. for Christmas, nor will Grammy (or anyone else) be joining us for New Year's. Weird! Well, it'll be our smallest Osechi feast ever.
Neighborhood gas prices are about $3.29 per gallon. Today, John filled up his car with gas for the first time in over two months!
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