The Kuraoka Family Weekly Journal
www.kuraoka.org

Us, August 22, 2020: Leo, John, Ondine, Roy, Shadow

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Wow, the fourth advent has come and gone already, and Christmas is days away!

It doesn't feel the same, because for the first time we're not going up to L.A. to spend time with John's extended family. Between everyone being home and finals, it's only just been about a week since we've been able to turn our attention to holiday stuff like getting up the Christmas lights and sending out cards! (Yours is in the mail, probably!) We got our tree up, but not decorated (yet), and we're pretty sure we're not going to make our usual trip to Mitsuwa to pick up fixing for our usual Osechi. It'll be a make-do start to 2021.

Anyways, John finished up his finals early last week, and Roy finished his last one late last week. They both worked hard and did very well!

Leo recently got his driver's license, but so far hasn't wanted to run errands for us, rats! He recently learned that Point Blank L.A. won't be doing in-person classes when they start in January, so he accepted a free trial of their online program. He's not thrilled about it, though - he was really looking forward to being on his own. But now it looks like he'll be starting in-person at Point Blank in July.

Roy learned that UCCS also won't be returning to in-person classes until later in the semester, so he's trying to find out if he'll still be able to get work hours at the Ent Center. He's thinking if there's work, he may go back to Colorado, otherwise he'd might as well stay at home until in-person classes start. He just bought himself a 3-d printer, and has been making himself knock-off Lego pieces that don't quite fit exactly on Lego bricks.

It's looking like our full house will continue until at least March or so.

Ondine got the first response back from two of three beta readers for her novella, and she's making revisions. And, she completely revamped her website, moving it to a Wix platform and getting a newsletter up and running. Interested in the Older Writer's Life? Sign up for her OWL newsletter! She's off work from today through New Year's, and hopes to push through revising her novel and getting her writer's newsletter running.

John, meanwhile, has left the writer's life, choosing to start a new life archaeological (hence the classes and program at City College). He has just two classes to go for the certificate, with a third for an AA. In two of his classes, he got the high score on the final exam! He knows he'll get an A in Human Osteology; he's still waiting on grades for papers and stuff to find out his final grades in California Indians and Archaeology.

In coronavirus news, one bright spot amid the shut-downs and record-setting infection/hospitalization rates, is that the first Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shipments arrived in San Diego last week, and the Moderna vaccine cruised to FDA approval as well. (The speed of the Moderna approval may be related to Moderna not seeking approval for 16- to 18-year-old patients. This is the first product Moderna, a research firm specializing in modified RNA out of Cambridge, MA, has brought to market.) Last Tuesday saw vaccinations given to local front-line healthcare workers. The biggest open question is whether or not the vaccine offers long-term immunity.

Meanwhile, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker shows that COVID-19 has been confirmed in over 77,955,700 people worldwide, and has claimed over 1,715,800 lives. The U.S. now has over 18,217,100 confirmed cases and over 322,500 deaths. In San Diego, our local toll rose to 132,098 cases with 1,311 deaths. Mandatory stay-at-home orders are in effect, and local ICU beds are mostly occupied by COVID-19 patients.

In related news, John's Mom tested positive for COVID-19 last week. The senior community she lives in staved off the disease for nearly a year, but then a couple weeks ago had its first cases vectoring in from outside. From there, of course, spread was inevitable even as the entire facility went into lockdown. Anyways, John's mom feels fine, completely fine, which makes it another kind of challenge because if you're don't feel sick, you might not remember that you're still contagious. She's of a generation where you had to be flat on your back unable to move before you wouldn't turn up to work, so it's a good thing the community is strict about quarantining.

Jupiter and Saturn converged in the sky yesterday evening, appearing to make one super-bright "Christmas star." This is the first night-time "great conjunction" in some 800 years! We saw them close, but not conjoined - they were still too low in the sky for us to see them from our front yard when they were minimally separated. Some people are finding meaning in the fact that the great conjunction coincides with the winter solstice. If that's a sign of hope for 2021, we'll take it!

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