Us, November 24, 2018: Roy, Shadow, Leo, Ondine, John
Us, November 24, 2018: Roy, Shadow, Leo, Ondine, John
Happy Old Year's Night from the Kuraoka family! Here's a look back at 2019.
Roy is now a sophomore at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. He got the same dorm room he had last year, in Vail House, but has three new flatmates including Bobo, with whom he shares a bedroom. He still enjoys his job at the Ent Center box office. He had a summer job at a local Wendy's, but quit due to a toxic work environment. The big news is that he passed his driving test in late December and is now a licensed driver! He and Danielle are still dating, and over the year they went to Knotts Berry Farm, Coronado, the Del Mar Fair, the Zoo, the Safari Park, Disneyland, and lots of other places. Danielle is probably relieved now that Roy can share the driving duties!
Leo is a senior at Patrick Henry High School, entering his final semester. Over summer he completed an online course in Music Production from the Berklee College of Music via EdX. He had his wisdom teeth pulled, recovering very quickly, maybe because he chose local instead of general anaesthetic. He earned his sankyu, the first-level brown belt in judo, making him the same rank as Roy (and, for that matter, John). He twisted his ankle at judo and had to take a month off. The big news for 2020 is that he's decided to attend Point Blank Music School in Silverlake to study music production and composition. He and Ondine already attended an open house there in December, and he's looking into shared housing in the area.
Ondine has been at Kaiser four years. She still loves her job, her department, and her co-workers. However, in 2019 her union has staged several strikes over hiring, staffing, and patient access, as well as compensation. Kaiser and the union still seem pretty far apart though. Negotiations were interrupted by the sudden death of the Kaiser Southern California CEO. She took a conversational Spanish class for a few months to brush up on her fluency. She participated in Inktober on Instagram, writing daily posts of 50-word stories. And, she did two readings at Butterfly e vents hosted by her friend and author Kirsten, one was an essay and the other was a poem!
John took three online college classes through the San Diego Community College District, two at City College and one at Mesa College. So, he refreshed his academic transcript with 12 units of recent relevant (albeit freshman-level) coursework, boosted his cumulative GPA, and got three professors to agree to be references for his as-yet-hypothetical master's program application. He took a class on FutureLearn about the Tudors, and joined the Tudor Society. And, he joined a literary book club through Oasis, which meets at Grossmont Center.
We were startled over Thanksgiving to suddenly find ourselves defendants in a lawsuit filed by SDG&E to recover costs for damage done during our solar panel upgrade in 2017. So far, we're letting the contractor handle everything, and they report that SDG&E admitted failure to contact us or them until filing suit, and has waived all interest and penalties; our contractor assures us that their payment on behalf of all parties went out mid-December and that they will send us final settlement documentation when they receive it.
Our dog Shadow has been healthy and fine. We started taking him to a new vet, San Carlos Animal Hospital, because it's so much closer plus our old vet retired. He's not too sure about them, though; they seem to have more trouble drawing blood and giving him injections than the old vet did.
Barbara, Ondine's Mom, took a cruise to Hawaii on Holland America (her dog Sparky stayed at a dog hotel). Because of noise in her original cabin, she got upgraded to a balcony stateroom! Earlier in the year, while on a walk through the neighborhood, she and Sparky got attacked by a pair of loose dogs.
Frances, John's Mom, is still living at Vista Cove in Arcadia. We've been steadily clearing out her house in La Canada, but it's been a slow process. She came out to San Diego a few times, including for New Year's last year and this year – it's great to have her help with all the oshogatsu dishes.
Both grandparents joined all of us right after Thanksgiving to see Hold These Truths, a play about Gordon Hirabayashi, a Japanese American student who resisted the internment order.
Trips included several trips to Los Angeles to help clear out Grammys house in La Canada. We had a kid-free long weekend at the Hyatt Mission Bay when Ondine signed up for a conference there. Ondine and Leo joined Barbara for a summer trip to Sand Pond. Leo went to the snow with his friend Garrett and Garrett's dad in late December, and had perfect snow conditions!
New acquisitions included John's new phone (LG G8 ThinQ), new beds and mattresses in Leo's and Roy's bedrooms, all-new furniture in Leo's bedroom, California Real ID driver's licenses for Ondine and John (and Roy, when it arrives), a new used metal detector for John (Bounty Hunter Land Ranger), a memory foam mattress topper and new bedspread for us, new patio chair cushions for the back yard and new plastic chairs for the front, Ulli's old gravity chair, a Roku Streaming Stick +, and several things from John's Mom's house including his child's kabuto, samurai doll, a lot of Anan valuables including a miniature kabuto collection, and some household goods including trays, bowls, and an electric hand mixer.
Fortunately, the pace of getting rid of things has kept up with the pace in incoming stuff, otherwise we'd be buried! We made several trips to the Goodwill drop-off, getting rid of carloads and carloads of furniture, clothes, household items, towels, linens, and so much other stuff that it's impossible to keep track of it all. Still, it feels like we're awash in stuff.
Plays: Ondine saw Tiny Beautiful Things at The Old Globe. We saw Spring Awakenings at the Stagehouse Theatre at Grossmont College. John and Leo saw Heathers at the Saville Theatre at City College. We saw Sweat by Lynn Nottage at the Lyceum Theatre downtown. Credible (a student production) at USD. Ondine saw Elizabeth Gilbert speak downtown. We saw Romeo and Juliet at The Old Globe. Picasso at the Lapin Agile and The Amazing Adventures of the Marvelous Monkey King at the Stagehouse Theatre. Twelfth Night at The Old Globe. On Golden Pond at Lamplighters Community Theatre in La Mesa. Eurydice at the Stagehouse Theatre. We made a three-generation outing to see Hold These Truths at the Lyceum Theatre downtown, taking Barbara and Frances and the boys. And, a family tradition to wrap up the year, we saw A Christmas Carol with Grammy at Glendale Centre Theatre. That's 13 plays!
Movies: Ralph Breaks the Internet (the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph), Avengers: Endgame, Rocketman (a biopic about Elton John), and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (about Mr. Rogers). Roy and Leo each saw way more, including the Spiderman movie, The Joker, and Frozen 2.
Music: We saw Paul McCartney in concert at Petco Park in June! And, we went to a performance by Fred Benedetti at Mission Trails Church.
Animal spottings included many coyotes on many many nights, a family of barn owls in the community garden (heard and watched over several months), a Great Horned Owl on a wire, and a raccoon growling around in the sewer! Thankfully the raccoons left Barbara's persimmons alone this year, so we got to eat some.
Neighborhood news: Boulder Lake Avenue got ground down and totally resurfaced.
In local news, U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter pleaded guilty to charges of misusing campaign funds and resigned. SDSU has a deal to buy and develop the property that was the Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley. And, major local seafood brand Bumble Bee Seafoods declared bankruptcy.
Big California news stories included major windstorms causing power companies to shut off power in certain areas due to fire hazard, prompting a general outcry. Wildfires burned nearly 200,000 acres, destroying or damaging more than 700 structures, and causing at least three deaths, an improvement over 2018, anyways. And, the state is fighting the Federal government on several environmental issues.
In national news, a Federal government shutdown ended after 35+ days, the stock market hit 28,000 for the first time ever, the government continued rolling back environmental protections and ramping up border security measures (in both cases with mixed results), and the Democratic presidential primaries are underway (top contenders as of now include Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and, in the underdog slot, South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg). Mass shootings continued in schools, malls, and businesses, including at Chabad of Poway. Illnesses and deaths related to vaping rose, prompting health warnings and increased scientific scrutiny. A college admissions scandal in which wealthy people paid to inflate their childrens' applications to prestigious universities through test cheating and fabricated activities, caught several high-profile celebrities and public figures. President Donald Trump was impeached in a party-line House vote. In good news, the U.S. Women's Soccer Team won the World Cup championship after defeating the Netherlands in the final game, 2-0, and The Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in a first-ever eight-way tie.
Global news included widespread pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong being ruthlessly quashed by Chinese government forces. China, meanwhile, celebrated 70 years of Communist rule. Mexico has a new president, "AMLO" (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador). The U.S. pulled out of Syria, abandoning Kurdish resistance to DAESH extremists. In Paris, the Notre Dame Cathedral was severely damaged by a fast-burning fire that destroyed much of the roof and the iconic central spire. In Japan, Emperor Akihito abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Naruhito, ending the Heisei era and starting the Reiwa era. Austria and Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage. In the UK, British Prime Minister Teresa May resigned after failing to get Parliament's approval for a plan for Brexit (Britain's contentiously voted-in exit from the 28-nation European Union). Boris Johnson became Prime Minister on promises to put Brexit into effect. A subsequent general election in December handed Johnson and his Conservative Party its biggest win in 30 years, essentially reinforcing the popular vote from three years ago and providing a mandate for Brexit. In Italy, Venice experienced its worst flooding in 50 years. In related news, Swedish student and climate change activist Greta Thunberg was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.
Extraterrestrial news included the first successful landing of a probe on the far side of the moon by China, the official death of the JPL-birthed Opportunity rover on Mars, the first photograph of a black hole, and the first all-female spacewalk (delayed somewhat due to lack of correctly sized suits).
This journal started the year at 47,023 and ended at 48,826, for over 1,800 unique visits. Not bad for what is probably the world's oldest continuously maintained family blog (now on its 22nd year)!
Remember, photos from 2019 can be seen on our 2019 photos page. To see what we're up to now, visit our regularly updated weekly journal!
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