Us, August 22, 2020: Leo, John, Ondine, Roy, Shadow
Us, August 22, 2020: Leo, John, Ondine, Roy, Shadow
Happy Old Year's Night, and here's hoping for a better 2021!
The two big stories of 2020 are COVID-19 and the 2020 presidential election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Joe Biden became the oldest person to be elected president, and Kamala Harris the first Black woman and Asian American to be elected vice president. President Donald Trump was impeached in 2019 but quickly acquitted in 2020, both actions pretty much along straight party lines. Trump and VP Mike Pence, along with much of the Republican party, have still not conceded the 2020 election despite losing by over seven million votes.
Other major world stories include Black Lives Matter going global highlighting social inequalities based on race, China cracking down on pro-democracy and free press activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Saudi Arabia cracking down on feminist activists, and Belarus dictator Lukashenko "winning" a sixth term as president despite demands for free elections. In Russia, Putin retains an iron grip. 2020 may go down in history as the year tyranny took hold.
Other global stories include climate change accelerating in the form of extreme weather patterns. Also, in case record-breaking hurricanes, droughts, plagues of locusts (for real!), and wildfires aren't enough apocalypticism, murder hornets!
Fortunately, science provides a bright spot. Not only the speed with which coronavirus vaccines were developed, tested, and deployed in the U.S. and the U.K., but also accomplishments like international space material return programs. China landed the unmanned Chang-5 spacecraft on the moon, collecting and returning lunar materials to Earth. Further afield, Japan's Hayabusa2 landed on asteroid Ryugu, 180 million miles away, and NASA's OSIRIS-REx landed on asteroid Bennu, 200 million miles away. The material from Ryugu has already come back; the material from Bennu won't arrive for a couple years.
In other space-related news, the NASA/SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule has been used now several times to carry people and supplies to the International Space Station, marking America's return to manned space missions after retiring the Space Shuttle.
Two cool celestial events happened: Comet NEOWISE was discovered on March 27 and appeared bright and low in the sky through most of July. It won't be seen again for 6,800 years. And, Jupiter and Saturn converged in the night sky on December 21, making a super-bright "Christmas star" that won't be matched until March 15, 2080.
In the U.S., a $2 trillion coronavirus relief/stimulus package passed Congress earlier in the year, the largest federal spending package in history, resulting in a $1,200 one-time payment to almost every adult. An additional $900 billion relief bill passed in the waning days of 2020, with an estimated $600 per person one-time payment. A last-minute attempt to get the payment raised to $2,000 per person passed the House but was stopped in the Senate, despite the odd-bedfellow joint support of Donald Trump and most of the Democratic party.
COVID-19 has infected over 83 million people worldwide, 19.8 million here in the U.S. It has claimed over 1.8 million lives worldwide, 344,000 in the U.S., 25,400 in California, and 1,472 right here in San Diego. Deaths don't tell the whole story, though, because for many survivors the virus causes recovery cycles lasting multiple months and even long-term disabilities. Worldwide the virus continues to surge, spread, and mutate into more diverse and potentially more-dangerous forms even as a vaccine for the early forms starts to be distributed to front-line healthcare workers ... and politicians.
Finally, memes being alt-reality, history will likely depict the pandemic in a single image: a run on toilet paper early in the shutdown.
Here in San Diego, we have a new mayor, Todd Gloria, replacing Kevin Faulconer, who termed out. The San Diego Padres made it to the World Series playoffs, but lost to the Dodgers, who went on to win the series. Summer heat set records (we recorded over 117 in the shade of our patio). And the USS Bonhomme Richard caught fire while undergoing refitting at the dock. It burned for several days, and when later declared scrap became one of the largest Navy ships to be lost. The pandemic shutdown has shuttered restaurants (except for take-out), gyms, and churches, although there have been protests and lawsuits filed in support of re-opening. Grocery stores have stayed open and stocked, but require face masks to enter. Parks and trails, which had been shut down earlier, have re-opened and so far have stayed open.
Our own brush with COVID-19 is, thankfully, rather dull. John's Mom Frances tested positive in December after an outbreak at her senior living community in November. It's a huge credit that the community, with its vulnerable population, staved off infection for so long. However, Frances is asymptomatic, and feels fine despite the positive test result.
Other than that, the life changes forced by the pandemic have been a mixed bag.
Leo, for instance, didn't get a senior prom or a senior class trip or even a graduation ceremony, an anticlimactic cap to 13 years of schooling. Also, his plans for continuing his music production training at Point Blank Music School in Los Angeles are on hold until in-person classes start up. He set himself up on Fiverr to try to land some music production projects in the meantime. In other news, he got fitted for InvisAlign braces. And, he got his driver's license. Leo turned 18 in 2020.
Roy, attending the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, has had in-person classes for parts of the school year. But, most recently, his fall semester did not return to in-person classes after Thanksgiving break, so he stayed here at home and attended school online. The spring semester may start entirely online too, which means he'll start the school year here at home, returning to Colorado when in-person classes start. The good thing about being at home, is that he can see his girlfriend Danielle more often. Roy turned 20 in 2020.
Judo has been canceled for the foreseeable future, but neither Roy nor Leo seem to miss it at all. And facemasks are everyday wear, just another part of the wardrobe to be dressed up or down as whim dictates.
Ondine has been working at Kaiser for five years! When the pandemic first hit, at first she missed her old work pattern of visiting patients and meeting with the staffs at skilled nursing facilities all over the county. But she soon got into a new routine working from home, making calls and doing virtual visits. Now she's so much more productive, that she's not eager to go back to the old way. When Roy is not here, she sets up his bedroom as an office; when he's here, she sets up in the back room. She recently got a new lamp, a room divider, and some other pieces of furniture so she can work more efficiently.
Also, she finished her novella and has taken it through several additional steps, including a sensitivity reader and three beta readers. She got a nibble a few months back when an agent requested the manuscript, but right now is still in the revision process after getting feedback from the various professional readers.
She launched a new website, ondinealegra.com, as well as a newsletter.
John says he was born for social distancing, and in 2020 seriously accelerated his pivot away from advertising and toward archaeology. Archaeology? This time last year it was literature-Shakespeare-medieval history! Yeah, well, he looked at the cost of master's programs and decided against it. He's been taking classes online on a nearly full-time basis through San Diego City College and the San Diego Community College District, and is steadily working toward a Certificate in Archaeology and an AA in Anthropology. He also completed a short certification course in Forensic Archaeology through FutureLearn and Durham University. And, since he can't go out metal detecting, he's trying to get into flintknapping. Follow him at MidLifeLit.com.
Barbara sold her car and now gets meals and groceries delivered. She continues to be cheerfully active, though.
Live theatre is one of the things we miss the most. In the first quarter of 2020 we went to see a few plays before the pandemic closed everything down: God of Carnage at Lamplighter's, Jitney at The Old Globe, Love Scenes at Grossmont College, Fiddler on the Roof at PHAME, and The Hollow at Lamplighter's.
Then online theatre came to the rescue, with streaming versions of live productions! John enjoyed One Man Two Guvnors, Jane Eyre, Hamlet, Frankenstein, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry V, and Titus Andronicus, mostly from the National Theatre or the Globe Theatre or Shakespeare By The Sea. He also got into opera, watching the New York Met's versions of Macbeth, Falstaff, Die Walkyrie, and the Niebelungenlied. We all also saw Treasure Island, Hamilton, and a year-end traditional British panto, Dick Whittington. That's 16 plays online alone, far more than usual.
The only movie we saw in the theater was Knives Out. But we have watched Logan Lucky, The Mandalorian, Frozen, Frozen 2, Coco, The Taking of Pelham 123 (the original), Soul, and all of the Star Wars movies and The Hobbit trilogy. We also re-watched Reaper for the umpteenth time. It's still a great series! We're currently working through The Office, Grimm, and Burn Notice.
We'd planned to go to Boston over the summer, but the pandemic put the kibbosh on those plans.
In the spring, a Cooper's hawk couple raised three hawklings in the tree behind our back yard, and recently we've been hearing hawks around again so we're wondering if one of the young have returned to continue the cycle. It was really cool seeing them in their nest!
We cleared out John's Mom's house on Crown Avenue to get it ready to rent out, which will provide John's Mom with some steady rental income.
We had one weekend getaway just the two of us, to Coronado, in early October. Thanksgiving was an immediate-family-only affair, as was Christmas.
Passages in 2020 included Ondine's Aunt Katrin (Barbara's sister), who died in June.
New acquisitions include a new Amazon Basics blender (replacing a Hamilton-Beach that died), an Echanfit magnetic rowing machine, and a room divider and assorted office furniture for Ondine's new home office. Roy got an Ender 3 3-d printer, and Leo got (thanks to Roy) a new Dell gaming laptop. We finally got John's mid-century modern side chair reupholstered and back in service. And, we have some stuff from the Crown Ave. House, including a rolling upholstered chair. John bought a backlit mechanical Logitech keyboard and a new desk lamp (replacing one that broke)
Discards include our old dining room chairs (still not replaced), a stepper, furniture, and many, many loads of household goods, books, clothes, computers, office supplies, and other items.
We got rid of the hit counter from this journal page because it kept crashing, but it started the year at over 48,800 and ended the year at just over 50,000, which is enough record-keeping for a 23-year-old blog.
Visit us often - this journal is probably the world's oldest continuously updated family blog, having been updated at least once a week since 1998! Who else has a 23-year-old active blog?
Remember, photos from 2020 can be seen on our 2020 photos page. To see what we're up to now, visit our regularly updated weekly journal!
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