Us, December 25, 2021: Leo, Roy, Ondine, John, Shadow
Us, December 25, 2021: Leo, Roy, Ondine, John, Shadow
HAPPY OLD YEAR'S NIGHT to you, and, despite irregular journal updates, it has been a very busy year for the Kuraoka family.
Leo and Roy are both living in San Diego, right next door, helping us clear out Barbara's house to prepare it to rent out. We're not in a rush to get it vacated and rented out, but there is a certain urgency due to Barbara's living expenses at memory care. More on that later.
Roy has been working steadily doing marketing for Resilient Roofing. He picked up a few freelance jobs as well. He's still with Danielle, who has joined us on a couple big family get-togethers and a trip to Sand Pond! Roy missed the big Christmas gathering this year because he was sick, poor thing, but it wasn't COVID.
Leo is starting school again in the new year! He's enrolled at Grossmont College (the spring term starts January 29) aiming to transfer to SDSU to study Engineering. In the meantime, he's been doing a lot of cooking, with his latest tools being a sous vide (purchased off Facebook Marketplace) and, more recently, an air fryer (which John's sister won in a raffle but didn't have the counterspace for). Leo is sick right now, probably having picked up whatever Roy had earlier, so he may be out of it for New Year's.
Ondine is still working at Kaiser. She's been there eight years! She had some promising bites on her first novel, including an agent who asked for the whole manuscript. She started writing a second novel, then put that on hold to completely rework the universe of her first novel. She also submitted a handful of short stories, including a very short story to the Matchbook Story Contest held by the San Diego Public Library.
John has been working as an archaeologist now for nearly three years! He's on-call at six local cultural resource management companies: ASM, Helix, PanGIS, Michael Baker International, Dudek, and Chambers Group. This year, it was ASM, Dudek, and Helix that kept him the busiest, basically working full-time hours all year. Most of his work is construction monitoring, but he had the privilege of working the very end of a multi-year data recovery project, and also working a project just minutes from our house. Also, he started the process to get cataract surgery! It probably won't be done in time for our big upcoming Wainwright Coast to Coast Walk, but the process is underway!
Trips this year included several trips to L.A. to visit Frances, including to stamp the Irei-cho at the Japanese American National Museum with other family members! We also visited Frances for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ondine went to Anaheim for two days of a multi-day conference.
We had a springtime 25th anniversary trip to Mexico! We were planning to go to Yosemite, but it got closed due to record-breaking snowfall, so, with just days to go before leaving, we looked to the south and booked a week-long trip to Chichen Itza, in the Yucatan! Our actual anniversary date found us floating in two different cenotes, X-Cajum and Tsukan! We also visited the ruins (John, the archaeologist, visited twice), Valladolid, Tulum, and Yokdzonot cenote, all under the nurturing wing of our taxi driver and guide, Don William..
We also went to Sand Pond for a week in the summer. This year we stayed at the old Herrington's Resort, now called Sierra Pines Resort. We booked three cabins, one with a full kitchen for us, one for Roy and Danielle, and one for Leo. The weather was perfect, but there was snow blocking the trail to the Buttes so only Roy, Danielle, and Leo made it to the lookout tower. Danielle brought an inflatable paddleboard to go out on the lakes with.
Frances is still at Arcadia Living, an assisted living/senior community. John's sister Elaine visits her every week, and John gets up there about once a month, sometimes with various kids in tow. We all visited her on Thanksgiving, when we took her to El Torito for the Thanksgiving buffet (excellent, btw, and we had a second Thanksgiving at home that weekend with Danielle and Jeff joining us).
Barbara moved to memory care at Sungarden Terrace in February. That was a big move for all of us (with huge assists from our friend Lucy and Barbara's cousin Bea and Barbara's dog Sparky). But, after several years of doing our best to manage her care with Alzheimer's in her own home, it became essential for her safety when she refused caregivers. After being fiercely independent for so long, she naturally had a rough initial adjustment. She moved first into a lovely assisted living studio unit, which we furnished and got all ready for her and Sparky, but it quickly became clear that memory care was more appropriate. Barbara has her own private room, and has settled in over the past few months. She's even made a couple dear friends, Loretta and Virgie, which has made a big difference. She loves strolling the spacious, secure garden courtyard, and enjoys dancing, painting, and gardening club.
Ondine visits her mom every week, and we all get together every few weeks. Barbara's sister Ulli and cousin Bea have also visited, as had Ondine's brother Jeff. Barbara is always very happy to see us!
Memory care in San Diego with the level of assistance Barbara requires costs close to five figures a month, outstripping even Los Angeles, which is why we're trying to get her house rented out. She needs the cash flow.
Toward that end, in 2024 we'll probably rent out the two second-floor bedrooms of the house, meaning Roy and Leo will have roommates. We're thinking students might be good prospects.
New acquisitions include double-paned vinyl windows replacing all the single-paned original windows, and new attic insulation that turned out to be that company's final job before going out of business! Between the new windows and the added insulation, the house stayed significantly cooler during the summer. We also arranged for totally new air conditioning at Barbara's house, the old system having broken down, and we had her house tented for termites and a buhch of termite damage repaired. Our house also had termites, but we were able to treat it with orange oil. So, a lot of home improvements! We also got a bunch of gear for the Wainwright Coast to Coast Walk in 2024, including new boots for both of us, new backpacks for both of us (a blue Osprey Sirrus 24 for Ondine and a blue Gregory Zulu 30 for John), and a set of trekking poles for Ondine. John's exercise bike died, so he replaced it with a used Schwinn 170. John got new tires for his Honda Fit, and, at the very end of the year, had his car windows tinted.
We saw only two movies all year, Puss in Boots and the Last Wish and Barbie. In other shows, we saw the Beyond King Tut immersive exhibit at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, and we got season tickets to Lamplighter's Theatre, a local community theatre. Plays we saw at Lamplighter's were Kitchen Witches, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Deathtrap, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. And, at La Jolla Playhouse, we saw the world premiere of Babbitt with Matthew Broderick.
Global news continues to be a downward spiral, with fascism on the rise worldwide, including here in the U.S., much of it based on religion. Israel, with U.S. help, invaded Gaza after a Palestinian terrorist attack, ramping up the violence despite an outcry from the international community (except the U.S.), committing acts of genocide against Palestinians. The planet's temperature continues to rise, and artifical intelligence - AI - became a real threat, not to laborers or white-collar workers, but to artists and creatives. Orcas started attacking yachts, taught, apparently, by one orca, but the behavior spread.
On the plus side, though, the rainforest is bouncing back, more than 190 countries signed a deal to protect the biodiversity of the oceans, and a host of new drug treatments for Alzheimers are available. And, AI - a mixed bag for sure - has been used to spot wildfires and cancers, track wildlife populations, locate previously lost archaeological resources, and improve automotive traffic flow.
In the U.S., Donald Trump is the de facto Republican party presidential candidate and Joe Biden the same for the Democrats, making 2024 a repeat engagement. Books have been banned, and courts are striking down gun control laws and laws protecting women, minorities, and immigrants, while upholding laws supporting corporations, religious groups, spreading disinformation, and profiteering. Two states, Colorado and Maine, blocked Trump from their state ballots for the presidency due to his alleged involvement in the January 6 insurgent attack on Washington, D.C. and attempted takeover of the U.S. (unlikely to stand, though), and the House in a party-line vote voted to start investigating Biden with an eye toward initiating impeachment proceedings. Sigh. On the plus side, inflation is down (and corporate profits are way, way up), and new infrastructure spending is putting in place the starting blocks for more secure communications, power transmission, and even, dare one say it, public transportation.
Here in California, housing prices are finally showing signs of cooling off, although rents continue to be sky-high. Homelessness continues to rise. But, our Redwood trees are bouncing back after the devastating 2020 wildfires.
In San Diego, a law prohibiting camping in public spaces, including streets and parks, went into effect in an attempt to curb homelessness. Hurricane Hilary hit town with a whiff, a lucky break. And, we're now able to recycle kitchen scraps and greenery for composting every week.
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