Us, December 25, 2021: Leo, Roy, Ondine, John, Shadow
Us, December 25, 2021: Leo, Roy, Ondine, John, Shadow
Time for another letter from our little world.
The weather turned cool, typical May Gray, and we even got some rain a couple weekends ago, which was super nice! The mornings have been cloudy and once or twice even drizzly, and one day John actually got rained on at work, in Oceanside. That was an unusual period with John's work (he's an archaeologist), because he was, over the week, ranging from Oceanside to Imperial Beach, pretty much the north and south extent of San Diego county.
Last week was mellower for him, with a few days practically in the neighborhood and a few days in Imperial Beach. He got his field schedule for this week, though, and he'll be back in Oceanside!
Our loquats are bursting out. They're delicious, but we can't keep up with them. John took a bagful to the native monitor on one of his projects; she'd said loquats were her favorite fruit ever. We have actually two varieties, one that's the usual tart-sweet tropical flavor, and another that tastes almost like vanilla ice cream or cake. She'd never had the sweeter variety before, and said she'll be trying to sprout the seeds from them.
Last week was tax day, April 15. We've already received our refund.
Ondine is crocheting a cap for Roy. It's kind of a newsboy/British driving cap type hat, along the lines of the Ojiisan cap Roy got for himself in Japan. Her first attempt was massive; it would've fit a beach ball! She tried again using a smaller crochet needle and making tighter knots, and this one seems to be shaping up better. Roy came by for a fitting the other day, and it looks like it'll fit. She just finished the bill part, now all that remains is bringing it all together! It'll be a really nice cap when it's done!
John has been struggling to get a handle on our finances since we transferred our money management to Pure Financial. There are a lot of details that he'd put off dealing with, and is only just now, over a quarter in, trying to come to grips with everything. Details like fund selection and setting up automatic transfers to our 529 plan. Anyway, we thought doing this would make things simpler for us, but it's actually a lot more complicated. We hope these are just teething pains.
On that note, Ondine met with our trust attorney, Teddy, and also contacted our long term care insurance provider for some new projections.
Barbara's birthday was this weekend. Bea was in town for it, and we all went to visit her Saturday afternoon at the board and care. Roy drove separately, and Jeff joined us there too. Ondine had gotten a lemon pudding pie thing so Barbara could have a birthday treat, and we all sang Happy Birthday, which she seemed to like. She was more engaged this visit than in previous visits (the day before when Bea visited, she didn't engage at all). Even though she was never one for crowds, maybe the presence of Roy and Leo helped?
Afterwards, we went to Lido's, an Italian place in Lemon Grove, near the board and care, for an early
dinner, to celebrate Ondine's birthday, which is coming right up. Here we are! Going around the table clockwise
from lower left: Bea, Leo, Jeff, Roy, Ondine, and John.
Sunday was Barbara's actual birthday, so Ondine and Bea visited her again.
We streamed a great movie this weekend: Rental Family starring Brendan Fraser as a struggling actor in Tokyo, Japan, who gets hired by a company that provides actors to play real-life roles in people's lives (wedding and funeral guests, spouses, parents, etc.). This is apparently a real thing in Japan, and elsewhere too. It was funny and complicated and heartfelt, plus (semi-spoiler alert) you get to see more of Japan on a pivotal cross-country trip.
Bookwise, John is still bingeing ghost stories (also "binging," but, thanks to Microsoft, spelling it without the "e" now makes it look like it should be pronounced with a hard "g"), mostly Victorian and Edwardian but branching out as he discovers other writers. He's finding ghost stories, with their themes of justice and vengeance, quite cozy and comforting in these times.
He recently got three excellent used anthologies, but has already read much of them, and the L.T.C. Rolt compilation that he got a couple weeks ago. Our bookshelves already had Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Edith Wharton, and Henry James, most which he's read, but he's been diving back in.
Then he found, in straightening his papers, a gift card for Thriftbooks, which, after careful consideration, he spent on three additional highly regarded anthologies. He also ordered a print-on-demand copy of a collection of A.N.L. Munby, and just received (from Evil Amazon, sadly, but the price difference was too huge) an inexpensive but beautiful Wordsworth paperback collection of E.F. Benson (E.F. Benson knew M.R. James, and writes very much in the Jamesian tradition). He'd like to find a collection of Charlotte Riddell.
Ondine is still working her way through Paris: the novel by Edward Rutherfurd, a multi-generational saga set in the city of light. She'd read most of Rutherfurd's Sarum: a novel of England a long time ago, before our first trip to England back in the 1900s (it was 1999). On that trip we did actually visit Old Sarum!
Going back to the relationship between spelling and pronunciation, we're both starting to learn Danish on Duolingo. Danish is often said to be something of a bridge between English and German, and is commonly thought to be easier for English speakers to learn than German. Danish grammar is much easier than German, but, wow, right now spelling and pronunciation seem to us to have very little to do with each other. Fun!
Our summer trip to Germany and England is coming up! We're very excited, and have been watching travel videos in and around the places we're visiting (NRW, London, Bristol), along with videos of long-term travelers because that's the kind of post-retirement life we'd like to have! Just traveling the world, using San Diego as a home base. Even after Ondine retires, though, John wants to keep working on as as-needed basis when we're around, or maybe he'll pick up a project somewhere else! Ooo, digging Medieval or Roman! Wouldn't that be cool?
Neighborhood gas prices range from $5.29 to $6.09, with the low end anchored by three gas stations (two independents and a recently rebranded Shell) that seem still to be going at each other, to our benefit! Elsewhere it's mostly hovering around $6 a gallon.
Visit us often - this journal is the world's oldest continuously updated family blog, having been updated regularly since 1998! Who else has a 28-year-old active family blog?
Back to the Kuraoka Family main page, with lots more stuff, including photos!