January 2021

Unlike with most months, we were all awake to see January start — the four of us made New Year’s Eve into a movie night (featuring the brand-new Pixar movie Soul), and then watched the super-weird no-audience pandemic New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show on the big screen. We popped the rest of the Christmas crackers, threw confetti everywhere, and genuinely felt hopeful for the coming month (and year). In the few days before school and work started back up again (the following Tuesday), we played the Haunted Mansion board game one of R.’s team at work had given him, had a park afternoon with the Patels, played a bunch of games on the Switch, watched S2 of The Mandalorian, and — sadly — took down all of our Christmas stuff. Booo. 

A uhhhhhhhh … memorable birthday
I did the week’s grocery shopping on Tuesday, instead of Wednesday, so I wouldn’t be spending my birthday scuttling in and out of stores in my Plague Lady coverings, which turned out to be a weirdly lucky choice in terms of world events …. January 6 was the day the Presidential election results were supposed to be officially certified, which normally is such a pro forma non-event that I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard of it before. But this year, well. The armed pro-T**** white supremacist terrorist insurgency at the US Capitol hogged all the news, along with everyone’s peace of mind and productivity; the kids were “in” school, but R. and I got nothing done as we watched it unfold all day long on our respective computers, stopping every once in awhile to just boggle at each other like — WTF IS GOING ON. The whole thing was scary, freaky, and absolutely mind-bendingly infuriating (per the usual with that vaguely humanoid shitstain of a soon-to-be-former president). And then we had Indian food, chocolate cake, and presents, because it was my birthday, after all … (I mean, it sorta be like that sometimes, in the world right now). 

3 out of 4 tested
R. had what he assumed was his usual vicious yearly sinus infection, but it dragged on so long that he decided to get tested (which these days, only means one thing) to rule out covid; luckily, the result was negative, a definite load off of his mind. And with that, three of the four of us have undergone this modern rite of passage … 

Various fun stuff
January, though filled with craziness, also had its highlights: R. and the kids got heavily into another Splatfest (which Skyler joined us in, from Kansas); Lukas started writing a book (Diary of a Wastelander, featuring himself and Manir in a story inspired by a Roblox game they play, and being typed in Notes but intended to be transcribed into a lined journal — with illustrations — similar in style to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series); we gladly celebrated Inauguration Day (keeping the kids downstairs so they could see the actual swearing-in of this historic VP, among other things, before having them join their classes online); we had Virtual Burns Night with the Grants, the Jacksons, the Marshalls, and two other families on a Zoom call;  and we ended the month with a morning hike (me, Annika, Brandi & Alana and Fiona & Niamh) and a park meetup (me & Lukas + Ami & Manir & Amira), where the whole Grant family randomly showed up at the same park, in the afternoon. It kind of illustrated how much Lukas, especially, needs to see his friends more, despite the covid risk; he had a blast, and was just so much happier all day and even in the next few days. 

December 2020

 Christmastime again!

The month of December is pretty much all about Christmas, and so nearly everything we did was related to it in some way, from the millions of packages arriving every day (we had to order everything online, since there was virtually zero in-store shopping) to the dozens of batches of xmas cookies we made (plenty to share with friends; the kids and I did drop-offs at several houses). Our movie nights were all xmas/holiday all the time: Pee-Wee’s Christmas Special, Yo Gabba Gabba’s Very Awesome Christmas (plus their regular Xmas ep, the Winter ep, and the Octonauts’ xmas ep), The Nightmare Before Christmas (several times), Elf (a new family favorite), A Christmas Story (also several times), all the old classics (Charlie Brown, Rudolph, Frosty, et. al.) — pretty much everything but Die Hard (which was for R. and I on xmas eve, per tradition) and Scrooged (which is my present-wrapping background movie). Christmas Tree Gettin’ Day was the first Saturday of the month, and we got a good one at the first lot we tried; as is tradition, R. and I had White Russians while the kids had hot chocolate and eggnog, we put on R.’s holiday music playlist, and got it decorated, finishing the night with A Christmas Story (aka “The Movie”). Lots of things were different (e.g. no school holiday parties), but Fantasy of Lights was basically pandemic-proof, so we did get to enjoy driving through Vasona Park as usual; we also walked our neighborhood at night a couple of times to see the local color. Hiding the kids’ Advent Treasure Hunt stuff was harder this year because everyone was home, but I managed it (minus a few days here and there). I shopped for groceries on Tuesday instead of the usual Wednesday, to avoid crowds prepping for their xmas feasts. On the 24th, we all were able to “get” at least one other person with “Christmas Eve Gift!”, so nobody’s feathers were ruffled. And finally, on the big day itself, Santa Claus showed up (evidenced by the gifts, and the eaten cookies & empty milk glass by the fireplace) as did a million other gifts; R. and I could have taken the opportunity to be like “this is the year we focus on how material things don’t really matter, and it’s all about family and togetherness (which it is, we know!),” but instead we went full fuck-it (as in, anything you so much as mention, you’re totally getting it): art supplies, Disneyland merch, Nerf guns, anime books and merch, mechanical Baby Yoda, YouTuber merch, Switch games, etc. etc. etc. It was sad to not have Grandma and Grandpa here, and we missed seeing the cousins, but FaceTime had to bridge the gap — here’s hoping we don’t need that next year because life is back to normal! Santa Update: Lukas still believes … sorta … heh. He’s asking all kinds of questions, and this is probably our last hurrah, but it’s been fun while it lasted. 

Friends and such
We did manage to see some of our friends — a park meetup here and there, a bike ride for me — and in the meantime, the kids spent a lot of time on Saucecraft (with Skyler, Mason and Ethan) and other online social things. R. decided the time was right to finally paint all the upstairs doors, so he set up a workshop in the empty garage and sunk a few nights and weekends into getting them done asap (while the kids — well, Annika really — bemoaned the lack of doors; we had to fix up a curtain on a tension rod for her room, but still we heard many times daily how ineffectual and unacceptable the situation was … but now we have nice, finished doors, so it was worth it. And finally, in the interest of getting outdoors and building endurance, Annika and I started a couch-to-5K program, running every other day (at lunchtime on school days); there are no races right now, obviously — we were just using the program to give some structure to her goals.  

Quotable
—“Did you ever have an emo phase?” (Annika, with malice aforethought, lol)
—“Grandpa sent me a bag of dirt and an onion.” (Annika, opening a horticultural gift from Grandpa — it was a flower bulb, and the dirt to get it started in a pot)
—“It's 3:00 and that's the bad hour.” (Lukas having a nightmare and getting into bed with us)
—“I just think it’s weird that people roleplay the birth of Jesus.” (Lukas re: nativity scenes)
—“paranorma” (Lukas, misreading “panorama” on one of his many effects apps
—“No, the game has buttons.”  (Lukas with a devastating burn, in response to me saying I’d own them on the Switch tennis)