Tag: pandemic

Sunday May 10th, 2020

It’s Mother’s Day. D and I went to a local flower shop in downtown Burbank called Lavanda’s Flowers and Gifts for a bouquet for Miriam, D’s mother. The flowers were colorful: large sunflowers, sprays of baby’s breath, pink and red roses, purple daisies and fern leaves. For the price, we received a large amount of beautiful flowers. They were generous.

It took a while to spray down each of the flowers with the diluted bleach water, trim the stems then arrange them again. We had so many flowers, they did not fit into a single vase. I used a glass pitcher in addition to the nice glass flower vase I had already. The flowers came with a pretty ribbon and were wrapped in a flower print cloth. I set those aside in a dated, cardboard box so they could sit for three days, and used ribbons from our own “gift” supply box.

I save ribbons, bows, gift bags and keep wrapping paper, colored tissue, etc., together in a plastic bin. A couple fancy bows and blue ribbon from the box did the trick for the two flower arrangements I derived from our wonderful flower bundle. I stashed them in Miriam and Richard’s study to protect them from cats.

Miriam loved them, too. Richard, when he came down stairs, told me they’d noticed that the “flower bunny” had been by their study.

F and S cooked breakfast, but they burned some pita bread that they’d tried to cook in a pan. S tried to melt chocolate for his dessert in the microwave, and smoked up the kitchen. I took the smoking bowl out of the microwave with a set of tongs and set it outside. We opened windows and turned on the blower above the stove as well as the kitchen fan. I don’t know how we managed to avoid setting off the fire alarm. It smelled pretty bad for a while.

The thought was sweet, and they did eventually finish a nice meal of eggs, tomatoes cooked in oil, crunchy spinach fried with garlic in oil, with cheddar and fresh chopped cheese, served on toasted–but not burned–pita bread.

Sabrina drove over a carload of things that we will store for her. She will move back to Boston in about two weeks and live with her family during the pandemic. She and her current landlord and roommate are got getting along well now that they are both home together all the time. Hopefully this will give Sabrina a chance to save money. Since we are all working from home and may be for a while, it makes no difference whether she works from Los Angeles or Boston. It was good to see her. I definitely miss seeing her every day.

Our Religious School parent group had a meeting over Zoom with the Rabbi. One of the teachers joined us, too. Our Temple received a grant, and the school will continue into the summer for the next six weeks, giving us a chance to make up for lost time. It’s also good for the kids to have something to do, given many summer programs for children will not be available this year.

D also bought tickets for us to watch a comedy program hosted by Flapper’s over Zoom. Laurie Kilmartin was the headliner, but all of the comics were very funny. It was fun.

F also cooked chicken for dinner, and S make homemade peanut butter cups. He did manage to melt some dark chocolate, poured it into cupcake cups, then added his peanut butter mixture then covered that with dark chocolate. Those were really tasty. F baked a chocolate cake, too.

I did do a ten minute write yesterday but didn’t enter it here. I’ll have to do that soon. It’s late now.

Friday May 8th, 2020

Today I was more focused than yesterday while doing my exercises. I did do twenty extra push-ups on my knees, “chest-style,” after doing the forty “tricep” ones on the floor and twenty on the matte on my toes. I tried to imagine what it would be like to get through sixty on my fists on the floor. That’s where I need to be by August.

I also filled out two job applications on-line with two of the larger tech companies. One has a games division in Orange County, and the other has an R&D facility–for some kind of virtual reality or animation-related group in Northern California. I didn’t initially realize it was for Northern California, but given the situation with the coronavirus, I am hoping I could work from home if I am considered. Fingers crossed.

I felt optimistic. I revised a cover letter for one of them. On paper, I look good: three degrees, and I have twenty years experience. My portfolio is nice, and I’m outgoing and creative. I interview well, too.

So why do I need to try so hard to convince myself I have a chance? Granted, these places are probably long shots. I’m older than their typical candidates. My education is in literature and not computer science. Not too many women are able to stick it out in my field, let alone advance. In some ways, I’m lucky I’m still working. Whether those companies look at me or not, I just need a decent job working with nice people.

Actually, given I’m still working during this pandemic, I’m very fortunate. One of my coworker, the friend who gave me the fruit last week, texted she was given notice of hiatus. She has a week left to work. So really, I’m lucky right now. I probably have two weeks, possibly more.

My best friend from high school, Leilani, called and we talked for nearly an hour. She is taking graduate classes on-line now. Yesterday, she had a frustrating experience with her step-son. He was supposed to stay with his father and her this past weekend, but instead, he asked his mother for permission to visit his girlfriend. He basically put his mother in the situation of telling her ex and Leilani that he would not be coming over.

Leilani chastised him for disappointing his father. She worried that she was out-of-line for doing this, but the kid is eighteen years old. He wants to be treated like an adult, and legally, he is one. I told her that, by dressing him down and letting him know he’d upset them by cancelling their plans, she was treating him more like an adult. Grown-ups take responsibility for their actions, and deal with the consequences if they disappoint people. She did treat him like an adult.

Karate class tonight, seven p.m. over Zoom. I’m looking forward to it.

Thursday May 7th, 2020

F told me that her close friend R, who is also an ichi-kyu and junior shodan, will be moving with her family to Connecticut. R and her brother do not want to move, from what she told F. This was the reason behind F’s sudden fatigue and illness yesterday: she felt sad.

My son B was right: they have their own stresses. I’m sad for the kids. It’s hard to move to a new place, and leave your friends, and all you know, behind. For older kids, it’s particularly difficult. How can you not be sad when your friend moves to the opposite coast?

Long-term, I know they’ll be fine. Both R and her brother are great kids; they’ll adjust and make new friends. They both excel when they apply themselves. R, in particular, is driven. She’s one of the most accomplished kids in my daughter’s circle of friends. The friend who was hospitalized earlier this year is her childhood buddy, too.

R has been put through the wringer: first year of high school, best friend hospitalized, COVID-19 shutting down their color guard competitions after all their hard practice–not to mention shutting down their school–and now her family is moving to the East Coast.

I exercised this morning, but it was difficult and I was distracted. The Japanese count eluded me more than once.

We had a department meeting at work yesterday. No real news, other than furloughs are coming. The company has a special project or two that will carry a small number of people. However, our group is no longer part of that “inner circle;” the parent company will consolidate business units; they are also staffing offices in locations where they can better take advantage of subsidies and cheaper labour. Our entire business unit may be outside the “inner circle” at this point.

Within our own business unit, the head of digital has started his own hand-picked “creature” department: younger artists more receptive to his ideas, perhaps, and less likely to raise thorny questions. In theory, this is an R&D department; however, why would the people who do the actual creature work on a daily basis, all of whom have anywhere from ten to twenty years production experience, not be conducting their own R&D? Fishy.

Finally, if there’s no work, there’s no money. If there’s no money, no one will be kept working for long. So any “inner circles” are moot. Perhaps it is natural for us to look around and imagine that others have it better. Often, those left behind are not happier or more fortunate. In addition to being talented, they are often cheaper and more gullible.

I really need to apply for jobs elsewhere. The writing has been all over the wall here even before the pandemic shut down live action production. Though I complain about this job, I have good friends there and sometimes enjoy the work. It is the only company where I’ve been able to work for a female CG supervisor. I even like being on four day weeks.

Overall, the people in our unit are good, talented, well-intentioned people. I’ve worked with some real duds during my career, and we have very few, if any, of those. Even my least favorite person there is competent, and, during a crisis, is capable of kindness. He just thinks he knows more than he actually does, and knows less about the people he works with than he should. We can remedy that.

Speaking of work, I have to log in in ten minutes.

May 6th, 2020

Yesterday evening we had a good karate class, though F didn’t feel well and sat out. We did two sets of twenty push-ups, sit-ups and squats during class, so I only had to do twenty push-ups and forty of the others after class. I didn’t go in the grass this time but stayed on the patio. Sit-ups on concrete, even relatively smooth concrete, are not ideal.

Sensei focused the class on Sanchin. Primarily, he taught us the IFK counts for breathing: four count when you draw your fist back and breath in, then two as you punch out. B had a question about breathing during transitions, but Sensei didn’t see he was trying to ask.

Also, the computer logged us out twice, apparently after five minutes of “inactivity.” Our internet connection from the back patio was not great, either. Twice we lost connection with the Zoom class.

There are two squirrels, one in the loquat tree and another in the adjacent Tree of Heaven, just barking and squawking at each other. Sometimes one will chirrup. They sound angry. One makes noises like that when our cat sits in the window, so I assume it is asserting its territorial rights.

Last night, the kids angered me by leaving the kitchen in a mess. F, in particular, had left a cooking project half complete, and dirty dishes scattered. She had started a dessert, then decided she was too tired to finish, clean up or attend karate. Later, after resting, she came downstairs to finish her dessert but still did not clean up.

At ten pm, I played task master over both kids, ordering them to clean. I helped too. B washed everything. I thanked him later. I told him I found it stressful to get up early to clean and disinfect the kitchen, work all day, then, after class, I spent time looking at job boards. When I’m ready to relax with them and watch a show, we can’t because the kitchen is a mess. B said they, too, were feeling stressed by being stuck inside. They can’t see their friends, participate in activities like jazz band, or go out for very long.

I visited the websites of three large studios where I’d previously worked. Their job boards simply erred, as if someone removed those pages in a hurry. It was odd.

Tuesday May 5th, 2020

Yesterday I got in my second set of exercises but I found it much harder to do extra push-ups beyond the sixty. I did maybe five to seven before stopping, and this was after resting after the sixty. Also, regarding sit-ups: I focused on lower abs. The “diagonals” challenge me the most now. Last month, I found toe-touches hard. They are still difficult but I am more accustomed to them now.

In addition, I ran for twenty minutes while listening to the Podcast, “Scattered.” The narrator, Chris Garcia, talks about losing his father, and his father’s dying wish to have his ashes scattered off the coast of his homeland of Cuba. I teared up listening to more than one episode of this on the treadmill, and I heard the final one. When they actually scatter the ashes, his religious sister leads them in singing “Blessed Assurance,” in Spanish. I recognized the music from many childhood trips to my Evangelical aunt’s Baptist church, and I have loved that song since I was young.

At work yesterday, we had a Zoom call with our top visual effects supervisor and studio head. Our department was there with the Rigging; they spent most of the time talking about issues related to rigging. They bickered, too, over why a blendshape solution that was purchased a couple years back did not get used, among other things. Most of this was not relevant to our department so we just listened politely. At one point, my husband wandered in and stood behind me for a moment. The VFX supervisor, seeing him, suddenly quipped, “S (that’s me) you have a stalker!” We laughed. I wrote in the Zoom chat: “I married that stalker.” That received a few LOLs.

The VFX supervisor did notice that my team was on-line, though we didn’t talk. My take-away from that meeting was basically this: he really trusts what the artists and supervisors close to him tell him. He wants to keep as many of us as he can, in LA. Having no paid work coming in soon limits what he can do.

This morning, I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats. I managed twenty more “chest” push-ups on my knees. I also got the Japanese count right during squats.

Karate class tonight! And exercises, second set–however many we do not do during class.

Sunday May 3rd, 2020

I will meditate as soon as I am finished with this ten minute write. Tomorrow, it’s back to exercises for me. I should do eighty sit-ups and squats. Push-ups should be forty on the floor and twenty on a matte. So, it is my first week of eighties.

Today, B, F and I baked chocolate chip cookies. We argued about cooking. How silly! Baking cookies is usually fun! We felt too pent-up.

As a family, staying safe during this pandemic is challenging. Intellectually each of us understands we need to avoid catching coronavirus from folks outside our household. Practically, each of us has “blind” spots or areas where it is hard to keep doing what we must to avoid infection.

For example, on Friday, a friend from work dropped by and brought kumquats. I so enjoyed just standing outside and get caught up with her. D, watching from the window, had to remind me to keep six feet apart. We did stand apart, then the mailman arrived and we moved to give him space. We also greeted him, but then we drifted closer as we talked.

D loves food, cooking and chatting shop with cooks. Yesterday he picked up take-out from a new Indian restaurant that opened recently near Hayatt’s, our favorite restaurant. He signed the credit card statement using the restaurant server’s pen: he didn’t have one on him and had not expected that he would need to sign. He did wash his hands when we got home. However, on the way home, he touched the steering wheel, his phone, the car door handle, etc., so we had to remember to spray all of these surfaces as well.

The grandparents sometimes feel it is overkill to heat food–again–that came from restaurants just to be on the safe side, or to let food from the store sit three days, or to stay so far back from the kind shoppers who drop off our groceries. They, and we, tire of all these precautions, even though we know the purpose of these things.

Intellectually we all know that the virus is indiscriminate and will infect anyone, regardless of how nice or clean that person seems. On an unconscious level, it is hard to think of your friends and neighbors as potential carriers and possibly harmful to you, when you know them to be conscientious people. Yet COVID-19 has infected so many people: doctors, nurses, grocery workers, bus drivers, teachers, etc. It is difficult to counter-act our own social programming. When we see friends, neighbors or even kindly strangers, we do not want to be rude or hurt others’ feelings, or we may be simply happy to see them and forget.

We are social creatures, so social distancing is hard. My family is lucky that we are six with cats. I know this, but still miss my community.

Saturday May 2nd, 2020

I woke up in time for karate class at 10am. While half-asleep, I remember arguing with my alarm: “I don’t want to get up! I’m so tired!” But I crawled out of bed, sprayed down the kitchen with disinfectant, setup the older laptop outside, and followed the link to the karate Zoom session. Both kids slept in.

Sensei R lead the class, but our Shodan and Nidan Senpais were also on-line. He had us do the same one-leg challenge we had done in class last night” you balance on one leg, while Sensei keeps time, and see how many kicks you can do before you lose your balance or the time elapses. Usually he times us for one or two minutes. Last night, I was able to do fifty-five on my strong side. This morning it was closer to fifty.

Senpai Nidan understood, from Sensei’s instructions, that we should only be doing Mae geris, and to be fair, Sensei did say “front kicks.” During yesterday evening’s class, any kind of kick counted, and many of us followed that rule. Sensei had us do our second, weaker leg in the manner of our Nidan: only Mae geris. That was a lot harder.

For the “kyoku-kids,”or children six years and under, Sensei called the kicks. We then performed ten in a row, while balancing on one leg. I should mention that there were three and four year olds able to do this!

Both during last night’s class and this morning’s class, we went over Fifth Kyu Syllabus. Again.

Oh, oh, I forgot to mention: during last night’s kihon, Sensei asked me to call kihon. Both kids were with me, on either side. If I was too slow in remembering the Japanese name for a move, one kid would whisper it to me. I know the moves and the terminology, but am rusty. However, it came back and I needed little help at the end.

Also, Sensei complimented me on one technique. Unfortunately I do not recall which it was, since I was focused on remembering the terminology. Nevertheless, I will brag anyway: he said that particular technique was “perfect.” When, if ever, do you hear you did something perfectly? I was so proud!

After this morning’s karate class, I moved the kumquat bush closer to the back patio. It was in too much shade in its old location closer to the loquat tree. One day, perhaps, it will grow as large as the kumquat tree belonging to my friend’s mother!

I also ran on the treadmill: twenty minutes, with an additional ten minutes of walking.

All in all, today was a productive day!

Friday May 1st, 2020

At work yesterday, we had a “town hall” over Zoom. Around May 18th, the company will start furloughs. My department lead believes we will all go on hiatus, for a number of reasons. First, our department competes for work with a second, newer department begun by our equally new head of digital. This does not bode well for us. Second, since most of us are older, seasoned artists, furloughing us sooner rather than later will be good for the bottom-line. Finally, our company simply does not have a lot of work left. The younger artists can certainly handle the handful of shots left to do.

This announcement was no surprise. A month ago, our top visual effects supervisor estimated that we had roughly a month’s work. Because we are dependent upon live action production, and these have been deemed unsafe, we have no new work in the near future.

Hannah, a coworker, stopped by with kumquats. We gossiped a bit, each of us in our fancy patterned face masks. My husband opened the door and chastised us for hanging out too long, too closely. She drove to Target, and I picked loquats from our tree for her. While she waited to go in, I arrived with the loquats. She said she planned to give some to her mother. The prolific kumquat tree belongs to her mother. So we had a “quat exchange.

We have three refrigerators: one in the garage, one in the kitchen, and a college dorm-room sized small one on the back patio. The one in the garage stopped cooling the food, and we had about four gallons of milk sour. Before you judge, remember we are actually six persons, two of whom are growing teens with big appetites, and three cats.

D and I defrosted the refrigerator in the garage, but only the freezer has really reached a usable temperature. The main body has only reached about 55 degrees, not cold enough for milk. It needs to be repaired. We had this problem roughly a year ago, and at that time, a repairman cleaned out one of the parts and got it working again. We do not want to call a repairman now but would rather wait until it is safe to have contact with strangers.

D rescued much of the milk: he made yogurt with the slightly sour milk, mint-flavored whey and fresh cheese from the milk that had separated. Chilled, the whey with mint was quite refreshing. The mint leaves came from our flowerbed. We ate fried, spiced cheese with dinner two nights in a row. On the second night, F prepared dinner, and provided fresh cheese with salt and dill along with the fried cheese, and two varieties of store-bought cheese. So we had a private cheese-tasting inspired by spoiled milk.

Wednesday, April 29th, 2020

Maybe I should make these entries shorter, more meditative.

Today I sat in front of the clover, which is starting to fade from its previous glory. The finch came back. I saw it on the thistle from the kitchen window as I cleaned. While sitting, the big carpenter bee came back, too. No wasps, but sweat bees.

I wonder if I can try and work meditation back into my schedule once I resume doing my exercises.

Yesterday I missed a lot of the Kihon class: it was short and I was late. I caught the end of fifth kyu syllabus. Senpai B taught us to cross with one leg in front. When I learned it a while ago, we’d done the cross with the same leg to the back. Senpai B is a black belt, and my senpai, so I don’t question. I try to learn the correction, but also not worry too much. The shape of that syllabus is there for me. It’s one of the more awkward ones, since we travel. We’d once learned the final back kick as a side kick. That had been a major correction! Senpai B’s correction for the class was more minor: cross, then do the back kick.

I want to put pictures up of the thistle, mallow and clover. Then folks will know what these things are called, and that my yard is overgrown. I love that it attracts so many birds.

My cousin’s son played a looter in a short dystopian film created by his friend, based on the pandemic. It was well done. I should pay her son a compliment!

A squirrel in the loquat tree is making a racket.

Tuesday April 28th, 2020

We will have karate tonight over Zoom, and I did get in a run on the treadmill yesterday.

Thistle and Mallow

I meditated for ten minutes in front of the sow thistle and mallow, hoping to see finches. Instead, a yellow and black striped hornet and a large black bee, and several sweat bees wove in and out of my weedy yard forest. I must have watched for several minutes before noticing the white spiderweb, hidden death, stretched out in nearly the center of that tiny paradise.

Today I brought out a translation of the Qur’an and, like a Torah, it reads from right to left. I only got through part of the translator’s introduction before it eas time to write in this journal. I still have a schedule, even during meditation week.

A. Yuesuf ‘Ali, the translator, spoke of what led him to translate his holy book into English. He’d experienced a personal tragedy that he did not divulge, and devoted himself to the work. The idea was one that had been with him for years, and he’d collected materials and notes over forty years. After journeying to Lahore, he shared his ideas with some young friends. His project excited them. They encouraged him to write, found a publisher, a calligrapher for the Arabic text, and a printer. (Note: his name has a “u” with an umlaut that I’m writing here as ue. Not sure how to find special characters yet.)

He wrote his preface in 1934, so between the two world wars, after India’s Declaration of Independence was passed there but before Pakistan’s own Lahore Resolution.

1934 was about three years before my father was born, but my dear aunt, who helped raise me, would have been three years old.

The birds are still singing. Behind me, a squirrel scolded some creature, possibly that cat from yesterday for another squirrel.

Jessica texted: her employer furloughed her from her job this week. I will call her today.