Ethan:
Our bonus cousins and friends sleepover was
awesome; some of us stayed up too late; and Naomi and I had a nap together
through to the end of the last movie before age discrimination was used to
unfairly segregate the younger boys and girls while the ‘older’ couples were
allowed to stay together.
Naomi would file a protest, but we
generally get away with our planned-unplanned sofa sleepovers, and Santa does
come tomorrow night; so we’ll be good. ;^)
We had fun this morning too, but our
cousins and their grandparents hit the road for their homes not long after
breakfast; and then we had the rest of the day open to us – once the clean-up
chores were done by late morning. That
gave Mother Nature time to bring more of the warm weather to us; so not only
did we have play time and biking at the park; we took a picnic with us; and a
lot of our friends came out to play too.
Naomi and Ehlana set up most of that picnic fun with our friends, but
word got around fast; and we weren’t the only group of kids or teens enjoying
the outdoor time while we can do that before most of us will need to spend time
with our own families over the next few days.
That’s why we’re having a quiet night at
home – though Cassie, Michael, and May are with his parents and some other
friends for the evening after spending some time with us this morning and
afternoon. Jacob and Miranda didn’t take
the day off, but they also only helped out for the lunch and dinner rushes that
was mostly busier thanks to Christmas parties.
Having the house to ourselves allowed Mom to do a Magi lesson with us,
but Ehlana and I mostly watched Christmas shows and finished up a last bit of
gift wrapping; and now we’re going to bed early because the next couple of days
are going to be very busy.
I’ll add the Christmas music pick, but we
both chose it; and this is one of our two or three favorite versions of the
song.
Ethan – out!
***
Ehlana:
I don’t really have anything to add to
Ethan’s report; so I’ll include something that I don’t usually write about in
our personal journals because it gets a lot of attention in the archives for
our work at the lab.
Our cold cure is on the market in limited
supply now, and while it isn’t advertised as a cure for obvious reasons; there
is no doubt that it is effective. I know
that just from seeing the results here at home.
If anyone needs a sick day for a cold; it’s because they haven’t picked
up a pack of the cough drops at the grocery store, Emporium, or elsewhere. I’ll leave it to others to do the math on the
benefits that go with having fewer sick people; which is one reason for why I’m
thinking about putting more of my own research focus on flu viruses; since I
have some ideas for that; while my cancer research is not making much progress
right now. No, I’m not giving up on
that, but it may be time to step back; and spend some time thinking about where
we are or should take that research to get it moving in the right direction
again.
There are research dead ends – even if some
scientists do not want to believe that or give up on ‘their’ big ideas. That might be a guy thing, but it’s
Christmas; so let’s not go there – especially when half the guys would be
too-stubborn to ask for directions if we wanted them to meet us half way! ;^)
Moving along, our cold cure expansion plans
will take a decade or more to reach a global market, but we’ll branch out where
needed most; and this will be a market that will be around for a long time;
since we’re not sure that cold viruses would ever be eradicated even if every
human stopped transmitting the bugs.
There are other transmission mechanisms; and our cure is not also a
permanent immunity. That’s likely
too-boring to write about here; so I’ll just be happy that our cure is already
making a difference – especially when that’s for the people we love the most.
There are only two more sleeps until
Christmas; so I’m going to wrap this up and get started on that first one.
This is Ehlana Proctor; coming to you live
from what is now my past!
