Ehlana and Ethan:
We’re back to school starting tomorrow; and even the least-enthusiastic student around here is happy about getting out of the house and back to something that is closer to normal than we’ve had in six months. While that’s high on the list for our bedtime chat topics; let’s do the news of the day first.
The family-and-friends’ dinner, evening play time, and camping last night were all great; and we’ve had a good final day of the holiday weekend and summer too. Tai Chi by the river was a quiet start to the morning; breakfast was an adventure; and then we packed up tents and cleaned up our campground before getting cleaned up and heading out on our holiday shopping adventure. With the social restrictions in place, that wasn’t as exciting as normal, but we had fun; and even the boys managed to enjoy the shopping – though they found their fun in places like the Fix-it Shop and computer store while the girls preferred looking for clothes, shoes, and accessories.
Without buffets at the Inn to look forward to, most of our weekend guests headed for home by lunchtime – either before or after eating; and only Malcolm, Nadine, and their new baby are still here – and will be for at least another couple of days. They’re staying with the Carringtons; and have all of the help they need – including from Nadine’s cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
Dad needed to get to work in the office after we’d seen everyone else on their way home, so we stayed out of the way for the rest of the afternoon. Naomi and Aiden were with us for a visit to the lab and a bike ride on the trails, but they were home with their families before we needed to be here for a late dinner with Mom and Dad; and we’re all supposed to get back to normal bedtime routines for school nights now. We didn’t exactly do that here, but we did do a Magi lesson with Mom and just finished up with our bath or Jacuzzi time; so that felt like normal. That’s pretty much it for us; so let’s catch up on some other news before we wrap this up and head for bed.
Cassie, Michael, and their friends have had a good weekend, but while they’ve been having fun; the weird on-campus continues as they continue to have pandemic-related issues. That ranges from the serious, with hundreds of students catching the coronavirus to the strange social changes that are happening because of the new rules and restrictions. We’re still hoping that our return-to-school experiences won’t be like that, but in a way, this is all a series of experiments as well as experiences; and predicting what will happen isn’t something that even junior Magi Masters with talent for Sight can do. ;^)
In world news, the top news for the weekend has likely been that India is now in second-place for total confirmed cases. We get why the media puts so much attention on those totals, but for this record; we want to mention that the statistics that we should pay more attention to are the percentages measured against the total population for each country – or region. For example, our country, India, and Brazil are top-three for confirmed cases and deaths totals – with India and Brazil switching places for total deaths; but the United States and Brazil rank tenth and eleventh on the cases-per-million population list; and India’s ranking is still much-lower. Our point with this isn’t to make any countries look better or worse for their pandemic response – only to add some perspective. Even the country at the top of that list only has about four percent confirmed cases for their population; and that is something that everyone should think about; since that means we really could be years – or an effective, widely-available vaccine – away from the end of this crisis.
That’s a too-serious note to end this update on; so let’s try for something a bit happier.
We have our back-to-school outfits picked out; our new computers are ready to go; and one of us even has matching masks! That’s something we haven’t written about, but custom mask-making is as much of a cottage industry around here as elsewhere; and teens and kids are more-interested in looking good than in keeping safe from coronavirus. We’re not immune to that vanity, but we get to have more fun than other kids; since using our Magi talents to make masks is entertaining; and a lot easier than sewing them by hand. Mom has still made most of our masks for us, so we can’t take much credit for that; and should include credit-mention for everyone in our town that is involved in making those masks for our friends and neighbors to use.
That isn’t exactly a cheerful note, but it is less-serious; so that’s all for tonight. Stay tuned; since our back-to-school adventures could prove to be interesting – if not always very exciting.
This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!
