Ehlana and Ethan:
Happy 7th Birthday, Zack!
His special day is including a sleepover for Eli and some of their buddies – which is why Brianna is with us tonight. She’s sleeping as we write this, but had fun with a special Magi lesson with Mom, some quality Jacuzzi time, and a mini-makeover that collectively helped her to get over the trauma from Zack’s birthday dinner and party. ;^)
A school day after such an amazing play weekend was tough on some of our friends, but we had fun; and enjoyed the festival stories from our friends. The return to normal today included a decline in the weather – though we only had a dash of rain overnight; and the temperature still rose to around seventy. While the weather was still good for Tai Chi by the river this morning; it seemed quiet without Dad. We saw him out, but still miss him; and that’s especially-true when he couldn’t be here for Zack’s party.
Our cousin’s special day is the reason we didn’t go out to play or bike after school. We came home; did our homework; and then we headed over to the Carrington’s house with Mom so that we could help out with kid control while she was drafted for the work side of the dinner and party. We’re not going to get into a major report on Zack’s party. We had fun even with the scariest parts of the entertainment. Zack and Eli were at their best-worst; and we really don’t need to detail the strange and gross moments that they find so entertaining.
We were happy to head home after only an hour or so of the post-dinner adventure – and have Brianna to thank for the excuse to leave early. The Magi lesson with Mom was a highlight of our day; and working with Brianna gives us an idea of what it must have been like for Grandma and Grandpa to teach Aunt Leanne! ;^)
Speaking of Grandma and Grandpa, we didn’t get to spend a lot of time with them at the party, but we did what we could to share them; since they’re heading for Arizona tomorrow morning. That isn’t something that we’re feeling sad about. They’ve been a bit bored without their usual traveling since they came home back at the start of the pandemic; and we’re happy that they’ll be able to have some fun in the sun. That sounds funny to suggest right after a week of summer-like weather here at home, but maybe their timing is just awesome and they’ll be in Arizona before we get back into the fall weather again here at home.
That’s pretty much all of the news for us today, but there’s more to cover elsewhere – starting with an update for Cassie and Michael.
They’ve started their mid-term exams today, so while we played all weekend; they were busy studying with their friends. While the mid-term exams aren’t quite as serious as the finals, they’re still important; and there is more stress for many of the students because of the pandemic restrictions. Taking the exams is different too, but the challenges for most students have and are related to studying and preparing for those exams. As for the on-campus, active cases; those numbers have been better than at the first of the fall term, but we’ll see if that changes because of midterms – and especially the Thanksgiving break; since most students will travel home or elsewhere for that week. We’ll have more on Cassie’s exams as the week goes along, but she’s happy and having fun; and it doesn’t need to be mentioned that she’s doing amazing on those tests.
On the National stage, our confirmed cases have topped eight million today – still number one in the world! Sure, India has been catching up fast, but they do have three times the population; so they have a long way to go to catch up to us on a per-capita basis. Since we’re mentioning that; it’s only fair to add that our country isn’t in the top-ten for the cases-per-million metric – and about half of the number for the leader in that category. We’ll also point out that the assertions of herd immunity against the coronavirus isn’t supported by that particular statistic; since it strongly suggests that most countries have a long way to go before reaching those higher limits unless we get an effective vaccine before that happens. For a couple of examples; our country would be at fifteen million confirmed cases to match Qatar’s current per-million statistic; and India would have more than sixty million.
The pandemic is far from the only crisis happening around the world, but while we don’t normally write about those stories; they do seem to be piling up right now. For this past weekend, the latest hurricane to hit Louisiana didn’t even get a lot of attention, but it was still one more hit to an area that didn’t need yet another natural disaster while still recovering from the previous storms this summer. More-worrying are the rising tensions or outright warring going on around the world. Armenia and Azerbaijan are getting a lot of the attention for their fighting, but we’re as-concerned with the tensions revolving around China and India that are on several fronts each; and life is still far from normal in the Middle East or a handful of African countries. Add in the ongoing problems with countries and South and Central America; and the global risks for conflict are too high.
Now you know why we opted for a happy weekend. We’re still happy even while thinking about all of the serious problems in the world, but sometimes you just need to put the worries aside and focus on the reasons for why we’re doing the work and will make the sacrifices necessary to do our part for the Ascension of the Light.
That’s enough for tonight, so we’ll wrap this up; and go get some sleep.
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!
