Ethan and Ehlana:
Life returned to normal today, and we’re winding down from a busy day of school, work at the lab or archives, and a study-work evening. It was both warm and rainy for a lot of today, which is why we were indoors most of the time from this afternoon through to now; so our news of the day is all from Hailey’s birthday party, our sleepover here with Naomi and Aiden, and the breakfast adventures this morning that were also at Aiden’s house. Let’s get right to those stories!
We weren’t hired to work at Hailey’s party, but we were happy to be drafted along with Aiden. We helped out with the games and other activities that kept Hailey and her friends entertained before and after dinner; cooking and cleaning wasn’t a challenge when we only needed to deal with a few side dishes to go along with the Pizzeria pizza and desserts; and we had a lot of fun mixed in with the work. Ehlana and Naomi would also want me to mention that the party was easier to help with because Hailey didn’t invite any guys; so there weren’t any of those guy-favorite games and annoyances to deal with last night or this morning. Our involvement in the party last night ended by a bit after nine o’clock; Naomi and Aiden came home with us while Hailey, Leah, and six of their friends did a sleepover that included a bonus movie while they camped out in the family room.
That worked for us; since we were able to have a co-ed sofa sleepover. Before we got to that last part of our night, Mom did a Magi lesson with us; we took turns at showers or Jacuzzi time while mixing in some music fun and getting ready for bed; and then we didn’t watch a movie while getting started on the co-ed naps earlier than expected. We really needed that down time by then, so while we might not have out-lasted Hailey and her friends; we were okay with getting the extra sleep – especially when we needed to be up early this morning.
Tai Chi was by the river this morning, and that was a quiet break before we hurried to get ready for school and over to Aiden’s house so that we could help his Mom with feeding the gang of girls. Aiden and I took care of a lot of the work; Ehlana and Naomi helped with getting the girls ready for school with extra hair and dress-up fun; and that was a blast of non-stop busy through until we all walked to school. The final bit of news that we’ll add to the post-birthday adventures is that Zack and Eli just happened to be waiting for us instead of going to school ahead of us; they needed to try and make up for lost opportunities to razz and annoy the girls; and succeeded in doing that – including bugging Naomi as well as Hailey, Leah, and the other girls. No, I didn’t include Ehlana in that, but that is because Zack and Eli were having too much fun with their primary targets to include Ehlana in their jokes or pranks. That’s pretty much everything for that part of our news; we’re glad that Hailey’s birthday was a good one for her; and now we can move on to the rest of our news for today.
While there isn’t much to offer from our academic, lab and archives work, or evening at home; we have had a good day. The news we need to catch up on, though, is from around the world; and we can’t keep skipping over global events simply because the stories are usually bad and rarely leave us with any sense of hope that our world leaders will make better, wiser choices. With that mentioned; let’s get to a few of those stories.
First up, while the war in Ukraine continues to top the headlines, we’ve reached a Covid milestone this week that isn’t being mentioned at all. The total new cases for the year-to-date has already passed the total for all of last year! Yes, the worldwide total for this year so far passed two-hundred million last week, and while the daily numbers have been coming down; we have no idea when or where the next surges will happen – only that it is likely that those ongoing outbreaks will happen. The numbers we’re talking about are huge, but we’re still talking about fractions of the total world population, so if nearly-everyone will eventually get Covid; we still have billions of cases yet to happen and can’t know how many years it will take for that to happen. We are not suggesting new lockdowns or other social measures – we’re simply stating that nobody can know what the ongoing impact of this disease will be on the world.
In that context, we’ll suggest that the problems we should be focusing our collective attention on is reason-enough to settle our political differences and deal with all of the problems that we all face – whether that is Covid, the environmental problems, or the rest of the true crises around the world. There aren’t any signs to suggest that our leaders will actually give up on their power games to do the right things; so we’ll continue to do what we can through the family businesses and charities to help out wherever we can.
The Ukraine war isn’t a topic that we feel good about commenting on because we care about all people; and know that what is most-important there is the horrors that are being imposed on the people there on both sides of the conflict. We don’t trust the news from either side, and think that everyone should feel that way; since we often never get the truth about wars at all – or at the least we don’t get those truths for years or decades. We simply just want the war to end; and let’s expand that to include every war that is currently happening elsewhere and being ignored because we’re not supposed to care about the lives being destroyed in supposedly-uncivilized parts of the world. While the Ukraine conflict is awful from the fighting side of it; the political responses are what is responsible for the spreading consequences that are affecting nearly everyone in the world – whether they know it or not.
We don’t want to get into very much of that, but the increasing prices on basic needs is already becoming a huge problem – and that’s before the real impacts will hit as shortages bite in and affect supply chains that range from food production to manufacturing and energy distribution. Our leaders seriously need to re-think these policies and deal with the problems being created before their policies lead to all-new conflicts over resources that nobody should want to happen anywhere. We see and hear commentary about news like the twenty-to-fifty percent price increases on food in Germany, while that’s nothing compared to what could happen in countries where the cost of food is meaningless if there isn’t enough food at all.
Here’s an idea – let’s start caring about everyone equally and stop choosing who should prosper or fail!
Okay, that isn’t likely going to happen anytime soon, and we’ve delved into enough bad news for tonight; so that’s all we have for this report. A lot of people get depressed by all of the awful that is happening in the world, and we’re not immune to those feelings, but we also have our Magi Master gifts and perspectives; we know what is meant to be for our future; and understand that love and joy needs to begin within and spread from there. It is frustrating when that can’t happen as quickly as we’d like, but it will happen; so we will always keep love and happiness in our hearts and be grateful for everything that is good and awesome about our lives. For now, the good will continue with some quality nap time; so we’re out of here! ;^)
Until next time, this little blast from your near or distant past is written for you with love from Ethan and Ehlana Proctor – twin junior Magi Masters of the Light!
