6:57 PM, Tuesday, 28 December 2021

We have my sister-in-law, Juana, with us as of last night when we picked her up from work and we were going to be together with our daughter too, but yesterday she suddenly developed possible covid symptoms. So she found a pop up testing center in downtown Seattle, not far from her house, and they said they would give her results in the afternoon and if they were negative she was going to be coming last night, but they never got back to her. 

She had to look on the internet for other testing possibilities, but of course just about everything was closed. She finally connected with someone on Craigslist who had some tests they were selling, probably for an arm and a leg, 20 minutes to the north of Seattle. It was already 9:00 p.m. so by the time she tested and got negative results (HOORAY!!!) it was too late for Christmas Eve so she’s coming early this morning. We’re all taking extra precautions, aside from the three vaxxes and flu shots we have some windows open with the heat on (my dad’s rolling in his grave on that one probably, sorry Dad) and it’s in the 30s and we’re all wearing masks inside except when we’re putting food in our mouths, and keeping a little distance from each other, aside from quick hugs. Omicron is some 70 times more contagious than Delta was, or so I’ve read, ( whatever that means it’s a pain in the neck) so we’re taking as few chances as possible. It looks and seems over-the-top, but nice that we can finally be together for Christmas. Juana has not even seen Quilla for over a year and we were unable to do anything like this for Christmas last year together.

And there’s some snow falling to boot, making it somewhere between green and white. It’s like icing on the cake and carols are on and the tree lights are on and gifts are gathered around the tree so we all must have been sufficiently good enough this year (which has seemed extra long, by the way), in Santa’s eyes at least.

We finally got the results from the regular COVID test done in Seattle and it also was negative …a major relief … So Quilla can take her morning flight for a trip with a friend to one of the beach resort towns she likes in Mexico for four or five days and rest up after the hectic end of year work season. She wasn’t sure whether the trip was a go given her doubts about her health status and about the weather that was supposed to blow in. And in fact did blow in as you can see from the photographs/video. I took the dog out and we now have I’d say maybe 3 inches and it’s still falling and cold but not windy…when it gets above a half inch here everything shuts down so things are pretty darn quiet right now in the neighborhood and in the city. But all beautiful and we are thankful for the blessing of a healthy, happy Christmas. Note the woodpecker on the tree in one of the photographs.