The adventures of Man-Spider. Anya observes that Peter Parker turned into Spider-Man after being bitten by a radioactive spider. Sometimes Spider-Man’s spidey senses tingle. He swings into action with his spider powers.
Anya postulates that other radioactive beings could transfer their powers to other beings this way. She and her sisters consider the possibilities.
They posit the existence of a spider who is bitten by a radioactive man and becomes… Man-Spider!
Man-Spider is still a spider, but now he has man powers, whatever those are. (Unearned confidence, say). When things happen nearby — perhaps the big game is about to start — Man-Spider’s man-ey senses tingle. He swings into action with his man powers, and takes a position on the couch.
Also found in this comic book universe: Man-Man, a man bitten by another (radioactive) man. Also Man-Woman, the woman with the powers of a man, and her counterpart, Woman-Man.
A raccoon wanders slowly through our backyard in the middle of the day. Moxie and Mojo are extremely interested in the raccoon. We’re concerned a fight will break out, but neither the cats nor the raccoon seem inclined to fight. They’re all very chill. Liya guesses that they may have all met on earlier occasions. In any event, the raccoon eventually walks under the fence and into our neighbor’s yard.
Mojo, the cat guru. To the best that we can determine, our cat Mojo lives almost entirely in the present.
If Mojo is doing something and you pick him up, he does not scramble to get back to whatever he was doing (sleeping, eating). Rather, his only thought is: “I am being held.”
He will generally stay completely calm and relaxed until you let him go. If you wait too long, he will eventually begin to think: “I am uncomfortable.”
If for some reason we have to confine his brother Moxie in the bathroom, Moxie will meow incessantly to be let out. If we confine Mojo to the bathroom — perhaps because he was antagonizing Moxie — then Mojo will generally sit quietly on the other side of the bathroom door until released. During this time, Mojo’s only thought is: “I am in the bathroom.”
When we let both cats outside, Moxie will eventually come back to the front door, back door, or Jan’s office window, and meow incessantly to be let back in. Mojo, in contrast, can often be found sitting outside the back door. He is thinking, “I am cold.”
Mojo doesn’t demonstrate much interest or awareness in the future, or anything he can’t see, or anything he’s not doing.
If he is hungry, he thinks, “I am hungry.” This state can give rise to Mojo’s most complex, most forward-looking thought: “Food?”
Anya’s Taiwan program asks her to self-quarantine ahead of her voyage. In order to make her trip to Taiwan possible, the NSIL-Y program is imposing a strict protocol for travel. All the students will have to self-quarantine for two weeks before the trip, currently planned to happen just after New Years. Students will fly to San Francisco, where they’ll get a covid test. The students have one chance for a negative test result: if the test is positive, the student not only can’t go to Taiwan that day, they won’t get another chance, and will have to finish the program remotely.
That’s all just to be allowed to fly to Taiwan. Once they arrive in Taipei, they’ll go through Taiwan’s own extensive immigration quarantine protocol for two weeks. Assuming they get through that, then they have to quarantine for an additional week in a student dormitory.
This means that Anya will spend 5 weeks in some form of quarantine just to participate. On balance, that seems like a reasonable cost for the chance to actually study in Taiwan in person — and in the essentially free lifestyle that’s currently possible there.
Liya and her cello teacher have been doing lessons in our garage. In the cold, rainy weather, our garage is the only reasonably comfortable, covered place that’s got some airflow.
Liya and Tracy go through a number of Christmas pieces. Sometimes passers-by stop to listen to the Christmas concert, giving a little applause at the end of a piece.
Angela surprises Jan with a couple’s weekend “away” — to the Inn at the Market in Pike Place Market, about 15 minutes from our house. The market’s a quieter place in the pandemic, but it’s still got lots to see, and it’s fun to spend a weekend right in the middle of the market area. Each morning they get coffee and pastries at Le Panier, which still has long lines even in the pandemic.
Jan and Angela go for a long walk downtown from the market to the Olympic Sculpture Park, then back along the waterfront. With the old Alaskan Way Viaduct gone, the waterfront is much prettier.
Liya always does a nice job wrapping presents, but takes it to another level this year with a book on Japanese gift wrapping.
A few weeks ago, Jan began tinkering on Emojese, a little language and app he came up with for writing messages entirely in emoji.
This evening, Anya’s friends try it out. They have sending messages back and forth. It takes them only 14 minutes before they begin using the language to insult each other.
Liya’s gift to Bree includes a letter with some tiny drawings. One shows a tiny picture of Sabriya doing a Facetime call on her phone with her best friend, Leah. The tiny Bree is saying “Blah blah Draco”, reflecting the frequent discussion of the Harry Potter universe on those Facetime calls.
Lyn comes over in the early afternoon, and all five of us join her for a walk around Madison Park.
Later we have a Zoom call with Angela’s family, then another with Jan’s. Skye leads everyone through a group activity that involves drawing on a paper plate on the top of your head. After that, Chris, Skye, and Lyn open the “Far-Flung Family Fun Time” gift Angela had sent. The box includes a red silicone microwaveable popcorn popping bowl, plus bags of popcorn. (The bowls also make impromptu hats, as shown.) We all pop then popcorn, then as a group watch the Christmas special, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown”. Cousins Leif and Auden perk up for that, although by the end of the short movie, Auden has fallen asleep.
Anya’s scheduled to leave for Taiwan on January 14. The protocol her NSIL-Y language program is following requires all students to self-quarantine for two weeks before the trip. She’ll then travel to San Francisco, where she’ll be tested for COVID. If the test comes back positive, it would not only be terrible health news, it would also mean that Anya would lose her one shot at going to Taiwan with the program.
So to maximize her chances to go to Taiwan, the other four of us will also largely sequester ourselves at home for the next two weeks. We’ll go out for walks or for curbside pickup of groceries or meals, but otherwise we’ll minimize contact with other people.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is tightening its immigration rules to help keep out the new COVID variant that spreads more rapidly. The NSIL-Y coordinators say that they’re working to make sure the students can go, but there are no guarantees. We’re crossing our fingers that everything goes well and Anya can go as planned.