New Year, 2022
2021 was not 2020. It was not a time-prison, locked up in our homes and Zoom screens like the year before. So, as much as people complain that it is the second year of the pandemic, with new variants Delta and Omicron making their debut splash, I have a lot be thankful for. We left the pandemic gloom of 2020 and opened the Year of the Ox with hope. We have a new President.
Let’s get physical!
Zooming along the city streets of Oakland and San Leandro, and the wilder trails of Morgan Hill and Peninsula, I did more bicycling that I have done in the past, with friends from the choir. In March, I got the Pfizer two-dose vaccine and its booster six months later. In June, I joined Marcia Benjamin's Marcia’s Enthusiastic Masters of Oakland, and have been swimming every week since then, culminating in my first ever swim meet in October in Walnut Creek.
Back to work, people!
My hair grew long after more than a year of forgetting what scissors feel like, but sometime after I came back from Hawai’i in May and from Indianapolis for work in June, before our company went back to the office in July in a new shiny space in San Francisco, I shredded the 2020 hair away. Back to the grind. In August, as part of company leadership, we had a productive retreat in Las Vegas, where I attended an excellent Bruno Mars concert and rode the Big Apple roller coaster. I have not been on one in…I can’t remember. 15-20 years? Visited my brother’s new house, unfinished, north of the city. And I hired two excellent additions to our team.
‘Ohana
We did our annual pilgrimage to the Big Island, of course, in February with the hubby, when we finally decided to purchase a 15.5-acre wildwood in Kea’au. Also in the same place in May, I house sat for friends for almost a month after a spending a week with hubby’s family. I was by myself with a sweet, deaf dog and I was happy. In October, we spent time with friends, playing a lot of mahjong, and enjoying for the last time our resort condo in Waikaloa. The hubby sold it by the end of the year. We exchanged it for a much smaller place in Hilo and a condo next door in Oakland for his mother. I also took over my parents’ house. Taking care of family.
In the summer, our niece came out to San Diego visiting universities and we tagged along. Walked along the beaches of Coronado and watched adventurers jump off a cliff in their gliders at Torrey Pines. I returned to San Diego in November for a meeting.
And Chorus started in-person rehearsals again. It was great to re-connect and make music. And I got to see a Giants game. In December, we hosted a party - Danny and I bought our first Holiday tree together and filled it with friends' ornaments.
I don’t do resolutions now. I welcome the Year of the Tiger 2022!