Julie & Sebastian Fishman: Greetings from the Fishmans!
Greetings from the Fishmans, proud members of CBB since 2009 when we moved from Richmond VA (granted we’ve been all over the place).
Julie and Sebastian had different perspectives on their experience dealing with COVID 19.
From Sebastian: This has been no doubt a very weird year. Terrible things happened all over (2019 was crazy also!) and every day we keep hearing news about political issues, COVID deaths, infected people, hospitals reaching capacity, and affected people growing in quantity all over. Being that my family is in Argentina, following the news from there is also discouraging. Similar trends as in other places. But, with all the crazy things going around, we have been blessed. Both Julie and I are still fully employed, and both our kids are in SBCC and living at home. This situation has put us more in touch with each other than I would have imagined. The four of us spend more time having dinners, and we took also the custom to watch TV shows as a family, which brings a lot of conversation as we dig deep into the shows, the characters, and the story. We had a great time watching Avatar, The Last Airbender, and the sequel, The Legend of Korra. Sounds silly, but that got us closer to each other as we discuss the show, the characters, and correlate them to real life (or to Star Wars, it seems everything lands there). It is awesome to hear Ryan, Alec, and Julie make their points, their opinions, and their ideas of what is happening.
From Julie: The most beautiful thing to come out of COVID is the opportunity to do the shopping for some CBB members. It has turned out to be an unexpected joy. The first family we started shopping for was Julie and George. It is not hard for me to imagine, the difficulty of people asking for help and needing someone to go shopping for them. Shopping is a very private act, picking the brands you like, picking the best apples, the right kind of cheese, the right bread and cereal, and what happen if they don’t have the right item? It felt like an honor to be able to do this act of kindness for them. George is immune-compromised, and it is very important for George and Julie to do everything they can to keep him healthy. During this time, George turned 80, it was super fun for us to deliver an extra special cake and card to help celebrate his birthday. One extra special note is that Julie and George are survivors, who never thought they would need to ask for help again. I am so glad as CBB members we could be there for them during this unusual time and honor them with our love and respect.
The 2nd family that we have been shopping for, Rob and Florie, to Santa Barbara and CBB, they just retired here from NY and then COVID arrived. It was very sweet after the first shopping trip for them, Florie was surprised and happy when we got it all right! It has made it fun to keep shopping for them and be sure they have what they need. Rob also had a birthday during this time and leaving him a card and an extra bit of love was fun to deliver. Through our texting and emails, Florie and I have become friends, talking about our kids and similar life experiences. CBB is lucky to have this new couple in the community and so glad the Fishman’s got to welcome them in this way.
I hope you will all get the chance to know Rob, Florie, George & Julie, we are so glad to know them and hope we will always be friends.
~~~~~
Sebastian was born in Argentina, Julie was born and raised in Thousands Oaks CA. They met in Israel in 1994 and been together since. Their oldest son, Ryan, was born in Tel Aviv. The younger son, Alec, was born in Eugene OR. We moved to SB in 2009 and are loving it since! Both Ryan and Alec are at SBCC and living at home, so we are a full family for a while longer till Ryan goes to UC Santa Cruz (at least that is the plan). We will see.