Apprehension

I can’t do my usual end of year round up, nor plot resolutions for 2019. I failed at all of last year’s resolutions for the first time ever, and so don’t feel like making any for this year other than “surviving”.

I’m not doing well emotionally which is why I just don’t have the energy. I’m very apprehensive about this year going forward. My biggest concern is a huge financial crash - which may or may not happen. If it does happen it will affect me directly. Is this the year we finally get rid of Rump? Maybe, maybe not. Most likely scenario is he will finish out his term and do untold levels of damage to the environment, international relations, the economy, race relations, women, immigrants, etc etc over the next two years while we all stand around helplessly. Or we somehow dump him without being stuck with Pence. I’d like to be hopeful. I just don’t dare.

I don’t know what to expect from that other dance event moving away from a week away from me to Thanksgiving. It could have zero effect; it could take away all of my international competitors. I lean towards it not hurting me. But who knows? One good thing is I don’t have to make *quite* so much money this year since I have no major house renovations planned. But I also have a collapsing garage and a foundation in questionable condition. So who knows. 

Ok, I’m going to try to look at the positive things. Closing out the year, my three and a half year relationship is going strong. That’s a huge accomplishment. Also, my children are healthy and thriving. Also, I have a safe, happy place to live, with a kitchen that will be complete sometime in the next few weeks that will be paid for. My band is doing well and we have many exciting offers and trips planned for next year. My business is at its apex and should stay there (or at least return after a brief correction). Everything is going great. And yet I’m not happy, and am, in fact, depressed. Ain’t that a pisser?

It didn’t help that two nights ago while having dinner with a female friend, some psycho guy got all in my face and got super aggressive and rude over an open window. It was really scary and upsetting. I can still see his smug face and aggressive posturing like he was ready to punch me. I asked him why he was being so mean to me when I’d done nothing to him, and he just told me to turn around and eat my dinner. My friend and I were both terrified and angry. And he left all proud of himself, I’m sure thinking, “I told that bitch good” (I’d like to repeat I did NOTHING to warrant this except close a window that was blowing freezing cold air directly on me that wasn’t anywhere near him. I’m still totally confused why he went off on me and thought it was ok to threaten a woman like that). A similar thing happened a couple of weeks ago when I was sitting in a drive thru line and some guy came up to my window and started screaming at me and gesticulating like he wanted to punch me, and to this day I have no idea about what. Oh sure, both of these guys are psychos and I know none of these incidents had anything to do with me. But I’m so sick of being every angry man’s punching bag - and I just have to sit quietly and take it because I’m afraid of being punched or hurt in some way (which both of those guys would have been happy to do, I guarantee). So yes, I protected myself by taking the higher road. But I also allowed them to feel emboldened “I sure told that bitch!” and able to go victimize some other innocent woman just minding her own business. Is that ok? No, no it’s not.

Anyway...suffice it to say that two days later I’m still really upset and traumatized and afraid to leave the house. I’ve had the kids all day alone the last two days and will again tomorrow, and then all weekend, and then for god knows how long once the teachers’ strike starts next week. The thought of this fills me with despair. Still, at least I don’t have to get up at six...?

Anyway, my brain is in full downward spiral mode at the moment. I can’t stop ruminating and feeling afraid and angry and frustrated. I have no positive thoughts going into 2019. What will happen this year will happen whether we want it to or not, and we have zero control over just about anything. 

Happy New Year! 

Christmas - it’s over!

I can’t get those decorations down fast enough, ha ha. Our tree has been dead for weeks, dropping ornaments like bad puns. With all of us cramped and squeezed together not having a kitchen or much of a dining room, the decorations, while festive, have only added to the claustrophobic and chaotic feeling here. I start the dismantling in T minus 30 minutes.

So, I have survived yet another Holiday Trifecta. And they were all good. Bobby is at the age where he may actually remember this one; Theo, not so much. I’m always shocked when I remember just how young Theo still is. I can’t believe I still have a four-year-old. He’s technically a preschooler, only potty trained a couple of years, still needing to be assisted with just about everything. I feel like I’ve been a parent for a thousand years. 

We had a relaxed day, just opening presents and futzing around the house, then going to see the Transformer movie at night, then the boys to bed and the BF and I watched a surfing documentary. It’s a lot easier than what most people deal with on Christmas - travel, dealing with contentious family members, etc. But I have to admit even with the low expectations put on me this year I was surprised by how disorganized I was; I had made no plans at all for what we were going to eat all day. I guess not having a kitchen, the thought of meals was furthest from my mind. And believe it or not, I never cook for all four of us; the BF is pretty much never here for dinner, and if he is he typically orders out for us. So with most places closed yesterday we were stuck with shitty fast food for lunch and dinner. Also, a kitchen would have given me something to do - I could have engaged the kids in some cookie making and/or spent most of the day blissfully on meal prep, maybe invited some people over. Instead I sat on my phone pretty much all day until I had a headache (something I do not enjoy doing, btw) while the boys played with their new toys and the BF played with the sound system I bought him. I wish we could have gotten in the hot tub, but my pool is not functioning at the moment due to a broken filter system (yet another thing that was supposed to be fixed by Christmas but wasn’t). Oh well. Let’s hope in future years I’ll have more emotional energy to invest in meal planning and inviting people over and things like that. This year, for many reasons, I just wasn’t up for any of it. I’m sure nobody noticed but me. 

Today I have a training session for my new registration system, then I have a Skype session with the guy revising my website so I can finally put up the information for next year and start hyping up my registration open which is merely a month away. This should have been done a couple of months ago and I feel like I really dropped the ball - with all the buzz around my viral video clip, I’ve had some interest as far as emails asking for information, and it’s very possible many people went to my website, saw no information, and forgot about it. Also, with the other event I was next to moving months away and 2019 most likely the scene of a huge financial crash, I’m ready for it to be a bit of a down year, or worse. At least I have no major home renovation plans in the works - I would like to get my garden in working order, but that’s about it. It will be nice to have a break from all that, as much as I do not relish the prospect of financial insecurity.

So now two more weeks of school break, New Years (again, no plans for four days of weekend/no winter camp, sigh) and then probably a teachers’ strike of indeterminate length. Well, at least the kitchen will have some progress by mid-January...right?

Everything is poop, part 2

So I spoke too soon about things getting better. It’s been a rough week. I’m battling depression every day. If I can finally get back to exercising - maybe tomorrow? - I know it’ll help. Things will get better. Things could be worse. Things aren’t that bad. I don’t know. It just feels like a thousand hornets stinging me at once.

First - Bobby. His constant pooping in his pants - which has gotten worse and worse lately - has pushed us all to a breaking point. I finally got him in to see a doctor today. Appointment with GI specialist coming later. Thankfully, the doctor was very supportive - although she told me about what I expected; that his encopresis (for that’s what we’re dealing with) is going to take a long time and a lot of work on my part to “fix”. Mainly, keeping a poop diary, keeping a tally on his daily fiber, and involving his school (which may mean my having to go up to school every day after lunch and literally force him to sit on a toilet and try to poop since he refuses to do it himself). So, even more than it already is, my entire life is going to have to revolve around my almost seven-year-old’s poop schedule. And it will be months, maybe even years, before this is “fixed”, if it can be fixed at all. It’s not like there’s a surgery or a pill that will fix this. It’s mostly behavioral - and Bobby just doesn’t care. He thinks it’s perfectly ok to poop in his pants every day and is convinced nobody notices. Part of me is glad he’s not traumatized by it...that would be awful...but it only fuels my rage because he just doesn’t care, and if he just went to the bathroom after eating none of this would be happening. But he refuses. This cast a shadow over our trip to Hawaii because every single day was endless battles over making him sit on the toilet - resulting in screaming and crying and shouting - and then him pooping his pants multiple times every day and me of course having to clean it up. It was a fucking nightmare. This issue has our whole family kept hostage, and I am absolutely beside myself. I want to strangle him and I want to hug him. For now he’s been prescribed laxatives to get cleaned out and we’ll work on making him poop every time he eats (good luck). I may have to pull him out of winter camp; we’ll see. Anyway. That’s what’s happening.

In other news, nothing will happen in the kitchen for at least another month, probably more. The windows were made wrong, and have to be remade, which means I get to live another month with giant holes in the side of my house. The cabinets are lagging and won’t be installed until late January. Now I have to order a new sink and try to get rid of the one I already ordered since we discovered at this late date that it’s going to make the back door impassible. I’m so upset about all of this I can’t even talk about it. I keep telling myself another month is no big deal; we’ve made it this far. And I knew to expect delays. But it sucks. The only thing that doesn’t suck is now I most likely won’t have to pay everyone until after January which means I won’t go broke before I start to make more money. So that is one good thing. 

Winter camp, although being enjoyed by the boys, has turned out to be quite the nightmare for me. It’s well over an hour drive each way, which means I sit in miserable non-moving traffic for four fucking hours every day, with only a few short hours at home before I have to turn around and go pick them up. I can’t get anything done, and those long drives with two rambunctious boys yelling and flailing around make me go homicidal. Yesterday I canceled Bobby’s violin lesson because I couldn’t cope; for the remainder we’re on a strict home-dinner-bed schedule and that’s it. That’s all I have the energy for. Luckily the BF offered to take them in the morning which is going to be a huge help. So hopefully starting tomorrow this stuff will get easier. Short of that I was considering just canceling the whole thing and forfeiting the money. And luckily we’ll never have to deal with this again since in three months Theo will be five and can go anywhere. Phew for that. 

Teachers’ strike set to start on Jan 10th if an agreement isn’t reached. Here’s hoping the strike can be averted. Apparently the last strike was in 1989 and lasted two weeks. I’m interested to see how this goes. 

Bah Humbug

It’s been a brutal week. For the first time in nearly fifteen years I got completely blindsided by horrific jet lag - popping awake at 1 AM and being completely wired until it was time to get the kids up for school, every day, whether I napped during the day or tried to push through without napping and felt like dying. It was horrid. Everything had to be canceled or pushed to next week. Last night I finally rallied and made peppermint bark and coconut balls for Theo’s teachers, my cleaning lady, my six band members and a couple of friends I’ll see this weekend. Luckily another parent coordinated gifts for Bobby’s teachers. Phew! Thank you other mom for taking on that physical/emotional labor.

It was a week of kids’ Christmas shows and winding down the school year. Now three (!) weeks off for Christmas. I hope the kids like the sports camp I signed them up for. Three disadvantages of this camp - it’s pretty far away, so we’ll have to leave early and drive a long time; I have to make lunches (currently both boys eat their school cafeteria lunch); and pickup is at 3:30 each day. But right now I’m going to try to be grateful for the small things - they have a place to go each day, and it’s paid for. Most of my labor other than website stuff is done for now, so it should be a fairly relaxing time. Fingers crossed. 

Talk among LA parents is of the probable upcoming teacher’s strike. They’re saying it’ll likely start the first week the kids should be back in school in January. Apparently you can still take your kids to school, but there will be no instruction, and there will be just a handful of former office workers with no background checks loosely supervising the kids with zero training - uh, no. I’m extremely fortunate to be in a position to keep my kids home with no economic consequences. I intend to do that to show support for the teachers. But yeah...it’s going to be brutal. I hope things can be resolved quickly. 

Last night I finally got *some* sleep so I feel up to resuming normal functions - get some work done today, try to go out for a rare night of dancing, sing tomorrow. I have yet to do any Christmas shopping or wrapping; this is all going to have to happen next week. No activity on the kitchen at all this week; no word about next week, either. *sigh*

Thailand

I’m back from Thailand. We all survived! I can breathe a big sigh of relief. The last of the big trips is over and now I can focus on Christmas, work, and home things.

As to Thailand, it was a good trip, but not great. I much prefer traveling to places that far away with a tour group - having to negotiate restaurants, getting around, and sightseeing all on your own is difficult. Luckily the friend I traveled with had just completed a dance workshop there, so the people who hired her were more than happy to entertain us for our days in Bangkok, then we went to Phuket on our own. 

The best day was the tour of the Phi Phi islands we booked - the water was crystal clear and the beaches white and clean. But the beach at our hotel wasn’t great, nor was the nearby city beach in Patong. We spent a lot of time at the giant shopping mall (don’t judge - the heat and humidity were so oppressive it was the only thing to do that didn’t make us want to pass out). My friend was really into getting massages, which to me was really just a half hour or hour of pain followed by not feeling any better than I had when I walked in. What can I say, I’m just not a massage person. 

So to be honest the trip for me was a bit meh. I’ve been to Cambodia and Vietnam before, so the exotic element wasn’t new to me, and if you’re looking for tropical and beaches there’s really no beating Hawaii in my opinion. Mostly it was just hot and dirty and exhausting, and I feel like I spent most of the trip in expensive cabs or in airports. I got sick one day but thankfully some medication helped; but the fear of being sick was with me always. And of course being away from the boys was stressful even though everything was fine here. 

I’m glad I went, but it wasn’t “amazing”. The last couple of days I have been struggling with jet lag and the shock of being thrown back in to caring for two rambunctious boys. I’ll lie down for a short nap and wake up four hours later. In my absence the kitchen floor was put down, but that’s it. Nothing this week. It’s a little frustrating, but I know when it starts up again it’ll happen all at once - the windows should be ready soon, and the cabinets.

Right now I’m playing chicken with my bank account. I still don’t know if I’m going to make it to Feb 1st. My sister is sending me a few thousand from our mother’s closed out bank account, but I’m not sure if it’ll be enough. My credit score has dropped 50 points because of carrying a high balance on my credit card, and I hate it. But I keep telling myself it’ll all be fine once registration opens and I can pay everything down. The kitchen will be done, the kids will be halfway through school, and everything will be better. 

For now, I’m gearing up for the final act of the holiday trifecta and trying to get my new website together. Maybe after one more nap. 

Holiday Kids

Kids back at school today after a week off. I have a whole new sympathy for teachers or anyone else who works with children who has to try to wrangle them after a week (or more) of being off schedule. I suppose professionals have tricks and experience I’m not privy to. But yeah, the struggle is real. 

The good news is I survived a full week of full time momming, cooking Thanksgiving for eight with no kitchen, and entertaining visiting relatives without screaming in anyone’s face “I’m trying to make your holidays fucking magical!!!” despite occasionally feeling the urge to. 

I had a gig the night before Thanksgiving at which I was able to retrieve a set of Fiesta Ware a friend sold me earlier that day - I had been debating about getting new dishes for the new kitchen but wasn’t sure which direction to go; I’m kind of over the plain white dishes I bought when I moved here in 1993. I think this set will add a nice pop of color to an otherwise subdued kitchen palate. And let me tell you how the serving dishes and extra flatware saved the big dinner!

We had a nice day at Huntington Gardens, saw the lights at Descanso Gardens, drove up Mt Wilson, decorated the house for Christmas. It was a busy and exhausting weekend. The boys’ energy was off the charts. This is something I also now get as a parent that I never understood before - those whiny, bratty, combative kids you see around the holidays that make you never want to spawn? Yeah, those kids are not like that all the time. These are Holiday Kids - hopped up on sugar and presents and new people and no structure or schedules. They’re a hot mess. I’m a pretty regimented person and even I struggle to keep the kids in any normalcy during these times. At least over Christmas break they have winter camp most of the days. By then I will have returned from my trip, I’ll be grounded for four months, the kitchen will be wrapping up, and everything will be better. 

Two holidays down, one to go!!

Kitchen halfway mark

Tomorrow they wrap up drywall and mudding the kitchen. I had hoped to not have work being done this week while the kids are off school, but it hasn’t been so bad. I think I put so much energy into anticipating the annoyance of not having a kitchen that now that it’s here, it’s inconvenient but not terrible. This is the kitchen today:

It still looks like nothing. I know how these projects are - it’s a whole lot of nothing for a long time, then it all comes together at the end. It won’t really look like much until I’m back from my trip and they start tiling and installing cabinets. It’s hard to imagine we’ll ever have a kitchen again. But we will, and it’ll be awesome. 

So far the week with no school has gone ok - this is the first time I haven’t had at least one kid in preschool at least some of the time. But the kids are so independent now - they can play up in the attic space unattended, we can go to the Y and they can go to the childcare area contentedly, they can watch cartoons in the morning until I feel like dragging my carcass out of bed. Yesterday we did our very first geocache hunt - we found two, then couldn’t find three and called it a day at a new park.

Geocaching is something I’ve wanted to try for ages and I felt like they were finally old enough. There was a lot of whining and fretful getting in and out of the car, but it ended up being pretty fun. I want to start placing some, too. I think they’d enjoy that more. 

So in two days I cook Thanksgiving dinner for possibly nine people on my hot plate and in my microwave. It’s going to be an adventure for sure, especially bringing the furniture back out of the shed and trying to find all the linens and plates I packed away. But everyone knows we’re operating at a major handicap, so hopefully it’ll be fun. Sometimes when everyone knows it’s not going to be perfect it takes the pressure off. 

Then the following Friday I leave for Thailand. Looking forward to/dreading it. 

Winter break solutions

So once again I thought I could manage the epic three week winter break with no childcare - two kids and me, 24 hours a day, with no plans - and then caved and booked a winter camp late last night instead. Sigh. But also, sigh of relief. The biggest obstacle this year was the fact that Theo is frustratingly just three months shy of five (by mid-Dec) which means he couldn’t take part in any winter camps except the one at his afterschool which doesn’t appeal to me for reasons I’ll get into. And Bobby didn’t want to join him there, and I figured two rambunctious kids were better than one lonely miserable kid, so the original plan was to just keep them both home.

One thing parents and I always marvel at is how little support there is for people with kids under five - right when you need it the most. No public programs, few paid programs. Then magically when your kid turns five the world is your oyster. Seems backwards to me.

Anyway, a quick google last night found me a winter camp that takes kids four and up (huzzah) from 9-3:30 each day, reasonably priced. There’s still a lot of down time - all weekends, plus Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and NYE and day. I’m cringing at spending more money right now but also relieved I’m not going to lose my goddamned mind. 

I had a brief stint in San Francisco this weekend - just one night - then I leave for Austin on Friday and that’s the last of my band travel until April. I have to say...I’m going to miss it. Even though the kids are so much easier now than they were a year ago, still, getting those little breaks are key. And by January (hopefully) the kitchen will be done, which will make it a lot easier to hang out at home. 

In the middle of all this is Thanksgiving, followed by my ten day trip to Thailand which I am simultaneously looking forward to and dreading. I wish the trip were in February or March instead of in two weeks. But it is what it is. 

Today we have the day off school. I took Theo to the dentist, then we all went to a wreath making party (fun but crazy stressful - based on the amount of whining kids and snapping mothers, I was not alone in this assessment). It’s only 2 pm and it already feels like midnight. I can’t wait for school tomorrow so I can tackle the massive pile of work waiting for me. 

I’m having misgivings about Theo’s afterschool. I can hang with its loose nature (that’s how he was admitted at four, after all), but it’s the bathrooms that scare me. At first I thought the kids used the open public bathrooms - which in this neighborhood are usually full of homeless people taking baths in the sink. They assured me they didn’t use those - not unsupervised, anyway - but used some on the inside of the building. I felt a little better about this...until I saw that even those inside buildings were open to the public and mostly used by the random men that wander off the street to use the basketball courts. I am not ok with my four year old wandering off alone to use a public bathroom with strange men, not one bit. I’m going to talk to them about it tomorrow, but even if they give me the assurance that he’ll only use a bathroom with supervision, how do I know that’s actually going to happen? Am I overreacting? Is it fine? It’s been haunting me ever since I saw that inside bathroom last week and realized it was not for the exclusive use of children. I may have to pull him out of there. 

Be of good cheer

So, our blue wave has come. I had a very anxious flight home from Budapest on Election Day, the last leg of which had no access to live tv when all the results were pouring in. Then when we finally touched down and I was able to furtively switch my phone off of airplane mode, I was so tired, hungry and gassy that I could only focus on the losses - Beto, senate seats, a dead guy getting elected - and was pretty bummed. But after further investigation in the light of day today, it seems we lost some battles but only ones we expected to lose; the most important thing is we won the house and some key positions are in our hands. 

Be of good cheer. The Republican vice grip on this country is crumbling. 

But also - what the fuck, white women?!? Seriously!

In other news, the band had a really delightful trip to Budapest. It was similar to our Korean trips in that the audience was mostly made up of people who had heard our CDs for years and never dreamed of seeing us live, and so were crazy enthusiastic. They bought every last piece of our merchandise, wanted autographs and Facebook friendships. We had our fifteen minutes of fame.

And the city. The city! Budapest has earned a spot as one of my favorite places. Beautiful, historic, walkable, tourist friendly without being a tourist trap. On our final day I decided to brave public transport alone and parboil myself at one of the many hot springs - 

I felt entirely unprepared for my visit - I really should have done more research into the history of Hungary and its people. It’s pretty fascinating. It was my first visit to Eastern Europe and I hope not my last. 

The boyfriend watched the kids for almost a full week in my absence. Other than a couple of mistakes, I think he did a good job. It’s easy to pick away at little things because nobody will ever parent your kids the way you do, but as with the election results I’m trying to focus on the positive. I have a wonderful man in my life who takes care of my kids like his own while I travel, saving me thousands of dollars. Be of good cheer. 

The kids are still in underwear at night and are still peeing their beds every night. I told Bobby he has to train his brain to hold his pee while he sleeps. He asked, “how do I do that?” I honestly don’t know. Most people would tell me they’ll do it when they’re ready...but come on. This kid is almost seven. I’m pretty sure he’d be happy to be in pull ups until adulthood. Most other kids have this mastered by three or four. I don’t get it. What am I doing wrong? What should I be doing? The nighttime training rages on. At least B has stopped the daily pants pooping by going at school after lunch. Is that what this has been about, all this time? Whatever it is, I’ll take it. I can only handle one continence problem at a time, thank you very much. 

 

No tenemos kandies

Is there such a thing as being a grinch about Halloween? I didn’t hate it; it just seemed to drag on and on this year (the kids wore their shitty “costume in a bag” Black Panther and Bumble Bee transformer costumes for some event or other pretty much every day for the last week, undermining the actual holiday). Also, I’m being pulled in a million directions at the moment and am distracted and discombobulated - the kitchen demo started on Halloween, see below:

So I am currently testing out our tiny enclosed porch laundry room/satellite kitchen with mixed results. It will take some doing to get a groove going in there. Right now I don’t really know where anything is, everything is at odd heights, and my routines are still off. And I’m the kind of person who does not do well without routines. 

Also I leave for Budapest in about twenty minutes. I have not had much time to mentally prepare for that undertaking - a lengthy, complex European trip and singing three nights in a row...it’s a lot. I mean, I’m glad of the break, and I’m sure it’ll be an adventure, but...with the kitchen just started I’m leaving a lot of loose ends here. Trying my best not to be anxious. 

Sadly, I had to sign Theo out of school early and miss his school’s Halloween parade to go to Bobby’s instead because they were at the same time. Yep, once again the older sibling wins, solely by virtue of the fact that Bobby would remember missing his while Theo wouldn’t. Also, Bobby’s school is bigger, nicer, and the parade is more epic (last year the “Watch Me Whip” guys showed up and did an impromptu performance). After school we futzed around at a playground, then the BF got home from work and we all went trick or treating in the same Eagle Rock neighborhood we went to last year, and it was great. It’s such a pleasure to have kids that can walk up to the door by themselves, say thank you, and be polite. I remember struggling with strollers and toddlers constantly tripping and falling in the dark (although we kept count and Theo tripped and spilled the contents of his trick or treat pumpkin five times, so maybe he’s not as sure on his feet as I thought!).

Next year both boys will be at the same school and everything will be so much easier. I’ll have a new kitchen, and everything will be grand. As with all things, the struggles of today are an investment in a brighter tomorrow. 

Fits and starts

This week I thought the electricians would be here for one day, and the electricity would be off for one day. It turned into a three day extravaganza - with an additional day having to be out of the house due to the removal of asbestos siding from one side of the house. So we’ve had a whole week of preparing for the kitchen renovation without the kitchen really starting. It was supposed to start next Monday. Now it’s moved to Wednesday...maybe. I leave the country to sing in Budapest until the 6th the following day. Not ideal, but yeah...that’s home renovation for you. Lower your expectations. 

The refrigerator guys came to take my ailing fridge to their shop, where it will stay for at least two weeks. After replacing every single part of it, it looks like the real problem was some ribbon attached to the fan. Ok. Assuming it is actually fixable it will have been four months since it last worked. Good times. 

Bobby is rapidly losing teeth - he now has just one tooth left in the front upper jaw; I can’t imagine that’s comfortable, but he doesn’t seem to mind! When you stop and think about it, it’s completely nuts that our teeth fall out of our heads to make room for bigger teeth. I mean it makes sense, but...weird. I look at Theo’s little mouth and it’s hard to imagine him with gaps in his teeth some day. I have little doubt that both these boys will need some serious orthodenture some day. Good thing I’m getting these expensive home projects done now-! 

Last weekend the BF took it upon himself to take another stab at getting these kids out of their pull ups at night. They’ve been out of them for a week now, with him waking them up late at night to pee. The results? They’ve both peed the bed every single night. Will they magically stop one day? Are they still just “not ready”? Bobby is nearly seven. At what point is it just a bad habit that needs to be broken? If there’s one thing I know about this child, he is not the type to happily dispose of babyish things. Much to my despair he has pooped his pants multiple times a day nearly every day for the past few weeks. We had one good week and then he was right back to it. On weekends I have to clean out multiple pairs of underwear a day. Today he told me he just gets busy playing and doesn’t want to stop to sit on the toilet. I told him when he gets to his afterschool program he has to try to go first thing before he gets wrapped up in playing. He agreed, so maybe that’ll help...maybe? Honestly I find it so utterly upsetting and infuriating I can’t even really think about it or talk about it. Like so many things right now, it’s totally out of my control, so I just throw up my hands. I would take him to the doctor but it sounds to me now like it’s just a bizarre behavioral thing, not physical. We’ll see how this new plan goes.

In happier news, I chanced upon an afterschool program that will in fact take Theo. It’s the rec center that picks kids up from his school. Another parent and I walked over there and asked if our kids could attend even though on their website it said five and up; I think they need kids in the program so they’re willing to bend the rules. It’s a shockingly low $25 a month - a month - for five days a week until 6 pm. Crazy. We signed them up on the spot. He will start Monday. Unfortunately his little friend will not start until the next day. I get the feeling other than this one little girl in his class he’ll be the only little kid there - everyone else I saw were nearly junior high age. This does not bode well so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. The counselors seem great, and Theo’s such a happy-go-lucky kid I can’t imagine I’ll have to take him out of there, but I’m prepared for the fact that this might not work out. The rec center itself, despite being attached to a park we’ve been to several times, is covered in gang graffiti and is smack in the middle of the neighborhood across the freeway which still has not been touched by the long fingers of gentrification. These types of situations have never scared me before - I think it’s good for white kids to be a minority and be exposed to all kinds of people - but when I think about just how young and vulnerable he is, I do have concerns for his safety. Still, much like the boys’ Lord of the Flies summer camp, you need to try things. Sometimes they work out just fine, as his school currently is. Fingers crossed he has a good day Monday and he can continue. They also offer a winter camp. Could it be I in fact won’t be stuck with two rowdy boys for three miserable weeks this Christmas???

Today was a “minimum day” wherein Theo had to be picked up at noon and I had to entertain him for nine hours, including a chaotic Halloween carnival at Bobby’s school. To say I’m utterly exhausted is a massive understatement. But I kept telling myself, this may be the last day I have to have a day like this - my freedom, ie full days to myself, is just days away. I look at his sweet little face and wonder what’s wrong with me that I don’t want to spend more time with him. Why do I not treasure these days, his littleness, before he’s no longer interested in me? It’ll all be over so fast - why am I in such a hurry to shunt him off on barely vetted strangers? 

Because four-year-olds are fucking crazy, that’s why. Because together these boys are completely exhausting. I don’t go to sleep, I collapse, even on the best of nights. As I drop first Theo, then Bobby, at school, I can feel my stress level lowering. I have been doing this for seven years. I’m drained. And yet I have to just keep going. Nights out, even weekends away, provide only slight fleeting respite from the endless slog that is the full time care of young children. 

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get some relief having that extra 3-4 hours in the afternoon when I need it most. Next week, we’ll find out!

Obligatory pumpkin post

So we went to the pumpkin patch while the world burned.

Actually it was a good time with the donor siblings, and as I’ve noticed every year, gets less and less stressful as the kids get older and easier to manage. Either that or after all these years my tolerance for these long kid-tastic days has gotten better. It’s definitely a little of both. 

Today Facebook showed me a picture of me on some outing three years ago with little three-year-old Bobby and one-year-old Theo. Omg they were so cute I want to rewind and go back and squeeze them real quick and then fast forward to today. I have no nostalgia for those difficult days - but they sure were cute! 

Saturday night the BF and I went to see Gary Numan, a show I’d spontaneously bought tickets for months ago and almost forgot about. Like most of us I’d kind of lost the thread of his career after his mega hit Cars, but the show he presented was this wonderfully dark, thoughtful, emotional journey through his apocalyptic latest album...oh it was just what I needed in that moment. Yes, everything is terrible, and I’m scared, too, he seemed to say. Why is it a stranger saying what you feel is so incredibly healing? He opened the show with the hard hitting “Everything Comes Down to This”, which I have been binge listening to ever since. If that song isn’t a perfect descriptor of how I feel about the upcoming mid terms, I don’t know what is. Everything - EVERYTHING - depends on what happens in just a month. The weight of that is almost unbearable. 

In happier news, over dinner before the concert the BF said appropos of nothing that he used to think he’d be fine with just dating me forever and now he sees that’s just not going to work, and he’s going to start saving up for a ring. I told him save his money, just get me something cute and vintage. I don’t ever want to talk about marriage with him because I don’t want there to ever be even the slightest thought of my having put the idea into his mind. I want to know if he does this thing that it was his idea. And of course I want that, too - I mean, why not? He’s the best man I’ve ever known, and he adores the boys and they adore him. I think we all deserve a little happiness in this shitshow, huh?

Fingers crossed

What can any left-leaning woman in this country say about last week other than that it was anxiety-producing, triggering, and depressing? I usually avoid the finer points of this seemingly never-ending shit show called “Trump’s America” and just pop in for the highlights, but this Kavanaugh nightmare I paid attention to...a little too much. By Friday I was barely functional, full of rage and hopelessness. Fun!

So now we have a brief reprieve before the hell starts all over again this Friday waiting for the vote. Some people express optimism...I am more skeptical. The BF said today if he gets appointed and then the mid terms don’t go as we think, he’s going to lose all hope. I’m right there with him on that. 

I feel like I’m waiting for everything. My kitchen, which was supposed to have started last week, still has no start date. We are still waiting on bids for asbestos removal. Until we have that there is no start date. I’m reluctant to start packing up my kitchen in any real way until I have an actual time frame. I’ve already given up hope of any chance of this being close to done by Thanksgiving; now I don’t even know if it’ll be done by Christmas. My refurbished stove was ready for delivery last week - they agreed to store it for me for a steep rent. Good times.

In other news, Bobby has pooped his pants almost every day for the last two weeks. He had a giant BM in the toilet last night so I’m hoping he’s cleared out whatever was blocking him up...but it may be time to seek out a pediatric gastroenterologist. We just can’t go on like this. It’s frustrating and upsetting and nothing I’ve tried works for more than a couple of weeks and then we’re right back where we started.

Also, he got a note home from his teacher yesterday for bad behavior and was such a nightmare in violin class that I had to punish him when we got home. Is he tired? Stressed out that I was gone last weekend? Going through a phase? Pushing boundaries? I don’t know, but it has to stop. Both boys have been a major handful lately - no doubt because of, and adding to, my stress level. 

Things need to get better. But I feel pretty hopeless on all fronts right now. 

Family tree

Welp, the school assignment that every SMC dreads has arrived - the Family Tree. Honestly I’m kind of surprised that in this sensitive day and age they still have projects like this that could be so problematic for so many people. 

I freely admit we got a “get-out-of-single-parenthood-free” card with the addition of the boyfriend as “dad”. So at least I could stick him on there and not have to worry that Bobby will be questioned or shamed about the absence of a dad. There is a dad there...and hopefully nobody will notice that only mom’s side of the family is represented, since Bobby doesn’t know the boyfriend’s family (which pretty much only consists of a half-sister and her kids, three of which are adults). 

I had to go with who I had pictures of - so I scanned pictures of my sister and brother-in-law, my parents, my mother’s parents, and my maternal grandmother’s parents. I’m hoping the impressive stretch back to great-great-grandparents makes up for the holes in the rest of the story. 

Nobody needs to know that only one person is still living from the grandparent and beyond group - my super cray father who I haven’t seen in nearly 40 years and who Bobby will never meet. Nobody needs to know my mother just two (or three? Who knows) months ago died a horrific death in a 3rd world country of cultic medical neglect. Nobody needs to know about my grandfather’s alcoholism and grandmother’s coldness and abuse of her daughters. Any transgressions before that have long been lost to history. As well they should be. 

At the end of the project Bobby drew a heart on the trunk of the tree with arrows pointing at all of the pictures. All he sees is love when he sees the faces he knows and the people who made him. For now, let’s keep it that way. 

Extended summer

I’m in Denver at a weekend singing gig. I feel like all I do in Denver is drink and pee in an attempt to stave off altitude sickness, yet I still feel like garbage. Oh well, I’ll be back home tomorrow! 

My event’s viral clip just broke a million views today, amidst much celebrating. I love that so many of the comments are about how happy it makes people who watch. Lindy Hop is just so joyful. I really don’t know what I’d do without it, and Lindy Hoppers, in my life.

We went to Bobby’s orchestra thing on Tuesday and I was unimpressed. Only three kids there other than Bobby, one who was unfortunately a very high energy friend of his, someone who he’s gotten in trouble with. The teacher had a very difficult time reining the kid in, and the whole thing was way below Bobby’s ability level. The teacher seemed to think he should stay at this level because “we need strong players.” The boyfriend made a good point that maybe it’ll give Bobby the confidence to perform whereas being in the upper level - assuming he’d even be approved - might be too intimidating at his age. He is definitely not keen on playing in front of people so I don’t want to traumatize him right out of the gate. I’ve been debating just pulling him out of it for how inconvenient it is for me and our schedule...and how much I don’t want to deal with keeping him from misbehaving with this other kid, while also managing a bored four-year-old for an hour...it’s a lot of stress for me. Yet...I don’t want to teach him that you can just quit things because they’re inconvenient or require work...and anything I can do to encourage his musical life I want to do. So I think I’ll muscle through it even though I’m kind of regretting getting him into it at the moment. 

Several snags in my upcoming kitchen renovation (of course); number one being my casual mention that the house is covered in asbestos siding (which will be cut into when they place new windows); somehow I thought the designer was aware of this, but she was not. So now I’ll have to pay for testing of the materials and probably spend thousands to have it removed and disposed of properly. Also, the inexpensive salvage yard sink she found for me won’t work because it needs a place for a dishwasher air gap (I don’t even have one now, but apparently it’s required by the state of CA). I spent all day researching and found one online that might work...for $2000 more. And so it goes. This is just the beginning. Just wait until we get into the walls and find the dry rot/termite damage/corroded pipes/foundation issues/mold/what have you. 

Suddenly having a cheap pre-fab ikea kitchen built isn’t sounding so bad. Just kidding. 

Done

Survived another one. Everything went fine - a lot less contentious than last year. No trouble from any of my banned and ostracized people; so glad most of that drama appears to be at least temporarily subdued. The new registration system worked well - however, I found out the day before the event that the system is no longer going to be operational after this year. So I will have to start all over again next year! Womp womp.

I’d like to say I was less stressed this year than usual - I suppose in some ways I was; I danced more than I ever have, and didn’t completely lose my voice like I usually do, was even able to do a gig in Orange County the day after I got home. But it was still stressful. I couldn’t sleep and popped awake at 6 AM every day, even when I went to bed at four; there were parking issues, the tabulator’s printer died mid-contest and the Boyfriend had to run to Office Depot to replace it, lots of little things. But when you have enough staff, and people are empowered to act on your behalf, things get taken care of. 

A couple of bright spots - I was able to offer my special jitterbug spirit award to a gay couple who danced in one of the contests and won the hearts of the audience, which was a lovely way to honor them and also make a statement about the event’s value system; and amazingly one of my contest videos has gone viral with currently almost 300,000 views. Views of videos from dance events such as this rarely garner more than a couple thousand. Will it mean anything for attendance a whole year from now? Maybe, maybe not. But I feel very confident in our future.

Re-entry has been rough, of course - early mornings and half days with Theo making it tough to get anything done. After three days I have a lot of the post-event work done, including tackling multiple harassing, insulting emails from a crazy woman demanding a refund on her weekend pass because she didn’t feel she should have to pay for parking (good times). 

I don’t feel like I am acclimated back to normal life - I won’t be for some time. Right now I’m just going through the motions: laundry, groceries, school drop offs and pick ups, homework, emails, social media. But all I want in life is to lie in bed and watch trashy TV. And yet I can’t - there’s too much to do, all the time. And so it goes.

In other news - Theo is doing much better at his school, no longer clinging to me at drop offs and slightly less crazy at home. I got a flier for a violin group at Bobby’s school that’s starting up next week - kids with experience have to audition, so I’ve emailed for an appointment. I’m hoping the fun of getting to play with other kids inspires him. Bobby got his first report card (of sorts) and he seems to be doing well. 

So now, it’s about the Time After. In two weeks the kitchen gets torn apart and we don’t get to live normally for two-three months. This is the last of the peace and quiet for a good long while.

More time

This thought has been on my mind all week. If only I had more time. Why is the last week before my event always such a crazed mess? Why do I always feel so overworked and stressed and run down? Surely some of this stuff could have been done earlier by me...no?

Why do you have time to write a blog, you ask? Because I need to take just a few moments on non-event activities before I lose my damned mind. I’ve been breathing, sleeping and living this event for weeks. I desperately need a break. 

It’s the time of year when being a full time parent becomes utterly intolerable. Being bogged down by cooking, laundry, homework, school pick ups and all the rest of it right now when I desperately need to be working is beyond frustrating. I’m doing my best to be upbeat and positive...but the cracks are showing.

It’s not helping that Theo has been awful the last couple of weeks. I mean, I don’t recognize this kid. He’s suddenly a little Tasmanian devil - not listening, being defiantly naughty, squirming and struggling and making every daily task just impossible. Is it the change in school? Me being distracted/short tempered/gone? Normal 4 1/2 year old developmental stuff? I don’t know but it’s made life way, way more difficult than it already is around now. Thankfully my mercurial Bobby has morphed into quite the little sweetheart lately, after years of difficulty. So often I’ve thought lately, while dealing with Theo and his current craziness, “you were supposed to be the easy one!!” 

Tonight I have hours of intense, detail-oriented work to do still, which is exactly not what my exhausted brain needs. And just one day left to wrap everything up. My day officially ends when I pick up Theo at two. That is not enough time, not by a long shot. This has been quite a shock for me - the reality of not having Theo at preschool until 5:30 three times a week. So far my work days have ended at two, one, and two this week. Now, I’m up earlier, and Theo is out of my hair by 8 AM rather than 9:30 like when we had preschool hours. But it doesn’t seem to help. I need those afternoons. 

Still, I keep reminding myself this is the last year I’ll ever have to deal with this - Theo will be eligible for afterschool next year, which means pick ups at 5:00 instead of 1:00 and 2:00. And every year they’ll be older and less high maintenance. And as of now I just have one more day of this schedule and then it’s over - Friday we pack up for the hotel, leave the boys in the hands of their trusted old babysitter, and disappear into event madness until Tuesday. And then everything will change.

How is the event going? Well. I have to admit last year, with all its 20th anniversary moving parts, was way more stressful. The new registration system has taken a huge burden off of me as I had hoped. And my numbers are really good - despite being technically an “off” year (the year right after a big anniversary year), I’m only behind by about 50 people, which is negligible at this point. So, that was a pleasant surprise. 

And so we head off to the 21st of my events. Those of us who are about to dance, salute you. 

First week

We’ve survived the first week at school, and, more importantly, the boys’ first weekend alone with daddy.

“Daddy”. The word still sticks in my throat a bit, but it’s a true term at this point - he is their dad. Even if we break up, he will still be their dad. If I die he will take over as parent. He is as invested in their future/happiness/development as I am. That’s a dad.

So I entrusted him with them from Thursday night until Sunday. And, big sigh, everything went just fine. He even didn’t leave the house a mess the way the babysitter does (filthy kitchen floor, toys everywhere, toothpaste all over the sink and towels), which shows that he listens to my gripes. He handled the school drop offs and pick ups ok, although he was late picking up Theo because he thought his pick up time was 2:30 instead of 2:18...which freaked me out until he told me there were other kids still waiting. I think all of us have that image of the scared, forgotten child sitting on the school steps. Thankfully that wasn’t the case here. I’m always so psychotically early for everything that I have no idea what happens after I’m done; how backed up parking gets, how mobbed with all the people who do things at the last minute (which is what most people do). 

I did a gig in Chicago this weekend, which went well - tough travel schedule with a red eye going and one hour’s sleep before heading back yesterday. And today I hit the ground running with just two weeks left until my event and tons of detailed work to do. Then on Thursday we do it all over again as I head to DC for another singing gig.

I still find myself pretty emotional about Theo growing up and all the changes in our lives...my brain is still struggling with all the new information and routines, and the kids are acting out a little which tells me they’re struggling to adjust, too. I wish I could say everything will be normal after my event is over...but it won’t. On the 17th my kitchen gets ripped apart, and I travel two-three weekends out of the month until the end of the year, not to mention a ten day trip to Thailand which I am sorely regretting at this point. If only that were next year and not this year. It’s going to be pretty chaotic until the end of the year.

Neither of the boys want breakfast at school and Theo is in fact not eligible for after school programs, so that’s that. 

Right now I’m treasuring the peace and quiet of a home where children are at school and no contractors are here (yet). 

Losing it

Today was both boys’ first day of school. After a last hurrah beach day yesterday, I hustled all night to get their stuff in order. Then we all got up at the crack o’ dawn after a tumultuous night (both boys had nightmares and needed a lot of comforting; I woke up every hour on the hour). We all went to Theo’s school first and then the BF took Bobby to his and I stayed with Theo at his new school.

His teacher was a very kind lady who has taught at the school for 32 years and says she’s teaching some of her first students’ kids. First they had the kids all sit down for a free breakfast, and as they were teaching the kids how to open their milks all of the parents started losing it, myself included. At one point I thought I would have to leave the classroom because I couldn’t contain myself. Then they walked all the red-eyed parents and the kids through the school for a little tour, and then seemed to get started on their day so the parents began to peel off.

I knew I was going to be a wreck today because I started feeling it last week - I was actually very emotional taking Theo to his last day of preschool; it was all over so quickly, just like any other day, with zero fanfare, unlike Bobby’s graduation. I wish Theo had been able to have that experience, but them’s the breaks I guess! 

Why do we feel sad when our babies meet certain milestones? It makes no sense; our entire job in life is to get them grown. I don’t want more babies and couldn’t have any more if I did want them; and I can’t say I much enjoyed their young selves. Yet all of a sudden I feel intense, crushing sadness. I didn’t feel this when my mother died. Maybe this is why I feel it now?

At least I know I’m not alone in these feelings, and in fact feeling this way quells my constant fear of “Am I a monster?” Surprise! I’m actually human and actually have maternal instincts. Hooray! 

Two good pieces of news - Theo can in fact go to their after school program, and both boys get access to breakfast and lunch at school. Theo told me he wants the school breakfast, so I’ll see if B wants breakfast at school, too, and if so, no more cooking breakfast for me! It also may mean not having to get up quite as early, too, since that will save a lot of time. It seems crazy to me to not have to cook breakfasts or make lunches - like I’m being deprived of my maternal responsibilities - but if the kids really want to eat at school instead of at home, I’m not going to stop them. And boy will it make mornings easier when we have no kitchen!

For today I’m going to go for a long walk to get my feelings out, and work. Take a deep breath. And maybe a little cry session in the car wouldn’t hurt.

The summer of our discontent

It’s the summer of our discontent. My sister coined this phrase - between her home selling woes and now being in Brazil to deal with our mother’s mess (crooked landlords, recalcitrant banks), and my refrigerator woes and general Camp stress, we’re both just in it right now.

It’s hot as hell with no sign of letting up - triple digit temperatures and intense dryness that is killing all of my plants and trees, even the well established ones. I am desperately trying to nurse my old avocado tree back to life with regular waterings, which is, whoopee, another thing I have to remember to do every day. Trees are dying everywhere; our entire city is brittle and dry and dead. It’s so fucking depressing I want to cry. This is our new normal.

At least I have working AC. For this I am profoundly grateful. I won’t soon forget last year’s torture when my ancient AC broke and I had to endure interior temperatures of upwards of 96 degrees while I was in the throes of the final push before my event. That sucked.

After four days of repair guy visits, I still don’t have a working fridge. He was supposed to have “one last thing” to do this morning - only to pronounce that no, after four days of welding and fluids and replacing parts and charging, it’s not, in fact, the compressor or any of the other parts, but the computer system that’s shot. Mother. Fucker. This is four days of being interrupted and stuck at home, not being able to use the kitchen at all to cook for cranky kids, and going to the store each day to buy that night’s food to cook, always with the promise that that night I would have a working refrigerator. Now...who knows. The ice in the “freezer” of the mini fridge was so out of control that it was pushing the door open and everything was rotting; I had to chip away at that just to try to get this thing to limp through a few more days. Oh, and of course I have to pay for this part because it’s not under warranty. Another $200. And the repair guy says once the fridge is fixed try to sell it because it’ll just break again in a year or two. Sears and Kenmore, you can both go fuck yourselves. 

I finally broke down and bought a giant 5 gallon bottle of water since I’m sick of giving the kids toxic sink water to drink, and today I ate a brownie and watched Bachelor in Paradise while lying in bed in the middle of the day because I got my period five days early which now means I get to have it all during my event. For the third year in a row.

One more day of camp for Theo, one more day of preschool. Two more days of camp for Bobby. Then I have to figure out how to entertain them for three days before school starts. 

I long for cool fall days with my event over, my fridge fixed, my satellite kitchen set up and the real one being rebuilt, children in school, and everything right in the world. That day will come, in about a month.

But right now - ugh!

The final week

Isn’t it funny when things are about to end, how they suddenly become intolerable even though they’ve been fine for years? I am counting the days - hours, really - until the Preschool Shuffle is over. I cannot wait until my life simplifies and these boys are in real school. I’m ready to un-crowd my brain.

I stumbled upon a potential new summer camp for next year - a sports camp that is also through the parks system and is half what I’m paying now. The boys are dying to get involved in sports - I’ve put it off because I know what a huge commitment these things are, and I just don’t want to add one more thing into our lives. But a sports camp could introduce them to a variety of sports and we can see without commitment what real interest or aptitude they have and get ideas on how to continue past camp if we decide to. So I’ve left myself a note for next spring to look into it.

I also am considering getting a pet at some point. It would for sure have to wait until after the kitchen is done - so maybe for Christmas? I feel once Theo is in school I can handle another creature to take care of - and it can help the kids learn some responsibility. The consensus so far is for a cat. Luckily I have a friend who runs a cat rescue who can help us find a good fit for the family. Let’s face it, when Theo is in school I’m going to need something to cuddle. 

I hustled this week. I got a lot done, and hope to have pretty much everything locked up by the time I take my first band trip on the 17th. I want to be able to focus on the boys’ return to school on the 14th. 

Luckily I came home today to the DWP guy here spotting a new place for my electric panel, and the solar people called me back about moving the monitoring equipment, so there won’t be a months-long delay after all. The plan is to start in mid-September. Now I only have to choose lighting, paint colors, wallpaper (vintage of course), and a new dishwasher. The electric bid came in about four times what I expected which stresses me out. We are officially in “I can’t afford this but somehow I’ll make it work” territory. Boy is it going to be worth it but boy is it going to be a tough road getting there!

Sound familiar?

The penultimate week

We have two more weeks of summer schedule. I can’t tell you how much I’m dreading waking up two hours earlier and rushed mornings. But with that comes long, unbroken days to myself, no more driving to Pasadena six times a week, no more preschool fees, and no more half days three days a week. It will be just the thing when I really need to work and focus in the final weeks before my event.

Plans for the kitchen are forging ahead. The big problem at the moment is getting my electric panel and solar monitoring equipment moved from the wall that I need to break down to put in a window. This involves the DWP which, according to my electrician, moves extremely slowly. I’m pretty worried that this one thing could set us back weeks. 

I’ve decided to transform my laundry room into a satellite kitchen. If it’s going to be months, and if I insist on still cooking, then I’m going to need a real setup, not just operate out of boxes. So I’m going to clear all the shelves in there, use the utility sink, get an instant pot and a hot plate, and go to town. 

My refrigerator still won’t be fixed for nearly three weeks. I am beside myself. By the end of this ordeal I’ll have been operating out of a mini fridge in the dining room for six weeks. 

I have a question for all of you. Is anyone other than my sister actually reading this? My readership has declined sharply over the last couple of years - I figure largely because most of my blogger friends have stopped blogging at this point, and therefore nobody is reading them, either - and nobody comments anymore. I don’t intend to stop blogging - for me it’s a good creative outlet and a way to keep a record of our family life - so if I’m blogging for myself alone, that’s ok. But I am definitely curious whether I’m shouting into the void or not.

I need a vacation from my vacation

We’re baaaaack. We survived! Other than a sore and bruised chin on Theo from the night he fell off his bed and smacked his face on the tile floor, we managed to make it through a week on the Big Island without injury nor sunburn (for the most part). On the last day I got a wicked chemical burn on one side of my eye (I think I touched something and rubbed my eye) and have a cold sore from burned lips; the BF has a bad cold and a worse ear infection that has made him miserable since Saturday. But the kids are ok! 

The volcano proved to be more of a cock blocker than an attraction; we couldn’t get anywhere near it or the fissures (despite the BF’s futile attempts, which caused a huge fight), and with the volcano museums and parks closed, after a few days of beach going we ran out of things to do.

When you travel with little kids, there is a small window of things they’ll actually be interested in - being The Big Island, there was too much driving back and forth from coast to coast, and only a handful of child friendly beaches. 

With all this said, though, we did have a good time - we saw lots of sea turtles, did plenty of swimming and playing in the water, caught frogs, the kids tolerated the long drives well, and the BF and I had a nice anniversary dinner (three years!), I had a nice 46th birthday, and my sister watched the kids one night while the BF and I did a nighttime manta ray dive which was excellent.

There are soooo many things I’d do differently if I were to travel with these boys again - despite my efforts, the lack of entertainment on the plane was a major problem, airport parking was a nightmare, and I always felt frazzled and forgot things despite my above average organizational skills. Just like childbirth, you just can’t be prepared enough for travel with small children.

My sister and I got to talk about our mother’s death and were very much on the same page - we feel at peace about it, largely because we already mourned her years ago. We both hate that she died alone, bitter, and no doubt in horrendous pain - there is nothing about that that’s ok. The autopsy was a bust - apparently she was too decomposed to determine cause of death, a fact that both horrifies and depresses me. She is cremated now. My sister will go retrieve her ashes sometime in the next few weeks. We’ll gather next June in Boston to scatter her ashes in the bay as we did with my aunt and uncle. And that, as they say, is that.

I am home now to the final three weeks of our summer camp schedule, my event heating up (so much to do I don’t even know where to start), and a non-functioning refrigerator. The repairman comes tomorrow. I’m praying he can fix it - if not, the only option at this point may be to buy a cheap used one to tide us over until it’s time to buy a new one for the new kitchen this fall. Austerity measures for the months we’ll have no kitchen have begun - I’ve bought a microwave scrambled egg cooker. The horror. 

I need a vacation

Handling my mother’s affairs in Brazil is proving to be complex - my poor sister has taken on this task, which is a full time job at the moment, and god bless her for it. As I had suspected, it’s not so easy to have a body cremated, shipped abroad, and her things protected until they can be looked over. As far as we know, no notes, will, or instructions were left for anyone. I’m sure she died a pauper. I’m very curious about the autopsy report - my guess is cancer and/or kidney failure from a long term untreated infection. And so it goes.

In “you still have to pick up your dry cleaning” news, we had a bit of a household crisis around here this week. In the middle of an intense heat wave (112 degrees last Friday and about 100 for several days after), my almost new refrigerator died. By almost new I mean three years old, so out of warranty. And because the digital temperature readouts said the fridge and freezer were the right temperature, when things slowly started melting I thought I was just imagining it or that the fridge couldn’t keep up with the intense heat. So by the time I knew something was really wrong most things were beyond saving. I spent a rage-filled day Tuesday stuck at home with a recalcitrant four year old waiting for repair men - the first guy said it was beyond his scope (thanks a lot); the second guy after two hours said it was probably the compressor which is thousands of dollars but should by law still be warrantied by the manufacturer for at least five years so I should really call them. I paid $75 for this information. The Sears guy can’t come until the 26th. So I spent the whole day frantically researching new fridges only to see none could be delivered until next week (why is that???), then looked into renting a fridge, also none which could be delivered until next week. Finally the BF tracked down a used mini fridge that could be delivered; it arrived yesterday, and I crammed what few remaining items could be salvaged from our hot fridge and the leaking 1950s cooler I’d been using for the more sensitive items. Now, we wait. 

Part of the complication is, if I do have to buy a new fridge, I can only buy a counter depth one because of my tiny 1906 kitchen doorway, which limits my choices to about 5% of available fridges and raises the price about $1500. If I can hold out until the kitchen renovation begins in Sept, I can get any damned fridge I want. Well, my hope is this fridge can be fixed for free. I mean, I spent $3500 on this in 2015. Why on earth should I have to pay to replace the compressor three years later?!?

That and the price increase for my event have been the big news this week. It started off horribly when I woke up to see that the guy who programmed the price increase on the online registration accidentally set the prices back $55 to an early bird price, and a day earlier than the increase was supposed to happen. Thank God I wake up early now and am hyper vigilant enough that I just happened to check this and was able to get it fixed before I lost too much money. I mean, come on, people!

The rest of the day went smoothly, however. I was on hand to answer questions and fix people’s mistakes for them, and with no paperwork this year it was a breeze. 

I have just slightly more people than I did this time last year. Which is really terrific considering that this should, as the 21st year, be “off”. 

One thing I can’t figure out, though, is why I have so much less money if I have the same amount of people paying the same prices. I’m consistently about $30,000 down from last year. Why? I don’t think anything nefarious is going on - and it’s possible it can all be explained away by paying more things up front this year than last. Plus just living more expensively, period. But. I’m a bit worried. It shouldn’t impact my kitchen plans since that money is already put aside, but if I get to September and still have way less money I’m going to have to really look over everything with a fine tooth comb. I should be just as flush as last year, but I’m not. 

Thankfully we leave for Hawaii on Sunday. Between the mother’s death, money woes and all these petty annoyances, I can’t tell you how much I need this. 

You still have to pick up your drycleaning

My sister called early this morning to tell me they found my mother. They think she died Thursday.

So it is upon us. And so far...I actually feel ok. I don’t see some big debilitating breakdown in my future. I already had that when our relationship first broke twelve years ago - and have been having mini-episodes of it ever since, up until the first news a month ago that she may be in her last stages. There is relief there - not that I’m happy this happened; it’s a tragedy all around - but knowing that “it” is over; her story ends here. I don’t have to do anything anymore. The door is closed. There is freedom in that.

Whenever I think I need a good cry the thought comes to me, “I’ve cried enough tears for her.” I don’t think I’ve cried more over another person in my life. I’ve been grieving the loss of her for years - decades, even. How is this any different?

She lives on in us, anyway - I have her voice, her humor, her mannerisms, her artistic sensibilities. If ever there were a more powerful argument for having children, this is it - she definitely has attained some semblance of immortality through us: me, my sister, and the boys, who unknowingly carry her legacy. They will know her full story and all it’s ugliness some day...but not yet.

A couple of years ago randomly in the car Bobby asked how old my mother was, and I told him, and he said, “I guess she’ll probably die soon.” I said yes. He asked if I would be sad, and I said yes. I don’t want them to know about this - Bobby will definitely go to, “but that means you’re going to die!” and I don’t want him worrying about that. I intend to live a good long while. My mother died at 76; her mother died at 77. I hope to outlive both of them by a good stretch. 

In the end...life must go on. These boys have their whole lives in front of them and I do not have the luxury of checking out either mentally or physically. My sister and I had a joke about our former religion - with all its carrying on about material life being an illusion and only God and Spirit being real...my answer is, “yeah...that’s great and all, but you still have to pick up your dry cleaning.” Nothing absolves us of the every day tasks of being a human, illusion or no - cooking, wiping counters, laundry, putting gas in the car, picking up groceries, going to the bank, filing taxes. I can be sad and wish things were different all I want, I can moon over sad Morrissey songs, I can wonder “what if?”...but I still have to pick up my dry cleaning. 

The fourth

The Fourth of July is such a tricky thing since the Orange Menace took office. Had it been me on my own I probably would have just worn a black armband all day and otherwise ignored it, posting virtue-signaling protest selfies on FB all day. And reading the letters from the new civil war twitter feed, which is brilliant.

But I have kids. So instead we went to an old timey festival in El Segundo during the day and then went to the fireworks and Go Go’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Bobby was all in - Theo, not so much. But being as Bobby went there to see Kraftwerk as his first concert a couple of years ago, he’s kind of an old hand. 

I am torn between not wanting the right wing nut jobs to co-opt our flag and traditions and patriotism and just saying fuck it and letting them have it. I am torn between wanting to move all of us to Canada before the US becomes a totalitarian theocracy and wanting to stick it out and fight. And I also realize this country that I thought stood for peace and freedom is actually built on the backs of slaves and stolen from native people. What, exactly, do you do with that???

You dress in red white and blue and stuff your feelings with ice cream because you have kids and you want them to have a nice childhood. 

Some day they will know about the Trail of Tears and the atrocities of slave culture and all of the other terrible, brutal things that made the US what it is today. But right now all they care about is Batman and swimming and ice cream. They are innocent, and that is precious. I’ll miss it when that innocence is gone.

Preschool countdown

Tomorrow I leave for Boston, the (2nd to?) last trip my original babysitter has agreed to cover. I say 2nd to last because I am hoping to beg her to take the kids during my event over Labor Day - she had said she might be able to. The idea of having a completely new person taking the kids for five days with both me and the BF not available scares the crap out of me. Also, based on the people I’ve interviewed since my last post, even if I could find someone it looks like I’ll now be paying two times what I used to for these weekend trips. So...let’s hope I can convince her to stay on for one last hurrah. 

Bids are finally coming in for my kitchen. It is not going to be cheap. But...I’m not doing this to have a crappy, low-end kitchen. I want a tile floor instead of linoleum, more than one dim light fixture, extra windows...it’s a lot. But I should be able to just barely manage it this year, most likely leaving myself broke but happy. It will be the most ambitious and invasive project I’ve done in this place. And in the end, working with such a tiny space, it’s hardly going to be transformative. But it’ll be pretty and functional and have all the vintage touches that make my heart sing. So...worth it?

The boys are doing well - the pool has increasingly become a part of our daily lives, and summer suddenly has meaning again when you’re on a standard school schedule. I am counting the days until I no longer have to drive Theo up to his Pasadena preschool three times a week; I am SO over it. We have also stopped our twice weekly “nap drives” since he doesn’t seem to need it anymore; he is tall and skinny and more and more a boy and less and less a chubby baby every day. Things are a-changing around here.

Separation Anxiety

Like just about everyone with a conscience, I’ve spent this week in absolute horror over the travesty going on at our border right now. Children being ripped away from parents and held in cages...thousands that will probably never see their parents again, their only crime trying to escape gang violence and crushing poverty. It’s horrendous. I can hardly function for how much stress and anxiety this is causing me, and it’s not even happening to me. And the monsters in my Facebook feed trying to justify it. A friend called these people out as Nazi sympathizers and I agree. I am beside myself.

It doesn’t help that right as this story was ramping up over the weekend, my nanny of more than three years abruptly quit Saturday night, leaving me stranded for the ten + traveling weekends coming up in the next few months she had agreed to, including my event, and my trip to Budapest, and my ten days in Thailand in December. It was nothing personal - she is just feeling burnt out, and now has a very demanding weekday job working with a new baby where she can’t just take off Fridays and Mondays every couple of weeks. I get it, and I knew this day would come. But I am thoroughly freaked out. It would be one thing if I had a normal fall with just a couple of trips - but it’s literally about two or three weekends I’m gone every month until December. Where am I going to find someone who has that kind of availability?!?

I started my search on Urban Sitter where I found a good sitter years ago before I started using this lady exclusively. It’s a lot like online dating - you look at the profile and try to get a vibe from their picture, send a bunch of copy and paste introductory messages, and then wait. So far I’ve written to about fifteen people and gotten five responses. I’ve scheduled three interviews, one which happened last night. I really liked this girl, but to my surprise she has a full time job and couldn’t do the Friday-Monday school stuff. I think this will be the case for most people. Yes, they can work nights and weekends, but they can’t pick a kid up from school at 2 PM. And Theo is too young for any after school programs, otherwise none of this would be an issue. Ughhhh.

This is where having a partner really helps. The BF had already been coming home the occasional weeknight to watch the boys when I go to my book clubs, go DJ, etc, and watching them on those long weekend days when I have something else I need to do. This is a fairly new phenomenon, and I am extremely grateful I have someone who actively wants to spend this time with the kids. I think I never asked before just out of habit - I was used to paying sitters for every little thing. But as our sitter became less and less available he really stepped up. Still - he does need to work, and can’t take entire weekdays off plus the whole weekend. So we’re trying to figure out a patched-together system wherein he can get the kids to school in the morning, he can pick them up and then wait for a sitter to come by in the evening and then he can get back to work. It’s kind of a mess but it’s the only way right now, unless I find someone who’s free on weekdays. 

Once next summer rolls around and Theo can be at afterschool with his brother until 5:30 everything will be different. But for now this is our life. How I wish I didn’t have those two long international trips back to back-!

I’m having all those feelings I’ve heard mothers describe when their long time nannies quit - the betrayal, abandonment, sadness. The fear of having to start from scratch with a new person with a thousand details, the fear of getting someone who turns out to be a nightmare. I’m triggered.

Oh, and of course this week’s (well, every week’s) episode of Handmaid’s Tale is all about mothers ripped away from children...of course. 

When does that Mr. Rodgers documentary open, again? I seriously need some feel good entertainment right now!

Summertime, summertime

Our usual spring gloom has lifted, and summer has at last arrived. With it, a couple of awesome things - today, the start of my summer schedule which means sleeping in another hour, and this weekend, discovering that after seven years I can finally enjoy the pool with the boys. I’ve hardly stepped a toe in the pool in all these years I’ve had small  children; finally I feel like the boys are big enough/pool savvy enough to be able to safely be in the pool with just me there. Water wings help them doggy paddle around, and they’re getting more and more comfortable putting their heads under water. Summers are going to be dramatically different from now on.

On the last day of school I wrote the dismissal time down wrong and was sitting at home when I got a text from the after school pick up lady saying Bobby was crying and wondering why I didn’t pick him up. This after days of telling him I was going to pick him up on his special last day. Ughhhh. I felt terrible. Hopefully the ice cream we got later made up for it.

The next day a group of us got together at a local park as a little kick off summer celebration. I chatted with the grandmother of one of the nicer boys who always comes to the school functions, and she told me a harrowing story. Apparently the boy actually started kindergarten the year before but they pulled him out of school because the teacher abused him - kicked him repeatedly while he was sitting on the floor, and apparently has been known to slap and pinch other kids. According to her, police have been called, but all the kids swear nothing happened; this teacher refuses to have assistants in her class or to allow parents in the classroom. I was horrified and am still shaken by it. The poor kid, and the other kids-! I’ve seen this teacher and I’ve got to be honest - she’s got the crazy eyes. I’m so glad Bobby dodged that bullet! However, I still have Theo to worry about. If I find out he has been assigned to her class I will do everything in my power to have him transferred - even if it means keeping him at his ETK school for a second year. There is no way I’m exposing him to that! I had an abusive, shitty kindergarten teacher, so HELL no.

We are going to have one of Bobby’s friends over next weekend. Having other kids over is WAY out of my comfort zone, but I know it’s something I’m going to have to get used to.

In mother news, we got a hold of her building manager in Rio and he said he just saw her and she just got a food delivery. So, she’s hardly in a heap on her floor. She ignored emails from my sister and cousins and friends; she is just isolating. This may have been another in a series of false alarms. It does become a boy who cried wolf situation after a while. 

First lost tooth!

After about a week of wiggling, Bobby lost his first tooth yesterday at school! As weird as it sounds, teeth falling out was one of my favorite parts of childhood, so I was very excited for him. I finally got to use the little felt tooth fairy pockets I made years ago. I left him a dollar coin.

He’s got “shark teeth” - teeth growing in behind the baby teeth, not under. I may still need dental intervention - he’s going to need to lose at least another baby tooth to make room. I’ll see if one of the others starts to loosen up in the next few days. 

Today is Bobby’s final day of kindergarten. He was never late nor absent. It’s a small thing, but I’m proud of it. I’ll pick him up and we’ll go celebrate with ice cream. Today was the last day I had to get up at 6:45 AM. Hooray! 

In other news, my mother has cut off communication with our go-between. My sister somehow managed to get a hold of someone in Rio who can go check on her and get us contact information for her apartment’s management. I think I need to apply for a visa now so I’ll be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Sigh.

It is upon us...?

My sister called yesterday to tell me our mother’s one friend says she believes our mother has cancer and is in her final days. This could be it. Or, it could be yet another in a series of false alarms. But at 76, alone, isolated and in terrible health (with zero medical intervention for decades), her day is coming. It might as well be today.

Quick summary - our mother has lived alone in Rio for about 20 years. Apparently she hasn’t left her apartment in years and is only in contact with people via computer. She has had some mysterious ailment for at least twenty years that has caused her to announce “I’m at death’s door!” many times; and yet she keeps soldiering on. She belongs (used to belong? Who knows) to a religion that eschews medical science. My leaving the religion is a lot of why we’re alienated and have been since 2006. The current friend, who is in the US, video chats with her regularly but says our mother is refusing video chats and has been increasingly difficult to get a hold of.

Our mother blocked both me and my sister on FB recently so we can’t even keep tabs on her. The friend says she did it because seeing me and my sister in our happy lives made her sad. This made me sad for her. But surprisingly, the friends I’ve mentioned this to had a different reaction - they think it’s further proof of how petty and selfish she is. My guess is they are correct. Sometimes my extreme empathy does me no favors. 

So my sister and I are, not for the first time, steeling ourselves for what may happen (and as of this writing, may have already happened). My mother - my talented, smart, funny, charismatic mother, who in so many ways made me who I am, for better or worse - is going to be one of those people who are “found”. Yes. This is how her story ends. It is unbearable but true. She has no one but herself to blame for her fate. And yet.

She did all of these things. She bore me and my sister, nursed us, wiped our butts, endured our tantrums and teenaged snark and everything else, only to die alone having pushed both of us away with her extreme narcissism, selfishness, and cruelty. What, indeed, was the point? She often told me she never should have had children. No truer statement has ever been made. 

Like all narcissists she self-published a meandering autobiography (which at one point I served as editor for; me and my sister are barely mentioned in it. My sister has a friend with a similar mother who also self-published an autobiography in which she and her sister are barely mentioned. How bizarre is that?). Last night I googled it and found a review written by someone who claimed to be a long time friend. It was carefully worded; while he overall praised the book, he also occasionally slips in criticism of her (“I didn’t always agree with her life choices”), etc. It was interesting to read that others picked up on her possible NPD. 

So now...we wait. Since the friend is not near her, the only thing we can do is keep in touch with her to see if they’ve spoken, and perhaps try to get in touch with the management of her apartment building to see if anything “happened”. My sister wants to go down there to “clean up” and I should go too...although it may not be possible. I just don’t know. 

One thing is for sure - I don’t want this. I don’t want to grieve, to be made non-functional, to be weepy and sad and preoccupied. All of those things will happen, and I am very resentful of it, in advance. I am going to cry and wail and rend my garment and feel all alone in the world, even though this woman never gave me an ounce of comfort in the 35 years she was in my life. I’ve been mourning her for twelve years. More, really. I am exhausted. Enough. And it hasn’t even begun.