Recovery?

I’d say the air is finally clean and clear, but considering that it’s been over a week since I’ve been able to smell anything, I don’t really know. Everyone is freaking out about unseen dangers still lingering in the air - asbestos, toxic chemicals - but then others say the danger is long gone now unless you’re dealing with the actual burn areas and debris. It’s making me paranoid, for sure, especially since two of my essential senses are gone (smell and taste), I feel especially vulnerable and know I’m not able to properly judge my surroundings. 

We had a full week of normal operations around here - kids at school, me doing work. I miss my exercise dearly and feel incredibly guilty for not getting out and helping, but I’m also coughing and hacking and blowing my nose every three seconds, so don’t want to get people sick, or make myself sicker. I’m starting to panic a bit that I have heavy singing duties in just a week - two nights with the orchestra - which would be totally impossible now. I’m wondering if I should head back to the doctor, since this stupid illness has dragged on for three weeks now and doesn’t show any sign of change or improvement. It’s been more than a week since I tasted anything, which is so frustrating I want to cry. Other than that first round of covid, I’ve never been this sick in my life. Wtf.

I’ve had a ton of brain taxing work this week (learning new computer systems and web update systems, etc) - believe it or not, January is one of my busiest months, since I pretty much have to have my entire event ready on the web for my price increase in just two weeks. I thought I had my teaching lineup settled, but now I have an opportunity to bring in another teacher, and those negotiations are moving slowly. There’s so much left to do and so much that won’t get done in time. Between that and all the tax work, my head is spinning. 

On Wednesday I got so depressed I just ended up sleeping most of the day. The mental toll of seeing your friends and neighbors suffering, your city suffering, knowing how easily it could have been and could still be you, being endlessly sick, being cooped up in the house with no exercise, and the dread and terror of what’s about to happen in this country and the world, just got to be too much. A friend says about 89% of Altadena has been completely destroyed. Even people who still have homes aren’t allowed back for weeks. Everyone’s displaced in hotels with just a few things they happened to grab. They’re managing to put on a brave face, but I just can’t imagine. I’d be a wreck. And yet it could happen here, any time, with no warning, just as it happened to those people who like me only thought “it’s going to be a little windy”. Jesus Christ.

I’m thankful we can escape for a bit this weekend - maybe a change of environment will cheer me up. I miss our cabin - it’s been two months since our last visit - so even though it’s going to be cold out there this weekend, I hope it helps my mental state.

Next week no matter how I feel I’m getting back to at least walking. I booked a couple of exercise classes that I may cancel depending on how I feel. Monday I plan to do a complete media blackout as I can’t deal with how horrible things are about to get. For two more days, we have Biden. I’m just going to cling to that thin comfort, for now.

World on fire, part 4

I was all dressed up and ready to go to the courthouse today to report for jury duty as I was told to last night, but got a call and a text that I’m no longer needed and my service is done. Bit anticlimactic, but I’ll take it. It definitely makes kid pick up and drop offs less problematic.

As of now, you wouldn’t know large swaths of our city had been destroyed, from where I am. Blue skies and most debris cleaned up. Today is, for now at least, the last dangerous day as winds are supposed to pick up in certain areas (again, not here). So we’re all just sitting and waiting and crossing our fingers. So far existing fires seem pretty well contained. I’m keeping an eye out, still obsessively checking the news and then abruptly shutting it off when the orange turd inevitably comes on.

Our house and yard are covered in dirt and ash - don’t even ask me about the pool - and I would get out and clean, but the yard guys and pool guys will probably do all that…? I’m still afraid of the air quality and exacerbating my already horrific head cold which just lingers on and on. Well, that’s my excuse for being lazy, anyway. 

Speaking of head cold, I already mentioned this, but it bears repeating - because I’ve had days and days of not being able to taste anything, I’ve come to realize this is like the poor man’s Ozempic. I find I’ve lost all interest in food. Because I get no enjoyment out of it, I don’t bother with it. Unlike Ozempic, it doesn’t quiet the food chatter in my brain - I still constantly think about getting up for a snack, etc - but because I know I’m not going to get a dopamine hit from the food, that I’d essentially just be wasting it, I don’t bother. This is why I don’t drink or do drugs. So I’m just eating simple, nutritious things in small amounts, things I’ll get enough protein and vitamins from, but nothing unctuous and good. It’s an interesting dilemma - as much as this annoying condition has made dieting easier, not getting enjoyment from food definitely sucks a lot of joy out of life. I don’t want to be the kind of person who “forgets to eat” and hates cooking and just wants fuel to get through the day - I want to be a person who sees food as love and bonding and celebration, who gets rhapsodic over working with vegetables and herbs and acids and fats and good things; I want to suck the very marrow of life, and food is a big part of the human experience. However, being that person and also being a 50-something woman trying to maintain a healthy weight are largely incompatible. La luta continua. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when my poor raw bloody nose finally de-congests and I can smell and taste again. I hope I don’t start stress-binging for the pure bacchanalian pleasure of it. 

World on fire, part 3

La Luta Continua. Fires are starting to be contained, but the Palisades fire is inching into the valley and Brentwood, which has all those people understandably panicked. Air quality has improved considerably. I keep signing up for volunteer opportunities but get turned away because they have too many volunteers. How awesome is that? 

I have jury duty next week, but checked in for Monday and don’t have to go in. I’ll check in every night. Honestly, I don’t mind doing it - I have the flexibility, and I’m just that kind of person that I’m happy to do my civic duty. As long as kids can be dropped off and picked up for school, it doesn’t interfere with my life any at this time of year. 

I should find out later today if kids will have school this week. I think it’s likely they will, but I’m trying to prepare that they may not, at least for a day or two. Their schools are a bit closer to the almost-evacuation zone near the 2 and the 134, so I’m not sure what infrastructure issues they may still be having. 

Friends who have lost everything are starting to post and start up GoFundMes. God, I can’t even imagine. Trying to find a rental - when thousands of others are in the same boat - knowing it could be two years before you have your own home again - and all the paperwork and accounting and tax stuff and receipts and applications and finding contractors (again, while thousands of others are trying to do the same), not to mention replacing every single thing you own, from clothes to cookware to toothbrushes…where do you even begin?? Plus keeping up with your job and school and everything else you were doing on Tuesday when you thought it will just get a little windy. It’s…I don’t even have the words. 

I’ve been watching news coverage non stop, but as of today many news stations have had to move on - there’s not much to report now except the palisades fire creeping through Mandeville canyon. Winds are expected to return in the next few days, though, so everyone is on edge. 

Other than two grocery store trips, I have not left the house at all, for many reasons. I want to stay off the roads, I don’t want the bad air to exacerbate my ongoing illness, I don’t want to leave the kids alone, there’s nowhere to go, I’m lazy and bored and want to stay glued to the television in case something happens locally. And I know this self-imposed exile will end tomorrow, so why not spend another day in bed? I’ve made huge progress on both taxes and event planning, so it’s not all for nought.

Physically, my cold or whatever has transitioned from a fiery, angry throat to horrible head and nose congestion. I can’t breathe at all (using nasal sprays helps temporarily) and I have had no sense of smell or taste for three days now which is very upsetting. I’ll admit it has helped my diet, though, since I don’t want to waste good, yummy food when I can’t even enjoy it. I’m down four pounds. Four more to goal #1; five more after that to goal #2. I can do this. 

Next week is the final week of sane politics in this country. It’s really hard facing the unbearable load of shit that’s about to pour down on all of us. 

Here’s a picture of Bobby looking bored at a Burger King.

World on fire, pt 2

The madness continues. We are still very lucky, safe in our homes with power (and now) internet. But new fires kept popping up last night, starting a torrent of conspiracy theories - it’s gotta be some California-hating MAGA lunatic, right? - but as of now we don’t know what’s started all these random smaller fires, so I’ll withhold theorizing. Let’s just say we all panicked a bit when fires broke out in Hollywood and then Studio City within minutes of each other, and I’m here alone, sick, with two kids. Our neighborhood could 100% go up in flames at any moment - we’re in a hill, with lots of dry brush. I’m at the very bottom of it on a busy street, but so were many of the homes destroyed in Altadena. Let’s just say if someone chose to fuck with us here there’s really not much we could do, with no water and resources stretched so thin. I slept with the fire extinguisher next to the bed and had the boys pack bags. 

Yesterday was endless heartbreak as friends - close friends - one by one announced their total losses on FB. There are a few who don’t know anything yet. I remember that horrible sick feeling so well during Katrina when I had to sit here helpless, thousands of miles away, wondering what had happened to the property I had just bought days before. Of course that’s entirely different because it wasn’t my personal home with all my stuff in it - but financially, it was devastating; remember, I didn’t technically pay off the debt from that debacle until I paid off this house three months ago (so 19 years later). 

So many landmark businesses and historical buildings are gone. LA is going to look very different after this, and people are going to be displaced for years, or may never come back. Also, the already tentative insurance situation for all of us is going to get a lot gnarlier (I fully expect to just be dropped by State Farm entirely at this point - and with the Orange shit stain in office, nobody’s going to do anything about it). 

Kids are now off school all week, which is nowhere near as upsetting as it would have been a few years ago; honestly, they’re happy as clams just building things together on the VR all day as long as I throw food at them occasionally. And for me, I feel good having us all together and knowing they’re safe. I have tons of boring tax work to do, which has to be done at home anyway, so other than getting 0 exercise I’m living pretty much the week I had planned. Still dieting which is terrible timing (all I want to do all day is stuff my face…but I don’t), but having this dry throat/head cold/whatever bullshit illness I’ve been dealing with the past two weeks plus this horrid air quality has been challenging, to say the least. What I wouldn’t give for a breath of fresh air right now. But I’m afraid that is a long, long way off.

Fires are still raging, winds are still blowing (elsewhere) and we are still in danger every minute. I desperately need to get to a grocery store - I had just thrown everything out after the fridge failed again while we were on our trip - but I’m reluctant to leave the house unattended (apparently many people have left our little hill neighborhood and now thieves are prowling around looting. Awesome) or leave the kids unattended. I tried to get delivery going but the stupid app is having some kind of server problem. Not sure what to do about all that. 

It’s hard to say if even on Monday things will be normal and school will return. I’m profoundly grateful that we even have a home and a school. I realize all of this could be gone in the blink of an eye, and that happening over the next few days, while unlikely, is not impossible. 

The H had a terrible fire years ago in which his pets died, and he often talks about how traumatizing and terrible that was, but yesterday said how he realized if he just hadn’t let it traumatize him as much it really wouldn’t have been that bad. Umm..what? He said the bad part was his reaction to it. Ummm…yeah? That’s what trauma is. Nobody chooses to be traumatized. Your reaction is your reaction. When you’ve had one of the worst things possible in the human experience happen to you, I say you get to react however the fuck you want. And just turning off your feelings about it…well, that’s a reaction, too, and you’re entitled to it, but I certainly wouldn’t be prescribing that for anyone else (which is what he was doing, reaching out to people who just that day found out they’d lost everything). Then a friend who had just evacuated wanted to philosophize about how fascinating it is that nature just clears everything out from time to time…and I just had no patience for it. I snapped that it’s easy to get all philosophical when you haven’t just lost everything. All of this smacks of my former culty religion so I was just extremely triggered. Can’t we just accept that all of this sucks and is a terrible tragedy and leave it at that? There’s nothing more to say. It sucks. Period. 

World on fire

It seems appropriate to start this dumpster fire of a year with “unprecedented” wind storms and wildfires tearing across Los Angeles. So far we’ve been very, very lucky. 

I had warnings of big Santa Ana winds headed our way yesterday, and my primary concern was power loss (and of course my recurring slightly irrational fear that the big pine tree at the corner of our lot will crush our house and kill us all). The last time we had a big wind event here was in 2011 when I was pregnant with Bobby - power was out a night, a full day, and then part of another day. I threw out all my food in fear of infection. But mostly I was just bored. So that’s mainly what I was planning for. 

Turns out wildfires were way more of a danger than I had imagined. While the winds died down for us by about midnight, they raged through the night in some areas, and many of my friends had to evacuate and/or probably have lost their homes, friends just a few miles away in Altadena and Pasadena. It’s unlikely the fires will come here, especially with the winds gone, but we’re all on edge.

I’m shocked we never lost power. Internet will probably be out for days, but obviously my cell phone is working. Woke up to a hellscape of raining down ash and orange sky; I didn’t know what to do about the kids and school. I got a call that school would run as usual, so drove through the mess of downed power lines and tree branches in the road to Theo’s school, only to be met by an administrator who told us we should head home since the school was in no condition to be open and half the staff wasn’t going in. I didn’t bother to check Bobby’s school (and glad I didn’t, as just a few minutes ago I got the call from that school to come pick up our kids for the day). So we’re here doing non-internet things, and waiting. I don’t imagine this will be resolved any time soon. The destruction is massive and infrastructure is seriously damaged everywhere. I’m glad we at least get two more weeks of Biden before the Orange turd takes over and tells us to go fuck ourselves because we don’t worship him. 

Today’s going to be a nail biter, for sure. Think good thoughts for us.

Road trip!

Kids were back at school today after yet another interminable three week winter vacation, and I don’t know how to do anything anymore. When do we have to leave to be on time? What do they want for breakfast, again? It’s amazing how fast you lose track of routines.

While I enjoy my last moments in a house so quiet my ears are ringing, here’s a recap of our AZ/UT trip.

We had a long (7+ hours) drive from LA to Kanab, Utah on Saturday the 28th. When we arrived at our Airbnb condo, someone else was occupying it. Fortunately we were moved right next door and it all worked out. The next day bright and early we went to the visitor center for the orientation meeting for our Wave visit. Hearing what lengths people go to to get these permits, legally and illegally, reminded me how special it was that we got one on our first try (and also that the weather the next day would be perfect for it). After this we revisited the Sand Caves which we had to cut short due to a monsoon on our last visit in July of 2021; a little gnarly scaling the rocks up and down, but we managed. Then went to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes where the kids sand surfed with snowboards.

Both kids - but especially Bobby - showed such skill on the board that it made me realize I really need to get off my ass and book us a ski weekend somewhere. I’m worried about the expense, of course, but I think they could be really good at this and it could be a new winter activity for them. Now I just need to win the lottery. 

The next day we got up early to meet our guide - a jolly retired local cop named Kenny - to take us to The Wave. It was a long day of hiking over rough terrain, and it was wicked cold in the morning, but we ended up being pretty well prepared; we had our camelbacks for water, packed lunches, had good stout boots, and enough layers to be comfortable throughout the day. The Wave itself was very cool - but to be honest we’d seen so much cool stuff on the way that upon seeing it my first thought was, “is that the whole thing? I thought it’d be bigger!” Still super cool, though!

The next day, New Year’s Eve, we headed up to snow country in Heber Valley. We had a desultory celebration at midnight in our kitschy motel room, and everyone immediately crashed from sheer exhaustion.

On New Year’s Day, we swam in the Homestead Crater, a fascinating cave/hot spring that had been on my wish list for a while. You can’t see it very well because it was full of steam, but trust me when I say it was very cool. That reminds me, on the way to Heber Valley we stopped at a roadside hot spring called Meadow Hot Spring which was also pretty awesome.

The next day we did some snow tubing. We all bundled up like crazy fearing being cold, but as it turned out most people were just in long sleeved shirts. It was a fun couple of hours until we were all sick of it. Then we had dinner in an “alpenglobe” at a local restaurant.

Friday we did the long drive to Las Vegas, spent the night in a hotel where the elevators didn’t work and we were on the 3rd floor, then the next day packed up and went to Meow Wolf Las Vegas, also known as OmegaMart, something Theo’s been obsessed with for ages. I don’t know if it was just the fatigue or the fact that we’d already been to the (to me) far superior Santa Fe version last summer, but I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. Too overstimulating and pointless and confusing. Creative, yes, but my brain just couldn’t hang anymore, and I think I speak for all of us when I say it was underwhelming. 

Saturday night we returned home, recovered and did laundry yesterday, and today normal activities resumed. The trip was overshadowed for me by a weird viral throat thing I had the whole time, in which all night every night my throat felt like someone was holding a blowtorch to it; mostly during the day I was fine, and I never *felt* sick, but by Saturday it had escalated to a dry cough and painful throat all day, so I spent the day Sunday in urgent care. Fortunately or unfortunately they said it’s just a common virus, not one that there’s any treatment for, so they said just to take care of my throat and rest. Ok then. As of today, after suffering this stupid thing for over a week, I have to say it’s the worst it’s ever been. I sure hope it fades out soon, before I have to start singing again.

The H also is still having tremendous work woes - a printing press that’s still not working after nearly two months of attempted repairs - I think he managed to keep it together pretty well, considering, but it did lend another layer of stress.

When we got home, the fridge had crapped out again, but only temporarily, so the new ice cream I had bought to replace the old ice cream was ruined, but everything was starting to freeze again. We ordered a part that comes on Thursday that should be a better bandaid than the last one…who knows? I’ll just say I’m so sick of the fridge failing and ruining our food. I’m reluctant to cook anything or really stock up. Sheesh.

For now I’m going to ignore the fact that today is election certification day, continue to cough up a lung, and delve into the mountains of tax work that has to get done this month. Whee!

Christmas week

Let week two of Christmas break commence. It feels like it’s already been years. 

For the most part, the boys have done nothing but alternate between YouTube meme collections and playing Yeeps on their VRs in fetid underwear and pyjamas while I occasionally throw food at them. I feel tremendous guilt for not getting them out of the house like I used to, but at the same time…they’re having a blast and don’t want to do anything else. As Bobby said, “I worked hard all semester and now I just want to relax”. Who am I to not listen to the wishes of this straight A student? Indeed.

I’ve been keeping up with my exercise (except cancelling my usual 9 AM Friday weight training because who the hell wants to get up at 7 right now - I’m barely out of bed by 10). I’m in terror of gaining tons of weight in the next two weeks before I start dieting again in January, even though I know I’d have to eat thousands of calories a day to gain more than 2-3 lbs in two weeks, and I’m definitely not doing that. But as of right now I’d be starting from a much better place than when I started last April, so I stand a much better chance of getting to my goal weight this time. Let’s just say it’s easier to lose ten pounds than eighteen. I’m pumped up and ready to go. 

We’ll have a nice Christmas at home and then in a couple of days leave for our road trip through Utah. It looks so far like the weather should cooperate for our Wave hike, which I’m excited about. I’m a little concerned I haven’t booked enough things for us to do - on a couple of days, our activities are over by early in the afternoon and then we’re done for the day - but there’s going to be so much driving and looking for places to eat, I don’t want to over schedule, either. I feel like our road trip life may be coming to a close, to be honest. I’m starting to tire of the intense planning, and we’ve pretty much seen everything within a reasonable radius. The H mentioned he’d like to try a cruise, and I like cruises, and suddenly the idea of just getting on a boat and having everything taken care of sounds incredibly luxurious (and believe it or not, is way cheaper than what we’ve been doing - road trips are hella expensive). I hope we can start to transition to international travel and cruises instead now, in the time we have left with these kids. I’d rather someone else handle the itineraries from now on.

It’s past the solstice, which means it starts to get brighter now. As much as I’m dreading the non-stop deluge of outrage and misery that’s coming under Trump (I can’t believe I’m even saying those words, ugh!), I feel like we’re already there - Trump and his First Lady Elon are already calling the shots and wreaking havoc; it’s like Biden doesn’t even exist (I find I have to remind myself that Biden is still president). I’m more than a little afraid that he will crash the economy and destroy my event this year - especially the year I’m adding a day and taking on all these expenses - but hey, if it happens to me, it’s going to happen to every other event and business, too. There’s a chance the H could start making significantly more money this year due to partnering up with his competitor and raising prices; boy would that be nice! But again, if Drumpf ruins the country, all of this is a moot point. I feel like Americans are being plunged into the kind of instability and corruption that many people around the world have grappled with for ages - well, I guess it’s finally our turn.