Sunday, June 7, 2020

The end of the beginning

I am getting multiple zoom invites and emails from both the boys’ teachers about all the end of school activities this week. I had kind of gotten used to not having to “show up” for anything so I’m mildly annoyed, but at the same time I think about how much more I’d be doing if the kids were actually in school, and am chastened by that.

There are so many cute end of school things I didn’t get to do with Theo - a Mother’s Day tea like Bobby had, an end of kindergarten concert, etc. With Theo as my last child, it sucks that we won’t have any of those memories. Their yearbooks never arrived - yet another casualty of Covid hold ups - Bobby’s final project, a diorama about fire ants, will be presented over Zoom. Our school doesn’t have any kind of drive-by graduation scheduled; I think the BF will just head up there to collect the boys’ schoolwork from the rest of the year and that’s pretty much it. An unceremonious end, but a welcome one. For Bobby at least he only has three more days of math work, presenting his diorama, and that’s it. I was hoping we could just sneak out to the pool most days but I think Theo still has a full workload. Boy is it going to be nice to be free of all that for two months. 

It’s going to be an old school summer. No camps, no activities, just sitting around bored watching tv (or the modern equivalent, video games) or going in the pool. I’m looking forward to it while at the same time dreading the monotony and boredom of it. I did pay for a music camp for both kids for two weeks in August months ago - a recent email indicated they were going online with it; I hate to be that person but I will probably cancel if that’s the case. I have no way to keep two active boys glued to a Zoom meeting every day for two weeks. That’s just not going to work. 

Speaking of refunds, I have heard from about a third of my attendees - it seems to be about 10% donations, 50% refunds and 40% transfers to next year so far. I can’t issue refunds until my loan funds, so everyone is going to have to sit tight. Right now I’m just cataloguing everyone and that’s a huge amount of work in itself, answering every email and fielding questions. And that’s only 1/3 of the people. It’s going to be a full time job this summer, that and getting my virtual event up. 

As for my loan, it’s pretty much in the bag - I’ve been approved, and the notary should come by this week. Then there’s a waiting period and then we’re done. I’ve been advised to not start emptying my bank account with refunds until then just in case they demand a snapshot of my account at the last second, so that’s what I’ll do. My home appraisal came in at $160,000 more than I’d anticipated, which is one positive thing that happened.

So, here we are at the end of the beginning of our covid nightmare. There is so much more ahead of us - things we can’t even fathom at the moment - but for now, the early chaos is over. I got my SBA loans and my refinance is wrapping up. My attendees have been contacted and my cancellation is underway. The BF has his unemployment. The kids are on their last week of school, and unless I’m unaware of something, will advance to 1st and 3rd grades, and who knows, may even set foot in a school again at some point. Now we’re just “in it”. 

Our Hawaii trip next month is still not cancelled but I’m well aware of the fact that I’m just kidding myself at this point - waiting for word from governor Ige if he’ll extend the mandatory quarantine in HI past June 30th (pretty much guaranteed). We should know this week. Trying to plot out a trip to Big Sur over my birthday weekend instead. There’s a place you can rent a “human nest” to sleep in in the wilderness. Not surprising - the nest is booked solid for the summer. 




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